Jeff York

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Jeff York (born March 23, 1912 in Los Angeles, California - died October 11, 1995 in Los Angeles, California) was an American film and television actor who began his career in the late 1930s using the stage name Granville Owen. He was also sometimes credited as Jeff Yorke.

During his early career, the tall, dark haired actor was a natural to play characters such as Pat Ryan in the 1940 serial Terry and the Pirates and was given the lead in the 1940 Lil Abner film. However, he is perhaps most remembered for his role as Bud Searcy in the 1957 Disney classic Old Yeller. During the 1950s and 1960s, he appeared in supporting roles in numerous film and television productions, many of them by Disney.

York attracted considerable attention in the mid-1950s with his TV portrayal of Mike Fink, the flamboyant keelboat operator in two episodes of Disney's hugely popular Davy Crockett series, "Davy Crockett's Keelboat Race" and "Davy Crockett and the River Pirates." The first episode featured a memorable boasting contest and a keelboat race; in the second, Crockett and Fink join forces to fight a band of river pirates who blame their depredations on local Indians.

"Girls run and hide, brave men quiver...I'm Mike Fink, king of the river!"

York also starred as mountain man/fur trapper Joe Crane in two different Disney series, the Saga of Andy Burnett, adapted from the Stewart Edward White novel the Long Rifle; and in the "mountain man" arc of Disney's most popular TV show, Zorro.

"You see before you Joe Crane, as big as life and twice as nasty!"

In addition, York co-starred in the Fess Parker movie the Great Locomotive Chase, alongside Slim Pickens, Harry Carey, Jr., and Stan Jones (Jones wrote the legendary cowboy song (Ghost) Riders In the Sky).