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N0KFQ > TODAY 12.09.11 18:37l 52 Lines 2381 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Sep 12
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Sep 12, 1972:
Hopalong Cassidy rides off into his last sunset
After nearly 40 years of riding across millions of American TV
and movie screens, the cowboy actor William Boyd, best known for
his role as Hopalong Cassidy, dies on this day in 1972 at the age
of 77.
Boyd's greatest achievement was to be the first cowboy actor to
make the transition from movies to television. Following World
War II, Americans began to buy television sets in large numbers
for the first time, and soon I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners
were standard evening fare for millions of families. But despite
their proven popularity in movie theaters, westerns were slow to
come to the small screen. Many network TV producers scorned
westerns as lowbrow "horse operas" unfit for their middle- and
upper-class audiences.
Riding to the small screen's rescue came the movie cowboy,
William Boyd. During the 1930s, Boyd made more than 50 cheap but
successful "B-grade" westerns starring as Hopalong Cassidy.
Together with his always loyal and outlandishly intelligent
horse, Topper, Hopalong righted wrongs, saved school marms in
distress, and single-handedly fought off hordes of marauding
Indians. After the war, Boyd recognized an opportunity to take
Hopalong and Topper into the new world of television, and he
began to market his old "B" westerns to TV broadcasters in Los
Angeles and New York City. A whole new generation of children
thrilled to "Hoppy's" daring adventures, and they soon began to
clamor for more.
Rethinking their initial disdain for the genre, producers at NBC
contracted with Boyd in 1948 to produce a new series of half-hour
westerns for television. By 1950, American children had made
Hopalong Cassidy the seventh most popular TV show in America and
were madly snapping up genuine "Hoppy" cowboy hats, chaps, and
six-shooters, earning Boyd's venture more than $250 million. Soon
other TV westerns followed Boyd's lead, becoming popular with
both children and adults. In 1959, seven of the top-10 shows on
national television were westerns like The Rifleman, Rawhide, and
Maverick. The golden era of the TV western would finally come to
an end in 1975 when the long-running Gunsmoke left the air, three
years after Boyd rode off into his last sunset.
73, K.O. n0kfq
Another old retired guy
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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