ARCHIVE IDOLS - WALTER BRENNAN

Walter Brennan claimed that he only ever played two kinds of role - those where he wore his false teeth and those where he didn't. It was a typical comment from the modest actor but hardly true. During his career he won no less than three Oscars as Best Supporting Actor but more importantly he entertained millions of film fans and his work continues to delight even today.

I actually worked with the great man's grandson, Stuart Brennan in the forthcoming film The Risen - I never did get to talk to him about Walter, though. I did however get to do a one on one scene with Stuart - it was my pub, he rushed into demanding to use the telephone, so I've kinda got an association with the great Walter Brennan and hopefully I'll get to chat with Stuart about Walter, one of my all time screen idols, another time.

Walter was born in 1894 and began working as a film extra in his Twenties. He started out with his close friend, Gary Cooper and by the end of the decade he had started to make a name for himself in westerns. This kind of low budget B-picture suited him and it wasn't until 1935 that he got his first major role in The Wedding Night and then he was put under contract to Samuel Golwyn to offer the perfect contrast to actors such as John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper. The seriousness of these big stars allowed Walter's open hearted acting to shine through - the famous clucking in Rio Bravo, the theatrical swishes in Sergeant York, the mad chattering in To Have and Have Not and his philosophical musings in Red River. Walter Brennan enhanced every film he appeared in.

Rio Bravo (1959) would be far less a film without Brennan's Stumpy - his rural origins shone out of the character and he was a natural with this kind of busy body role. In my first western novel, The Tarnished Star the character of Em is very much based on the kind of roles Walter Brennan would play.

But although he specialised in cantankerous old men there was so much more to his range - his brooding, sinister performance in My Darling Clementine is a stark contrast to his usual good natured characters. And his cameo as the evil river trader in How the West was Won is a stand-out in a movie full of stand-out performances. And his role as an intellectual humanist in Fritz Lang's Hangmen also Die (1943) was a powerhouse of depth and dignity. Few actors have had such a rich and varied career as Walter Brennan.

Brennan was gassed during World War I and he suffered from ill health ever after - sometimes this would make filming a grind for the actor, particularly in his later years. He retired from film after 1969's Support Your Local Sheriff but he would continue to make television appearances until his death in 1974 - he left behind him 120 films.