Ken Maynard

Ken Maynard (born July 21, 1895 in Vevay , Indiana , † March 23, 1973 in Woodland Hills , Los Angeles ) was an American stuntman and actor. He has appeared in over 90 westerns , where he made a name for himself primarily through stunts on horseback. As one of the first western stars, he built vocal parts into his films and is therefore considered a pioneer of the singing cowboys who conquered Hollywood in the 1930s . However, he was unable to realize his dream of a career as a singer.

Life

Youth and the silent film era

Ken Maynard was born on July 21, 1895 as one of five siblings in Vevay, Indiana. His younger brother Kermit (1897–1971) would later make a name for himself as a performer in over 200 B-Westerns and through guest appearances on the Gene Autry Show .

Both Maynard brothers were very athletic and restless. At the age of twelve, adventurous Ken joined a traveling western show but was forcibly brought back by his father. At the age of 16 he was finally able to persuade his father and initially worked at the circus and as a rodeo rider. During his time at various western shows, including Kit Carson and Pawnee Bill , he acquired outstanding skills as a stunt rider, as well as basic knowledge of the guitar, fiddle and harmonica.

After serving briefly in World War I , he returned to the country with driving shows and became the 1920s World's Trick Rider Champion . This led to his being hired for the well-known Ringling Brothers circus , which eventually brought Hollywood's attention to him. In 1925 he played his first role in the film Janice Meredith played for the Cosmopolitan studio. After brief engagements at Fox Studios and the Davis Distribution Division Company, he landed for the first time at Universal Studios in 1929 . Over time, his skills on horseback had made him one of the most sought-after cowboy actors in silent film westerns. He was also known for his horse Tarzan, who was one of the first animal stars in the film genre.

The sound film and the singing cowboys

Home on the Range (1930)

The first sound films were made at this time. After Maynard attended the premiere of the western In Old Arizona (1929) together with producer Carl Laemmle in 1929, in which the main actor Warner Baxter sings the song My Tonia, Maynard convinced Laemmle to incorporate vocal parts into her western as well. The Universal Studio had been experimenting with the new medium for some time anyway, so that the film The Wagon Master was brought to the cinemas in two versions, on the one hand as a fully silent film, on the other hand with partial sound. In this version Maynard sang two songs and played the fiddle. After this was well received by the audience, other films of this type followed, until finally, in 1930, Mountain Justice, his first film with continuous sound, was released in theaters. Maynard thus became the model for a large number of singing cowboys, who guaranteed high audience numbers well into the 1950s.

However, Maynard was very hot-headed and argumentative, so that he was fired from Universal in 1930. He then moved to the smaller Tiffany studio, for which he shot eleven westerns, but in which he did not sing. However, in April 1930 he went to a Hollywood music studio to make some recordings. He recorded a total of eight titles, of which only two were released at the time, Cowboy's Lament and The Lone Star Trail .

In 1933, Maynard was re-signed by Universal, where he made some films that, as always, focused on action, but also included vocals. During this time, Maynard's alcohol problems and the associated mood swings became apparent. After a heated argument with Carl Laemmle, Maynard finally left the studio in 1934 and moved to Mascot, where he became the highest-paid western actor of the time with a salary of $ 10,000.

"In Old Santa Fe" (1934)

Maynard's long-cherished dream of a bigger singing career did not come true here either. His too high-pitched, nasal voice, which he himself considered "authentic", did not match his robust male screen image. This was recognized by Nat Levine , who is responsible for Mascot, and decided to make him a better singer at the side. The studio chose the popular radio star Gene Autry , who first made a name for himself as a Jimmie Rodgers imitator and later as Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy . Maynard's first film for Mascot was In Old Santa Fe , in which Autry and his later sidekick Smiley Burnette performed a vocal part completely detached from the plot. Maynard also sang in this film, but was dubbed at Levine's instigation.

Autry was a much better singer. Historian Charlie Seeman recalls: “'In Old Santa Fe' was ostensibly a Ken Maynard movie; he was the star. But Gene Autry comes cruising through, singing a song, and you can feel everybody's attention shift from Maynard to Autry. ” So it happened that he and others soon ousted Maynard, which had a negative effect on his already ailing psyche. After he had attacked director Joseph Kane while filming the film Mystery Mountain and only prevented the courageous intervention of Autry from worse, he was fired by Mascot.

Career end

After this incident, Maynard had a bad reputation among studio officials, but the audience loved him. In the following years he was able to find work at various studios, including a. at Columbia and Monogram, and in 1935 even published a songbook with cowboy classics and two of his own compositions. He has also made some very successful tours with a circus. He had his last leading role in the film in 1940 in Lightning Strikes West , but singing had no longer played a role in his films. Then circus engagements and smaller film roles alternated, in 1945 his film career was finally over. Maynard increasingly struggled with alcohol problems in the following years, which destroyed both his riding skills and his finances. For a long time he lived in a trailer, dependent on welfare and contributions from an anonymous donor, whose identity could never be clarified, even if the rumors persist that it was Gene Autry. A few weeks before his death, Maynard was taken to a home for aging actors in Woodland Hills, a borough of Los Angeles, where he died on March 23, 1973.

legacy

Ken Maynard is often wrongly cited as the first singing cowboy in film history. However, this title is due - depending on your point of view - either Warner Baxter as the first actor who sang in a western (so-called “Cowboys who sang” ) or Gene Autry as the first “Singing Cowboy” in the real sense. However, Maynard, along with Nat Levine, can undoubtedly be seen as pioneers of the musical westerns that conquered Hollywood after In Old Santa Fe . Douglas B. Green, former editor of the Journal of Country Music and author of several books on the Singing Cowboys, rated Maynard's role with the following words: “He was at the right place at the right time with the right idea, but, unfortunately, he was not the right man. ” In contrast to the pleasing arrangements of later stars like Tex Ritter or Roy Rogers , Maynard's vocals in the style of early recordings by Carl T. Sprague were too clumsy for the taste of the cinema audience, his voice too tearful.

The Lone Star Trail (1930)

Because of their authenticity, the few recordings he made in 1930 are of great interest to historians and lovers of early American music today. The Lone Star Trail was re-released in 1952 on the seminal Anthology of American Folk Music ( reissued by the Smithsonian Institution in 1997 ). In the course of the interest in the origins associated with the Western Music revival, there were further releases on various samplers in the 1990s.

Regardless of his singing career, Maynard is considered to be one of the best western actors of the early years due to his horse riding stunts, which were groundbreaking at the time and always played the leading role in his films. For his services to the genre, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

Filmography (selection)

• 1925: Janice Meredith
• 1929: The wagon masters
• 1930: Mountain justice
• 1931: Ambushed by bandits (aka the Bad Man)
• 1931: The Arizona Terror
• 1931: Fall into the Abyss (Branded Men)
• 1931: Sheriff and convict (The Pocatello Kid)
• 1931: Cowboy Revenge (Range Law)
• 1932: Raid on Silver City (Texas Gun Fighter)
• 1932: Border Bandits (Whistlin 'Dan)
• 1940: Lightning strikes West
• 1970: Big Foot (Bigfoot)

Web links

• Website
• Ken Maynard in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Larry Langman: A Guide to Silent Westerns , Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992, p. 488.
2. ^ Oermann, Robert K .: A Century of Country: An Illustrated History of Country Music , New York: TV Books, 1999, ISBN 1-57500-083-0 , pp. 59 f.
3. ^ Green, Douglas B .: Singing Cowboys , Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2006, ISBN 978-1-58685-808-7 , p. 93.