Joel McCrea: The Westerns Traditional Cache

Joel McCrea (1905-1990) was born in South Pasadena, California.  As a boy, he had a paper route and delivered papers to Cecil B. DeMille.  He took courses in drama and public speaking, both in high school and college, which helped him in his acting classes.  While in high school, he acted as a stunt double and held horses for William S. Hart and Tom Mix.  He signed his first movie contract in 1929, and got his first leading role.  If you remember the "Dr. Kildare" tv series, McCrea was the first to play the role in 1937.  He made over 90 films in his career, of which most were westerns.  He once stated that to play a part in a non western made him feel out of place, but put him on a horse and he played himself and did not really think that he was acting.  Some of his westerns were:  "Wells Fargo", "Union Pacific", "Buffalo Bill", "The Virginian", "Ride the High Country" (with Randolph Scott-Scott actually came out of retirement in order to do this film with McCrea), "Witchita", "Trooper Hook", "The Oklahoman", and his last film "Mustang Country" in 1976.  Also, in the 1950's, he starred as Jayce Pearson in the radio series "Tales of the Texas Rangers".