| Johnny Crawford | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Ernest Crawford March 26, 1946 Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Occupation | Actor, singer, musician, band leader |
| Years active | 1954–1999 |
| Spouse | Charlotte Crawford (1995-present) |
| Website | |
| http://www.thejohnnycrawford.com/ | |
John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford (born March 26, 1946) is a prolific American character actor, singer and musician. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain character (played by Chuck Connors), in the popular 1960s ABC western series, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 to 1963. He first performed before a national audience as a Mouseketeer.
Johnny Crawford was born in Los Angeles, California, and is of Russian, German, English, and Irish heritage.[1] Both his older brother Robert L. (Jr.) and his father Robert (Sr.) were nominated for Emmy Awards (for acting and film editing, respectively).
One of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers in 1955, Crawford has acted on stage, in films, and on television.
Disney started out with 24 original Mouseketeers. At the end of the first season, the studio reduced the number to 12 and Johnny was released from his contract. His first important break as an actor followed with the title role in a Lux Video Theatre production of "Little Boy Lost," a live NBC broadcast on March 15, 1956. Following that performance, the young actor worked steadily with many seasoned actors and directors. Within two and a half years, he accumulated almost sixty television credits, including featured roles in three episodes of "The Loretta Young Show" and an appearance as Manuel in "I Am an American," an episode of the crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. By the spring of 1958 he had also performed fourteen demanding roles in live teleplays on NBC's Matinee Theatre, appeared on CBS's sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, and made three pilots for a series. The third pilot, which was made as an episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, was picked up by ABC and the first season of The Rifleman would begin filming in July 1958.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award at the age of thirteen for his role as Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain, played by Chuck Connors, in the Four Star Television series The Rifleman, which originally aired from 1958 to 1963 on ABC. During this time, Crawford had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career that generated five Top 40 hits, including the single "Cindy's Birthday," which peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 in 1962. His other hits included "Proud" (#29, 1963), "Your Nose is Gonna Grow" (#14, 1962), and "Rumors" (#12, 1962).
Throughout The Rifleman's five seasons, there was a remarkable on-screen chemistry between Connors and Crawford in the depiction of their father-son relationship. They were still close friends when Connors died on November 10, 1992, and Crawford gave a eulogy at his memorial.
Among his films, Crawford plays a native American in the unique all-Indian adventure film, Indian Paint (1965). He gets mixed up with a disturbed young girl, played by Kim Darby, in The Restless Ones (1965), and he gets shot by John Wayne in El Dorado (1966).
While enlisted in the United States Army for two years, he worked on training films as a production coordinator, assistant director, script supervisor, and occasional actor. He was an E-5 when he received an honorable discharge in December 1967.
In 1968 he played an Army private (Shown in the credits as 'Corporal'; however, the insignia of rank is a private) wanted for murder in "By the Numbers," an episode of Jack Lord's Hawaii Five-O.
His short film, The Resurrection of Broncho Billy, produced as a USC student project by John Longenecker, won the Academy Award in 1971 for Best Live Action Short Subject. After winning the Oscar, it was released theatrically by Universal Studios in the U.S. and Canada.
The Naked Ape was a partially animated 1973 feature film starring Johnny Crawford and Victoria Principal, produced by Hugh Hefner.[2] In an article about that movie he became the first man to be shown in full-frontal nudity in Playboy magazine.[3]
Crawford had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson of Saturday Night Live fame; after appearing together in a summer stock production of "Meet Me in St. Louis," he presented her a one-way airline ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led to her early TV appearances on The Tonight Show before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live.
Since 1992, Crawford has led the California-based Johnny Crawford Orchestra, which specializes in vintage dance music. The orchestra's first album, Sweepin' the Clouds Away, was released August 5, 2008.
He reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Samco, in 1990, and they wed in 1995.[4]
Stills from The Resurrection of Broncho Billy