Walter Brennan's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) The Guns of Will Sonnett Will Sonnett Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters Walter Bren… Colgate Theatre Mr. Tutt The Real McCoys Amos McCoy The Tycoon Walter Andr…

Main Movie Roles 1967 - Who's Minding The Mint? 1967 - The Gnome-Mobile 1965 - Those Calloways 1962 - How the West Was Won 1959 - Rio Bravo 1957 - Tammy and the Bachelor 1955 - Bad Day at Black Rock 1951 - Along the Great Divide 1948 - Red River 1948 - Blood on the Moon 1946 - A Stolen Life 1946 - Nobody Lives Forever 1946 - My Darling Clementine 1944 - The Princess and the Pirate 1943 - Hangmen Also Die! 1943 - The North Star 1941 - Nice Girl? 1941 - Swamp Water 1941 - Sergeant York 1941 - Meet John Doe 1940 - The Westerner 1939 - The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle 1936 - Fury 1935 - Gold Diggers of 1935 1935 - Alice Adams 1935 - Bride of Frankenstein 1935 - The Wedding Night 1933 - The Invisible Man 1933 - Baby Face 1928 - The Racket

BIOGRAPHY:

In many ways the most successful and familiar character actor of American sound films and the only actor to date to win three Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, Walter Brennan attended college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying engineering. While in school he became interested in acting and performed in school plays. He worked some in vaudeville and also in various jobs such as clerking in a bank and as a lumberjack. He toured in small musical comedy companies before entering the military in 1917. After his war service he went to Guatemala and raised pineapples, then migrated to Los Angeles, where he speculated in real estate. A few jobs as a film extra came his way beginning in 1923, then some work as a stuntman. He eventually achieved speaking roles, going from bit parts to substantial supporting parts in scores of features and short subjects between 1927 and 1938. In 1936 his role in Come and Get It (1936) won him the very first Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He would win it twice more in the decade, and be nominated for a fourth. His range was enormous. He could play sophisticated businessmen, con artists, local yokels, cowhands and military officers with apparent equal ease. An accident in 1932 cost him most of his teeth, and he most often was seen in eccentric rural parts, often playing characters much older than his actual age. His career never really declined, and in the 1950s he became an even more endearing and familiar figure in several television series, most famously "The Real McCoys" (1957). He died in 1974 of emphysema, a beloved figure in movies and TV, the target of countless comic impressionists, and one of the best and most prolific actors of his time.


TRIVIA:

• _"The Real McCoys" (1957)_ (qv) was such a hit that 'John Wayne (I)' (qv)'s production company, Batjac, was persuaded to release a previously shelved film, 'William A. Wellman' (qv)'s _Good-bye, My Lady (1956)_ (qv), about a boy, an old man, and a dog, during the show's run.
• Brennan had already worked in vaudeville when he enlisted at age 22 to serve in World War I. He served in an artillery unit and although he got through the war without being wounded, his exposure to poison gas ruined his vocal chords, leaving him with the high-pitched voice texture that made him a natural for old man roles while still in his thirties.
• Campaigned for 'Barry Goldwater' (qv) in the 1964 presidential election, after the senator had voted against the Civil Rights Act.
• Sons: 'Arthur Wells 'Mike' Brennan' (qv) and 'Andy Brennan' (qv).
• He won the first ever Best Supporting Actor Oscar for _Come and Get It (1936)_ (qv).
• In 1925 'Gary Cooper (I)' (qv) befriended another young, struggling, would-be actor named Walter Brennan. At one point, they were even appearing as a team at casting offices, and although Cooper emerged in major and leading roles first, they would work together in the good years, too. Most memorably they starred in _The Westerner (1940)_ (qv) together, where the general critical consensus was that Brennan's underplayed performance as Judge Roy Bean had stolen the film from Cooper.
• Owned a ranch and several businesses in Joseph, Oregon, including the Indian Lodge Motel which still displays several of his portraits in the office.
• Actively supported 'Ronald Reagan (I)' (qv)'s campaign to become Governor of California in 1966.