Tim McCoy
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Timothy John Fitzgerald McCoy (April 10, 1891 – January 29, 1978) was an American actor, military officer, and expert on American Indian life. McCoy is most noted for his roles in B-grade Western films. As a popular cowboy film star, he appeared on the front of a Wheaties cereal box.


Early years

Tim McCoy was born in
Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greater ...
on April 10, 1891. His father was an Irish Union Civil War veteran and Police Chief. While attending St. Ignatius College (now Loyola University) McCoy saw a Wild West show that influenced him to purchase a one-way ticket west. He ended up in
Lander, Wyoming Lander is a city in Wyoming, United States, and the county seat of Fremont County. It is in central Wyoming, along the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River, just south of the Wind River Indian Reservation. It is a tourism center with several near ...
where he worked as a ranch hand. While there, he became an expert horseman and roper while developing an extensive knowledge of the customs and languages of the local American Indian tribes. McCoy was a renowned expert in
Indian sign language Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) is the predominant sign language in the subcontinent of South Asia, used by at least 15 million deaf signers. As with many sign languages, it is difficult to estimate numbers with any certainty, as the C ...
and was named "High Eagle" by the
Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho band ...
tribe of the
Wind River reservation The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone ( shh, Gweechoon Deka, ''meaning: "buffalo eaters"'') and the Northern Arapaho ( arp, h ...
. He competed in numerous rodeos and then enlisted in the United States Army when America entered World War I.


Military career

McCoy enlisted as a soldier in the United States Army and served in the cavalry during World War I (although he did not serve in combat nor overseas). He served again in World War II in Europe, rising to the rank of colonel with the Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces. He also served as
adjutant general An adjutant general is a military chief administrative officer. France In Revolutionary France, the was a senior staff officer, effectively an assistant to a general officer. It was a special position for lieutenant-colonels and colonels in staf ...
of Wyoming between the wars with the
brevet rank In many of the world's military establishments, a brevet ( or ) was a warrant giving a commissioned officer a higher rank title as a reward for gallantry or meritorious conduct but may not confer the authority, precedence, or pay of real rank. ...
of brigadier general. At 28, he was one of the youngest brigadier generals in the history of the U.S. Army.


Acting career


Early career

In 1922, David Townsend, president of the Mountain Plains Enterprise Film Company, planned to build "Sunshine Studios" at McCoy's Owl Creek Dude ranch in order to shoot a film titled, "The Dude Wrangler," written by
Caroline Lockhart Caroline Cameron Lockhart (1871–1962) was an American journalist and writer. Biography Caroline Lockhart was born in Eagle Point, Illinois on February 24, 1871./ref> She grew up on a ranch in Kansas. She attended Bethany College in Topeka, K ...
but the project was abandoned. That same year, he was asked by the head of
Famous Players-Lasky Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company formed on June 28, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and t ...
,
Jesse L. Lasky Jesse Louis Lasky (September 13, 1880 – January 13, 1958) was an American pioneer motion picture producer who was a key founder of what was to become Paramount Pictures, and father of screenwriter Jesse L. Lasky Jr. Early life Born in to ...
, to provide American Indian extras for the Western extravaganza, ''
The Covered Wagon ''The Covered Wagon'' is a 1923 American silent film, silent Western (genre), Western film released by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze based on a 1922 novel of the same name by Emerson Hough about a group of pioneers tr ...
'' (1923). He brought hundreds of Indians to the Utah location and served as
technical advisor In film production, a technical advisor is someone who advises the director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a ...
on the film. After filming was completed, McCoy was asked to bring a much smaller group of Indians to Hollywood, for a stage presentation preceding each showing of the film. McCoy's stage show was popular, running eight months in Hollywood and several more months in London and Paris. McCoy returned to his Wyoming ranch, but
Irving Thalberg Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather productio ...
of
MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
soon signed him to a contract to star in a series of outdoor adventures and McCoy rose to stardom. His first MGM feature was ''War Paint'' (1926), featuring epic scenes of the Wind River Indians on horseback, staged by McCoy and director
Woody Van Dyke Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke II (Woody) (March 21, 1889 – February 5, 1943) was an American film director and writer who made several successful early sound films, including ''Tarzan the Ape Man'' in 1932, ''The Thin Man'' in 1934, ''San Francis ...
. (Footage from ''War Paint'' was reused in many low-budget westerns, well into the 1950s.) ''War Paint'' set the tone for future McCoy westerns, in that Indians were always portrayed sympathetically, and never as bloodthirsty savages. One notable McCoy feature for MGM was ''
The Law of the Range ''The Law of the Range'' is a 1928 American silent Western film starring Tim McCoy and Joan Crawford and Rex Lease. Plot Betty Dallas (Crawford) is a passenger on a stagecoach that is held up by an outlaw named The Solitaire Kid (Lease). Ra ...
'' (1928), in which he starred with
Joan Crawford Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, ncertain year from 1904 to 1908was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion pict ...
. The coming of talking pictures, and the temporary inability to record sound outdoors, resulted in MGM terminating its Tim McCoy series and McCoy returning once more to his ranch. In 1929 he was summoned back to Hollywood personally by
Carl Laemmle Carl Laemmle (; born Karl Lämmle; January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939) was a film producer and the co-founder and, until 1934, owner of Universal Pictures. He produced or worked on over 400 films. Regarded as one of the most important o ...
of
Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
, who insisted that McCoy star in the first talking western serial, ''
The Indians Are Coming ''The Indians Are Coming'' is a 1930 American Pre-Code Universal movie serial based on ''The Great West That Was'' by William "Buffalo Bill" Cody. The serial was the first "all-talking" (complete sound rather than a silent movie with occasion ...
''. The serial was very successful. Later, in 1932, McCoy starred in ''
Two Fisted Law ''Two-Fisted Law'' is a 1932 American pre-Code Western film directed by D. Ross Lederman for Columbia Pictures, starring Tim McCoy and featuring John Wayne playing a character named "Duke". The picture also features Alice Day, Wheeler Oakman, ...
'' with
John Wayne Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Gol ...
and
Walter Brennan Walter Andrew Brennan (July 25, 1894 – September 21, 1974) was an American actor and singer. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in '' Come and Get It'' (1936), ''Kentucky'' (1938), and '' The Westerner ...
. McCoy worked steadily in movies until 1936, when he left Hollywood, first to tour with the
Ringling Brothers Circus Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows is a circus founded in Baraboo, Wisconsin, United States in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers: Albert, August, Otto, Alfred T., Charles, John, and Henry. The Ringling brothers were sons of a Ge ...
and then with his own "wild west" show. The show was not a success; it was reported to have lost $300,000, $100,000 of which was McCoy's own money. It folded in Washington, D.C., and the cowboy performers were each given $5 and McCoy's thanks. The Indians on the show were returned to their respective reservations by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. McCoy was available for pictures again in 1938, and low-budget producers (including Maurice Conn and
Sam Katzman Sam Katzman (July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973) was an American film producer and director. Katzman produced low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers. Ea ...
) engaged him at his standard salary of $4,000 weekly, for eight films a year. In 1941
Buck Jones Buck Jones (born Charles Frederick Gebhart; December 12, 1891 – November 30, 1942) was an American actor, known for his work in many popular Western movies. In his early film appearances, he was credited as Charles Jones. Early life, milita ...
recruited McCoy to co-star in "The Rough Riders" series, alongside Jones and
Raymond Hatton Raymond William Hatton (July 7, 1887 – October 21, 1971) was an American film actor who appeared in almost 500 motion pictures. Biography Hatton was born in Red Oak, Iowa. His physician father steered him toward a career in medicine. Howev ...
. The eight films, released by
Monogram Pictures Monogram Pictures Corporation was an American film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram was among the smaller studios i ...
, were very popular, and might have continued but McCoy declined to renew his contract, opting to pursue other interests.


Interrupted by World War II

In 1942, McCoy ran for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate Seat from Wyoming. During that campaign, he established the first statewide radio hookup in Wyoming broadcasting history. He lost in the primary and within 48 hours volunteered for active duty with the U.S. Army. He had maintained his Army Reserve commission and was immediately accepted. McCoy spent the war in the U.S. Army and performed liaison work with the Army Air Forces in Europe, winning several decorations. He retired from the army, and reportedly never lived in Wyoming again. His Eagle's Nest ranch was sold. He retired from films after the war, except for a few cameo appearances much later.


Television host

McCoy hosted a
KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...
television show in Los Angeles in 1952, titled ''The Tim McCoy Show'', for children on weekday afternoons and Saturdays, in which he provided authentic history lessons on the
Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
and showed his old western movies. His co-host was the actor
Iron Eyes Cody Iron Eyes Cody (born Espera Oscar de Corti, April 3, 1904 – January 4, 1999) was an American actor of Italian descent who portrayed Native Americans in Hollywood films, famously as ''Chief Iron Eyes'' in Bob Hope's '' The Paleface'' (1948) ...
who, while of Italian lineage, played an American Indian both on and off screen. McCoy won a local Emmy but didn't attend to receive the award. He was competing against Webster Webfoot in the Best Children's Show category and refused to show up, saying "I'll be damned if I'm going to sit there and get beaten by a talking duck!"


Legacy

For his contribution to the film industry, McCoy was honored with a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Californ ...
. In 1973, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the
National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of Ame ...
. He was inducted into the
Cowboy Hall of Fame The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of Ame ...
in 1974. On January 16, 2010, McCoy was inducted into the Hot Springs County (Wyoming) Hall of Fame. Accepting the honor on his behalf was his son, Terry. Included in the 2010 class were Governor Dave Freudenthal of the State of Wyoming, Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court Bart Voigt, former Wyoming state treasurer Stan Smith, and local high school teacher Karl Allen.


Personal life

McCoy married Agnes Miller, the daughter of stage actor and producer
Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...
and actress
Bijou Heron Helene Wallace Stoepel (September 1, 1863 – March 18, 1937), known professionally as Bijou Heron, was an American stage actress, who became famous as a child actor in the 1870s. Biography Helene Wallace Stoepel was born in New York City to the ...
. Their marriage resulted in three children: son Gerald, daughter Margarita, and son D'Arcy. They were divorced in 1931, and McCoy kept a portion of the ranch holdings in Hot Springs County, Wyoming. Agnes McCoy was rewarded with that portion known as the Eagles Nest. His second marriage was to
Inga Arvad Inga Marie Arvad Petersen (6 October 1913 – 12 December 1973) was a Danish-American journalist who was a guest of Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Summer Olympics and also had a romantic relationship with John F. Kennedy in 1941 and 1942. The juxt ...
in 1947. They had two sons, Ronnie and Terry. McCoy was married to Arvad until her death from cancer in 1973. Arvad was a journalist from Denmark, investigated by the FBI in the early 1940s due to rumors that she was a
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
spy; there were photographs of Arvad as a guest of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
at the 1936 Olympics, and she had twice interviewed him. This investigation included the wiretapping of Arvad during the time of an affair with
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
in late 1941 into 1942. No evidence against Arvad was ever found.Hersh, Seymour (1997), ''The Dark Side of Camelot'', p. 83


Later years

In 1973, McCoy was inducted into the
Western Performers Hall of Fame The Hall of Great Western Performers is a Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It is located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and sometimes referred to as the "Western Performers Hall of Fame". It is a presentation that explo ...
at the
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 American West, Western and Native Americans in the United States, American Indian art works and Artifact (archaeology), ar ...
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He also was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1976, he was interviewed at length by author James Horwitz for the cowboy memoir ''They Went Thataway.'' McCoy's final, posthumous, appearance was in ''
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...
'' (1980),
Kevin Brownlow Kevin Brownlow (born Robert Kevin Brownlow; 2 June 1938) is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become inter ...
- David Gill's television history of silent films. McCoy died on January 29, 1978, at the Raymond W. Bliss Army Medical Center of
Ft. Huachuca Fort Huachuca is a United States Army installation, established on 3 March 1877 as Camp Huachuca. The garrison is now under the command of the United States Army Installation Management Command. It is in Cochise County in southeast Arizona, appr ...
in Sierra Vista, Arizona. He was cremated and his ashes returned to his Nogales home. Nine years later his remains, and those of his wife, Inga, who had died in 1973, were returned to his birthplace at Saginaw, Michigan, for burial in the Mount Olivet Cemetery next to his family's plot.


Filmography


References

;Notes ;Bibliography * ''Tim McCoy Remembers the West: An Autobiography'' by Tim McCoy and Ronald McCoy (1977) Hardback: : : Paperback: :
''Tim McCoy on the Tomahawk Trail'' by Gaylord Du Bois. Big Little Book, Whitman, 1937.
Western novel about Tim McCoy (full text). * ''Tim McCoy—A Wyoming Poet''. RoundTop Records, LLC., Thermopolis, Wyoming Paperback: :


DVD

* ''Col. Tim McCoy's The Silent Language of the Plains!'' RoundTop Records, LLC. Thermopolis, Wyoming :


External links

*
Tim McCoy Papers
at the
University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...
-
American Heritage Center The American Heritage Center is the University of Wyoming's repository of manuscripts, rare books, and the university archives. Its collections focus on Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West (including politics, settlement, and western trails) and ...

Tim McCoy, Western Star
at th
AHC blog
* *
Tim McCoy
at Virtual History {{DEFAULTSORT:McCoy, Tim 1891 births 1978 deaths American male film actors American male silent film actors United States Army personnel of World War I United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II American people of Irish descent People from Saginaw, Michigan United States Army Air Forces officers Male actors from Michigan Loyola University Chicago alumni People from Santa Cruz County, Arizona Male Western (genre) film actors Columbia Pictures contract players Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players 20th-century American male actors United States Army soldiers United States Army reservists Military personnel from Michigan