Charles Starrett

Charles Robert Starrett, born March 28, 1903, in Athol, Massachusetts, was an American actor whose career spanned stage and screen over several decades. His grandfather had established the L. S. Starrett Company, a prosperous tool works, in Athol. Starrett completed his secondary education at Worcester Academy in 1922 and subsequently graduated from Dartmouth College.

His introduction to performing came while he was a member of the Dartmouth football team, when he was hired as a football extra in the 1926 film The Quarterback. Following that experience, he pursued acting in both film and theater, taking on minor film roles and leading stage roles. In 1928 he joined the Walker Company, a repertory theatre troupe led by Stuart Walker. His Broadway work included an appearance in 1929 in the play Claire Adams.

Paramount Pictures signed Starrett to a film contract, and he made his feature debut as the romantic lead in Fast and Loose (1930), a picture that also starred Frank Morgan, Miriam Hopkins, and Carole Lombard. He then appeared in The Viking (1931), a Canadian outdoor adventure filmed on location in Newfoundland that had originated as a Paramount project. Over the following two years he worked steadily at both major and minor studios in juvenile lead roles, with credits including Our Betters (1933), Murder on the Campus (1933), and Mr. Skitch (1933) alongside Will Rogers. He also appeared opposite Irene Hervey in Along Came Love, playing a young doctor named Orion. During this period Starrett was among the actors who helped organize the Screen Actors Guild, holding membership card number 10.

In 1935, Columbia Pictures was seeking a younger replacement for its western star Tim McCoy. Starrett pursued the opportunity and, after studio chief Harry Cohn confirmed he could ride a horse, was given the role. His first Columbia western was Gallant Defender (1935), and he ultimately signed four contracts with the studio, becoming its leading cowboy star. Standing six feet two inches tall, with a strong jawline and a confident voice, he brought a commanding physical presence to the genre.

Starrett had not intended to build his entire career around westerns and initially agreed to make them for two years with the expectation of transitioning to other roles. When Columbia did not follow through, he walked out on his contract for a year, a decision he later estimated cost him sixty thousand dollars. He returned to westerns after that year, citing the financial demands of raising twin sons. He did eventually appear outside the western genre once, in the 1937 collegiate musical comedy Start Cheering, released in 1938, in which he played a film hero dissatisfied with his screen persona. His vocals in that film were dubbed by Robert Paige. The success of his westerns, however, kept him firmly in outdoor fare for the remainder of his career, with Columbia exhibitors around the world drawing large audiences to his pictures.

The production unit behind Starrett's Columbia westerns was a consistent ensemble. Iris Meredith regularly appeared as the leading lady, Dick Curtis as the villain, Hank Bell as the sidekick, and Edward LeSaint in senior character roles. The Sons of the Pioneers provided musical support, a solution Columbia devised because Starrett, while capable of carrying a tune, preferred to leave singing to professional vocalists. When Starrett's contract lapsed in July 1940 and he stepped away from westerns, the unit disbanded: Meredith left the studio and the Sons of the Pioneers moved to Republic Pictures.

Exhibitor demand brought Starrett back to Columbia in March 1941 under a new contract at a higher salary, this time as a cowboy doctor character called Steven Monroe, known as "The Medico." After three films in that series, Columbia restructured the company by adding former Hopalong Cassidy co-star Russell Hayden and comedian-musician Cliff Edwards, following the three-star western format then popular at other studios. Hayden and Edwards appeared alongside Starrett during the 1941–42 season before each moved on to separate projects.

Starrett had first portrayed the Durango Kid in 1940, playing a respectable citizen who secretly assumed the identity of a black-garbed outlaw to pursue criminals. The character was revived five years later in The Return of the Durango Kid, which quickly found a large audience. In the series that followed, Starrett played a cowpoke named Steve who, when provoked by injustice, transformed into the masked and elusive Durango Kid. Steve's paint horse was named Bullet, while Durango rode a white horse called Raider. The Durango Kid series brought Starrett a new five-year contract and a new generation of fans, and the character was adapted into a comic book, Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid, published by Magazine Enterprises from 1949 to 1955.

Dub Taylor played the comic sidekick Cannonball in the Durango Kid films until 1946, when Smiley Burnette, previously a popular sidekick to Gene Autry, took over the role. The films combined action sequences and western music, with stunt work performed by Ted Mapes and later Jock Mahoney. Starrett ultimately starred in 131 westerns, all produced by Columbia Pictures, a record for the longest theatrical feature series. He died on March 22, 1986, six days before his eighty-third birthday.