Strother Martin - character actor - by Kaye Spencer #westernfictioneers #hollywood #westernmovies

This month I’m remembering Strother Martin (March 26, 1919 - August 1, 1980).

He was an actor who, no matter how small his role, always made me shiver and cringe when he played the villain’s minion or made me laugh out loud at his antics when he portrayed a character in a more lighthearted, comedic role. He had such animation in his facial expressions and his manner. His sniveling laughter and whiny voice were so distinctive.

He was one of those actors that you may not have known his name, but you remembered seeing him in other movies and television shows, and you came to expect certain qualities in his characters.

He is probably best remembered for his role as the prison captain in the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman for saying these words, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” This line is No. 11 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Movie Quotes.

It was this role in Cool Hand Luke that opened Hollywood doors for him, and he became one of the busiest and sought after character actors of the time. At the peak of his career, he died of a heart attack.

Martin was born in Indiana, moved to San Antonio for a bit, and served in the U.S. Navy during WWI as a swimming instructor. He aspired to compete in the diving competition in the 1948 Olympics, but finished third in local competition. He was nicknamed T-Bone for his particular diving style.

After his tour of duty, he moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a swimming instructor and swimming extra in films. These small parts gained him bigger parts in character roles throughout the 1950s, particularly in westerns. He had roles in Gunsmoke, Death Valley Days, The Rebel, Stoney Burke, and Have Gun – Will Travel to name a few.

His voice has been described as ‘a distinctive, reedy voice’, and his acting persona as a menacing demeanor, which served him well for gaining roles in western movies such as The Wild Bunch, The Horse Soldiers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He had a comedic role in McLintock! and he was also in the original True Grit.

Strother Martin (left) - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Strother Martin - McLintock!

It was said that his trademark was playing grimy and unlikeable, low-life crazy villains, which was in total contrast to his real life, which was a gardener and classical music aficionado.

Martin also performed in Arthur Kennedy’s Stage Society with Gary Cooper, Tony Curtis, Anthony Quinn, Patricia Neal, Henry Fonda and Richard Dreyfuss. He was known for his Tennessee Williams impersonation. He has an impressive filmography, but so many of his roles were uncredited.

Three days before his death, he said, “No man can achieve immortality. We don’t live for what comes after we are dead, but for what we can achieve in this life – the only chance we have.”

 

Here is a short 1985 skit with Steve Martin and Strother Martin. The video quality isn’t great, but it’s classic goofy Steve Martin and Strother Martin adds to the silliness. It’s called “The Turtle Bronc Rider”.

 Until next time,

Kaye Spencer

Stay in contact with Kaye—

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Resources:

*Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strother_Martin

Image from McLintock!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strother_Martin#/media/File:Strother_Martin.jpg

*IMBb website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001510/

*Western Clippings website: http://www.westernclippings.com/heavies/strothermartin_charactersheavies.shtml

Friday the 13th

If you’re superstitious, you’re no doubt cringing at the title. But how and why did this date become synonymous with bad luck?

Credit for popularizing the myth is often given to one Captain William Fowler, a noted soldier who rubbed elbows with many high-profile people of the late 1800’s. Fowler frequently noted that the number 13 was woven throughout his life. For example, he went to Public School #13 in New York and fought in 13 Civil War battles. He decided to combat the popular superstition, and started a society called the Thirteen Club, which had its first meeting on September 13, 1881.

The group met regularly on the 13^th of the month, in room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage, a popular watering hole owned by Fowler. They passed under an open ladder to sit at a 13-seat table festooned with spilled salt. Four US presidents (Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt) joined the Thirteen Club at some time.

Of course, the idea that 13 may be an unlucky number goes back to mythology. Norse mythos tells of a party where 12 of the gods sit down to dinner and Loki, the trickster, showed up uninvited. He then shot Balder, the god of joy and happiness. The Code of Hammurabi reportedly omitted a thirteenth law. And Christian mythology has Judas, Jesus’ betrayer, as a similar unlucky guest at the Last Supper.

Friday has also been considered an unlucky day in Western tradition. Christians claim Jesus was crucified on a Friday, and some believe that day was when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Phillip IV of France had hundreds of members of the Knights Templar arrested.

What about your character? Would they have considered Friday the 13^th unlucky? That depends on you. Certainly the idea of “Unlucky 13” was well entrenched in cultural belief during the 1800s. And many would have believed Friday to be unlucky as well, so your character might be superstitious when the two fell together. It’s all up to your superpowers as an author.

JES Hays

www.jeshays.com

www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks

Sorry, no blog thsi month. Been dealing with doctors about my knees, Had an appointment this morning. Knee replacement surgery  scheduled fo r June 16th.

Historical Heroine Irena Sendler

Hello everyone and happy Spring Break to those of you who, like me, are celebrating the kids being out of school for the week, and happy *yawn* day-after-daylight-savings-time, which affects us all.

With it being so close to International Women's Day, I felt it only fitting to focus on a historical woman in my post today. After all, the Day of the Woman is supposed to empower and uplift women, so today, in this post, we will uplift one historical woman.

Today, our historical woman, is a Polish Catholic woman who was born in Warsaw in 1910, by the name of Irena Krzyzanowska. Though, we more commonly know her as her married name, Irena Sendlerowa - or the more westernized version, Irena Sendler.

She was a daughter before she was a wife, and her daddy was a medical doctor.  In fact, it was her father who influenced her - and her outlook on life - the most.

Her father was the only doctor in Warsaw who would treat their Jewish neighbors, and when typhus broke out, Irena saw firsthand what love in action looked like. Her father charged in, alone, with his battle cry. "If you see a man drowning, you must jump in to save him - even if you yourself cannot swim." That truism proved most influential to Irena, even though her father died during that same typhus outbreak.

When her Jewish classmates at the University of Warsaw began to be systemically oppressed and ridiculed prior to the outbreak of WWII by way of the ghetto-bench system - which forced them to self-identify as Jewish on their student cards and sit on wooden benches on the sides of the lecture halls while those students who self-identified as Aryan on their student cards enjoyed the comfortable desks nearer to the professor - Irena knew what she had to do. So she defaced her student card by scratching off the Aryan symbol and choosing her seat among her Jewish classmates on the benches. This resulted in her expulsion from University and her being denied graduation, though she was awarded her degree in Polish Literature later.

When the Nazi party and their nefarious leader, Adolph Hitler, annexed Poland, the Jewish population immediately began to suffer. When they formed the Warsaw Ghetto, which crammed all of the Polish Jews in and around Warsaw (a half a million people y'all) into a teeny-tiny one square mile radius, lined with electrified fences and razor wire, Irena and a network of like-minded people, who called themselves Zegota, saw that destruction and annihilation were on the horizon.

They obtained documents from the Nazi's to be allowed access to the ghetto under the guise of preventing typhus from spreading. This was all Irena needed. At once, she and her network began smuggling children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and depositing them into non-Jewish homes and Catholic orphanages.

The punishment for helping one Jew during this reign was death - death for your family, then for you. But Irena didn't help one Jew.

She saved 2,500 Jewish children from certain death by smuggling them out of Warsaw Ghetto before they could be deported to Dachau - where immediate death awaited.

So today - in honor of International Women's Day, we salute you, Irena Sendler. A woman who, up until her death, felt that she hadn't done enough during that hellish time, and who bravely broke unrighteous laws for the betterment of humanity and in doing so, helped save generations and then, was declared a Catholic Saint by Pope Benedict XVI.

Hobo Rules

Dorothy A. Bell Author of Oregon historical fiction romance. Hartwood Publishing. https://dabellm3.com
 New releases March, April and May 4 all new Laura Creek Sweet Romances. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The+Sheriff+and+The+Lady+by+Dorothy+A.+Bell&i=digital-text&ref=nb_sb_noss

Hobo rules

Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but see themselves as sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migrant laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but sooner or later he returns to work. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police.

It is unclear exactly when hobos first appeared on the American railroading scene. With the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, many discharged veterans returning home began hopping freight trains. Others looking for work on the American frontier followed the railways west aboard freight trains in the late 19th century.

Life as a hobo was dangerous. In addition to the problems of being itinerant, poor, and far from home and support, plus the hostility of many train crews, they faced the railroads' security staff, nicknamed "bulls", who had a reputation of violence against trespassers.^[8] 

Culture

Expressions used through the 1940s

Hobos were noted for, among other things, the distinctive lingo that arose among them. Some examples follow: Many hobo terms have become part of common language, such as "big house", "glad rags", "main drag", and others.

Accommodation car	the caboose of a train
Angellina	a young inexperienced child
Bad road	a train line rendered useless by some hobo's bad action or crime
Banjo	(1) a small portable frying pan; (2) a short, "D"-handled shovel, generally used for shoveling coal
Barnacle	a person who sticks to one job a year or more
Beachcomber	a hobo who hangs around docks or seaports
Big house	prison
Bindle stick	a collection of belongings wrapped in cloth and tied around a stick
Bindlestiff	a hobo who carries a bindle
Blowed-in-the-glass	a genuine, trustworthy individual
'Bo	the common way one hobo referred to another: "I met that 'bo on the way to Bangor last spring."
Boil up	specifically, to boil one's clothes to kill lice and their eggs; generally, to get oneself as clean as possible
Bone polisher	a mean dog
Bone orchard	a graveyard
Bull	a railroad officer
Bullets	beans
Buck	a Catholic priest, good for a dollar
Burger	today's lunch
C, H, and D	indicates an individual is "Cold, Hungry, and Dry" (thirsty)
California blankets	newspapers, intended to be used for bedding on a park bench
Calling in	using another's campfire to warm up or cook
Cannonball	a fast train
Carrying the banner	keeping in constant motion so as to avoid being picked up for loitering or to keep from freezing
Catch the westbound	to die
Chuck a dummy	pretend to faint
Cooties	body lice
Cover with the moon	sleep out in the open
Cow crate	a railroad stock car
Crumbs	lice
Docandoberry	anything edible that grows on a riverbank
Doggin' it	traveling by bus, especially on the Greyhound bus line
Easy mark	a hobo sign or mark that identifies a person or place where one can get food and a place to stay overnight
Elevated	under the influence of drugs or alcohol
Flip	to board a moving train
Flop	a place to sleep, by extension, "flophouse", a cheap hotel
Glad rags	one's best clothes
Graybacks	lice
Grease the track	to be run over by a train
Gump	a chicken[11]
Honey dipping	working with a shovel in the sewer
Hot	(1) a fugitive hobo; (2) a hot or decent meal: "I could use a hot and a flop"
Hot shot	a train with priority freight, stops rarely, goes faster; synonym for "Cannonball"
Jungle	an area off a railroad where hobos camp and congregate
Jungle buzzard	a hobo or tramp who preys on his own
Knowledge bus	a school bus used for shelter
Maeve	a young hobo, usually a girl
Main drag	the busiest road in a town
Moniker / Monica	a nickname
Mulligan stew	a type of community stew, created by several hobos combining whatever food they have or can collect
Nickel note	a five-dollar bill
On the fly	jumping a moving train
Padding the hoof	to travel by foot
Possum belly	to ride on the roof of a passenger car (one must lie flat, on his/her stomach, to avoid being blown off)
Pullman	a railroad sleeper car; most were once made by the George Pullman company
Punk	any young kid
Reefer	a compression or "refrigerator car"
Road kid	a young hobo who apprentices himself to an older hobo in order to learn the ways of the road
Road stake	the small reserve amount of money a hobo may keep in case of an emergency
Rum dum	a drunkard
Sky pilot	a preacher or minister
Soup bowl	a place to get soup, bread and drinks
Snipes	cigarette butts "sniped" (e.g., from ashtrays or sidewalks)
Spare biscuits	looking for food in a garbage can
Stemming	panhandling or begging along the streets
Tokay blanket	drinking alcohol to stay warm
Yegg	a traveling professional thief, or burglar

Hobo signs (symbols)

Hobo signs, California, c. 1870s

To cope with the uncertainties of hobo life, hobos developed a system of symbols, or a visual code. Hobos would write this code with chalk or coal to provide directions, information, and warnings to others in "the brotherhood". A symbol would indicate "turn right here", "beware of hostile railroad police", "dangerous dog", "food available here", and so on. Some commonly used signs:

·         A cross signifies "angel food", that is, food served to the hobos after a sermon.

·         A triangle with hands signifies that the homeowner has a gun.^[12]

·         A horizontal zigzag signifies a barking dog.^[13]

·         A square missing its top line signifies it is safe to camp in that location.

·         A top hat and a triangle signify wealth.

·         A spearhead signifies a warning to defend oneself.

·         A circle with two parallel arrows means get out fast, as hobos are not welcome in the area.^[13]

·         Two interlocked circles, representing handcuffs, warn that hobos are hauled off to jail.

·         A caduceus symbol signifies the house has a doctor living in it.

·         A cross with a smiley face in one of the corners means the doctor at this office will treat hobos free of charge.

·         A cat signifies a kind lady lives here.^[13]

·         A wavy line (signifying water) above an X means fresh water and a campsite.

·         Three diagonal lines mean it is not a safe place.

·         A square with a slanted roof (signifying a house) with an X through it means that the house has already been "burned" or "tricked" by another hobo and is not a trusting house.

·         Two shovels signify that work was available.

Another version of the hobo code exists as a display in the Steamtown National Historic Site at Scranton, Pennsylvania, operated by the National Park Service. There is an exhibit of hobo codes at the National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis Junction, Maryland.^[14][15]

The Free Art and Technology Lab released a QR Hobo Code, with a QR stenciler, in July 2011.^[16]

Ethical code

Hobo culture—though it has always, of course, had many points of contact with the mainstream American culture of its day—has also always been somewhat separate and distinct, with different cultural norms. Hobo culture's ethics have always been subject to disapproval from the mainstream culture; for example, hopping freight trains, an integral part of hobo life, has always been illegal in the U.S. Nonetheless, the ethics of hobo culture can be regarded as fairly coherent and internally consistent, at least to the extent that any culture's various individual people maintain the same ethical standards. That is to say, any attempt at an exhaustive enumeration of hobo ethics is bound to be foiled at least to some extent by the diversity of hobos and their ideas of the world. This difficulty has not kept hobos themselves from attempting the exercise. An ethical code was created by Tourist Union #63 (a hobo union created in the mid-1800s to dodge anti-vagrancy laws, which did not apply to union members)^[17] during its 1889 National Hobo Convention:^[18]

1.   Decide your own life, don't let another person run or rule you.

2.   When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.

3.   Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos.

4.   Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again.

5.   When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.

6.   Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals' treatment of other hobos.

7.   When jungling in town, respect handouts, do not wear them out, another hobo will be coming along who will need them as badly, if not worse than you.

8.   Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you are jungling.

9.   If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help.

10. Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.

11. When traveling, ride your train respectfully, take no personal chances, cause no problems with the operating crew or host railroad, act like an extra crew member.

12. Do not cause problems in a train yard, another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard.

13. Do not allow other hobos to molest children, expose all molesters to authorities, they are the worst garbage to infest any society.

14. Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.

15. Help your fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed, you may need their help someday.

16. If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!