Dick Jones Revisits ‘Virginia City’

Dickie Jones (bandaged) with Errol Flynn in Virginia City.

Dick Jones was one of Golden Age Hollywood’s busiest kid actors. At age four he began his career as the “World's Youngest Trick Rider and Trick Roper,” performing roping and riding tricks in “B” movie cowboy star Hoot Gibson’s rodeo. In the early ‘30’s he appeared in a few “Our Gang" shorts and by decade’s end had amassed dozens of credits in both "A" and "B" productions, such as John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln and Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (both 1939). In 1940 Jones gained movie immortality as the voice of Pinocchio in Walt Disney's animated classic; later that same year, he appeared in Virginia City, a western starring Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart that filmed scenes on location in Sedona. In a 2005 chat, Jones remembered Flynn’s pet tricks, Bogart’s quick exits, and Curtiz’s ‘goobers’––Joe McNeill

JM: Did you stay in Flagstaff while filming Virginia City?

DICK JONES: Oh yeah, I remember it real well. I just about ate myself to death with trout. I loved it. I actually came back to Flagstaff later that year to do The Outlaw.

What can you tell us about the personal appearance you made at Flagstaff’s Orpheum Theater while filming here?

I don’t remember it at all. I probably did a trick roping act, because that was the only thing I knew. (Laughing) I could strum a ukulele but that wouldn’t have been much!

Do you have memories of working with Errol Flynn in Virginia City?

The one thing I can remember was that he had this standard-sized schnauzer. He had that dog trained. [Flynn] had this swagger stick and he’d be slapping his boot with it, then he’d stop to talk to somebody and he’d slap them on their boot with that swagger stick. Then when he walked away the dog would come up and lift its leg up on them. I think [co-star] “Big Boy” Williams almost wanted to kill him!

I really enjoyed working with Errol Flynn. I worked with him again on Rocky Mountain (1950); that was my favorite of all the films I ever made. [Flynn] was one of the best journeyman actors. He knew his trade and worked his craft real well. What he did afterwards, that’s another story.

What do you remember of Humphrey Bogart?

I worked with him again after Virginia City, but he was very quiet and didn’t mess around with kids. It was always very much just work; you’d come in, the director would say ‘I want this, I want that,’ we’d rehearse our lines together one time, then boom – we’d do it and that’s it. I’d go back to school and he’d go back to his dressing room. So I didn’t spend much time with him. I’d have liked to.

What about Michael Curtiz, Virginia City’s director?

I loved him; he was a great director and I got along with him fine. I remember he’d say [in Hungarian accent], “I got to vait for der ‘goobers.’ “ He wanted to match the scenes and have the clouds look the same. And sure enough, ten, 15 minutes later, he’d say, “Here comes der ‘goobers,’ ” and we’d say, OK, let’s go do it.

Morgan Woodward Revisits 'Firecreek'

Firecreek gang Morgan Woodward, James Best, Jack Elam, and Gary Lockwood.

During his 2005 visit to Sedona, I caught up with perennial movie bad guy Morgan Woodward, who is best remembered as Cool Hand Luke’s “man with no eyes.” Woodward reminisced about 1968's Firecreek (partly filmed in Sedona) and its stars, Henry Fonda and James Stewart, as well as his moviemaking career.––Joe McNeill

JM: Let’s talk about Firecreek.

MORGAN WOODWARD: I just saw a copy of the local press and they quoted me saying it was “absolutely the greatest cast I ever worked with.” Well look at the cast, for God’s sake. This started out as, I think, a CBS-Warner movie or something like that; and there was Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Jack Elam, Inger Stevens, Jimmy Best and on and on and on. You know, I looked at that cast and thought, “Jesus, I’ll be lucky to get billing above Glen Glenn Sound!”

They [Stewart and Fonda] were two top leading men; of course, at that time they were in kind of the sunset of their careers. Except Fonda came back real big with Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond [winning his first and only best actor Oscar in 1981]. They were old friends but had worked together in a picture only once before, and that had been many years earlier. They were available at that time and that’s the reason they got to work together. And I got to work with them.

How did you get into films?

With Walt Disney, in The Great Locomotive Chase. There was a great part in it, this wild-ass Confederate Master Sergeant––a bad guy––who threatened James J. Andrews, who was played by Fess Parker. Fess and I went to the University of Texas together, we were fraternity brothers. Fess told Walt, I know a genuine redneck that can come out here. He’s an actor, he’s been on stage before, he can do that part. Walt told him to have me come test for it. I did the test and got it, and then did two more pictures for Disney. That was 1955.

Do you have a favorite role that you’ve done?

Well, I would say my favorite roles were on Gunsmoke. Of course, Cool Hand Luke was an absolute giant step for me. I think it was Bosley Crowther in The New York Times who wrote ‘Morgan Woodward may be the only actor since Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda to get an Academy Award for never speaking a word.’ If you remember, she couldn’t hear or speak in that. So that quote made it into the trade papers.

One more question; I read somewhere that your uncle was a doctor and that he delivered Tex Ritter, the singing cowboy and John Ritter’s father. Is this true?

Uh huh. All my uncles were doctors. You know Tex Ritter’s real name? It was Woodward Ritter. Tex Ritter’s father named him after my uncle, Dr. Samuel Andrew Woodward, who delivered him. Let me tell you how im­pressed John was with that. His dad got the Golden Boot award posthumously. I’d never met John before and I walked up to him and said, “John, my name’s Morgan Woodward; my uncle, Dr. Samuel Andrew Woodward, delivered your father.” He said, “Oh.” Then he turned and walked away. Sometimes I’m surprised at the reaction I get from people.

Champion of the West

Marge Champion is on the fence with Bob Baker in Honor of the West.

91 year-old dance legend Marge Champion will join Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne in Sedona to present George Sidney’s Show Boat on September 7 as part of the Sedona International Film Festival’s Living Legends series. Ms. Champion, an acclaimed choreographer, director, teacher and actress, is perhaps best known for working as a dancing team with her former husband, Gower Champion, and the duo will be seen tripping the light fantastic in the 1951 MGM adaption of Jerome Kern’s classic musical play showing in Sedona. My colleague, Erika Ayn Finch, had the chance to interview Ms. Champion before her visit and they discussed, among other things, her early film work for Walt Disney Studios as live action model for the title character in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio (1940) and the ballet dancing hippopotamus in Fantasia (1942). You can read the interview in the September issue of Sedona Monthly, on sale at Barnes and Noble, Borders Books, and independent booksellers across the country.

I couldn’t resist asking Erika to include a few questions for Ms. Champion about the most obscure job of her distinguished career, playing the heroine in Honor of the West, a 1939 B-Western starring forgotten singing cowboy Bob Baker. Billed as Marjorie Bell (she was born Marjorie Celeste Belcher), the seventeen year-old Champion had her first credited movie role in the picture, which was filmed on location in Kernville, California, about three hours north of Los Angeles.

Bob Baker (left) and Forrest Taylor
defend the Honor of the West.

Her ridin’, ropin’, vocalizin’ leading man, Bob Baker, had been a singer on WLS’ Chicago-based National Barn Dance radio show in 1935 (billed as “Tumble” Weed; his real name was Stanley Leland Weed) and was a longtime resident of northern Arizona. He’d been employed in the license division of the Arizona State Highway Department and worked for “Shirley’s Cowboy Guides and Entertainers” at the Grand Canyon prior to going to Hollywood in 1937.

Baker starred in twelve B Westerns for Universal Pictures (and was demoted to Johnny Mack Brown’s second banana for a final six); after playing a few small roles for Monogram and United Artists he quit the movies in 1944 and returned to Flagstaff to work as a police officer. Baker died in 1975 and is buried in Clear Creek Cemetery in Camp Verde, Arizona, about 40 miles from Sedona.––Joe McNeill

ERIKA AYN FINCH: How were you cast in Honor of the West?

MARGE CHAMPION: I had just graduated from Hollywood High School and had a great friend, one of [character actor] Fred Stone’s daughters, and they had a friend named Henry Willson, who was an agent. He took me on because he said I was right for certain kinds of movies. He sent me out to Universal to audition for Honor of the West. And I was terrible. I was 17 and had no acting experience except through pantomime and dancing. Its a hilarious movie but not because it’s any good (laughing).

You’ve seen the movie?

Oh, yes! They’ve shown it at Film Forum [a repertory movie house in New York City] and a few other places and I’m always embarrassed. They invite me to come and talk about it.

Why didn’t you make another Western?

Because I was not exactly trained in horsemanship (laughing). I went over to Griffith Park and took six horseback riding lessons when I knew I had the part.

In the movie I had to lead the posse to rescue the hero, which was kind of a twist, but I was nearly brushed off the horse on the very first day of shooting. They gave me the fastest horse and it was sheer terror. If not for one of the extremely talented cowboys who saw what was going to happen I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. That was the only time a second shot was taken by the director [George Waggner] because they never took more than one.

In the film Bob Baker never takes his hat off, the reason being that he didn’t have any hair. I had only seen him on the set with his hat on and when I met him in the evening (everybody had supper together) he had his hat off and I didn’t know who he was!

Do you have any other memories of Bob Baker?

No, I never saw him again. He did quite a few of those one week [Westerns] and he would have a different leading lady every week.

He made three pictures in three weeks and it took seven days to make that picture. The scripts were done just about as fast as they do a television show now. They were filmed on location with not one indoor shot. And you had to supply your own jeans or whatever costume you had to wear. In those days they didn’t make girls’ jeans so I had to buy boys’ jeans, the kind with the buttons on the wrong side––I still have them, as a matter of fact. You learn some things along the way and one thing I learned is that if you’re not right for Western movies you’d better stick to what you know how to do. Copyright © by Bar 225 Media Ltd.