TIM MCCOY COWBOY
ABOUT....
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 on April 10, 1891. His father was an Irish Union Civil
War veteran and Police Chief.[1] 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 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 and was named "High Eagle" by the Arapaho
tribe of the Wind River reservation. 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).[2][1] 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 of Wyoming between the wars with the brevet
rank of brigadier general. At 28, he was one of the youngest brigadier
generals in the history of the U.S. Army.
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 but the project was abandoned.
That same year,
he was asked by the head of Famous Players-Lasky, Jesse L. Lasky, to
provide American Indian extras for the Western extravaganza, The Covered
Wagon (1923). He brought hundreds of Indians to the Utah location and
served as technical advisor 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 of MGM 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.
(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 (1928), in which he starred with Joan Crawford. 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 of Universal Pictures, who insisted that
McCoy star in the first talking western serial, The Indians Are Coming.
The serial was very successful. Later, in 1932, McCoy starred in Two
Fisted Law with John Wayne and Walter Brennan.
McCoy worked
steadily in movies until 1936, when he left Hollywood, first to tour
with the Ringling Brothers Circus 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)
engaged him at his standard salary of $4,000 weekly, for eight films a
year. In 1941 Buck Jones recruited McCoy to co-star in "The Rough
Riders" series, alongside Jones and Raymond Hatton. The eight films,
released by Monogram Pictures, 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
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 and showed his old western
movies. His co-host was the actor Iron Eyes Cody 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. In 1973, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers
of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He was inducted into
the Cowboy Hall of Fame 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 and actress Bijou Heron. 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 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 spy; there were photographs of Arvad as a guest of Adolf Hitler 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 in late 1941 into 1942. No evidence against Arvad was ever
found.
Later years
In 1973, McCoy was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at
the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum 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 (1980), Kevin Brownlow-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 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.