Charles Stevens (May 26, 1893 – August 22, 1964) was an American actor. He appeared in nearly 200 films between 1915 and 1961. A close friend of actor

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thie ...

, Stevens appeared in nearly all of Fairbanks' films.

Early years

Stevens was born in

Solomonville, Arizona Solomon is a census-designated place in Graham County, Arizona, United States. Its population was 399 as of the 2020 census. It is part of the Safford Micropolitan Statistical Area. Demographics As of the 2010 census Solomon had a populatio ...

, and his father was a white Arizona sheriff named George Stevens and mother a Mexican woman named Eloisa Michelena. Stevens was not, as many bios claim, the grandson of Geronimo. That erroneous information could be attributed to Stevens himself, who claimed such kinship, and film studios that promoted the supposed lineage.

Career

Stevens began his career during the

silent era A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, wh ...

, playing mostly Native Americans and

Mexicans Mexicans ( es, mexicanos) are the citizens of the United Mexican States. The most spoken language by Mexicans is Spanish language, Spanish, but some may also speak languages from 68 different Languages of Mexico, Indigenous linguistic groups ...

Westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

. During the 1930s and 1940s, he had roles in the film serials ''

Wild West Days ''Wild West Days'' (1937) is a Universal film serial based on a Western novel by W. R. Burnett. Directed by Ford Beebe and Clifford Smith and starring Johnny Mack Brown, George Shelley, Lynn Gilbert, Frank Yaconelli, Bob Kortman, Russell Simp ...

'' and ''

Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service ...

''. In the 1950s, Stevens guest-starred on several television series, including ''

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok ''The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok'' is an American Western television series that ran for eight seasons from April 15, 1951, through September 24, 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from June 5, 1955, through 19 ...

'', ''

The Adventures of Kit Carson ''The Adventures of Kit Carson'' is an American Western that aired from 1951 to 1955. The show ran for four seasons and consisted of 104 episodes over four years. The original air date was Saturday, August 11, 1951. It concluded on January 22, 19 ...

'', ''

Sky King ''Sky King'' was an American radio and television series. Its lead character was Arizona rancher and aircraft pilot Schuyler "Sky" King. The series had strong Western elements. King usually captured criminals and spies and found lost hikers, ...

'', ''

The Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture. He first appeared in 1933 in ...

'', ''

Zorro Zorro ( Spanish for 'fox') is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashing masked vigilante w ...

'', and ''

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin ''The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'' is an American children's television series in the Western genre that aired from October 1954 to May 1959 on the ABC television network. In all, 164 episodes aired. The show starred Lee Aaker as Rusty, a boy o ...

''. In two of those appearances in ''The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'', in 1954 and 1958, he played Geronimo. He made his last onscreen appearance in the film '' The Outsider'' (1961), starring

Tony Curtis Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz; June 3, 1925September 29, 2010) was an American actor whose career spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s (Kansas Raiders, 1950) and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 f ...

Death

Stevens died on August 22, 1964, and is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood in Los Angeles County, California.

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stevens, Charles 1893 births 1964 deaths Male actors from Arizona American male film actors American male silent film actors American male television actors Burials at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery People from Graham County, Arizona Male Western (genre) film actors 20th-century American male actors Western (genre) television actors