RANDOLPH SCOTT

As a leading man for all but the first three years of his film career starting in 1931, Randolph Scott (1898-87) appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals (although not in singing or dancing roles), adventure tales, war pictures, and even a few horror and fantasy films. But by the time I discovered him in my pre-teens, he had already settled into his most enduring image: the taciturn, tall-in-the-saddle, Western hero in the Gary Cooper mold. Out of his 100+ films, more than 60 were in Oaters, many of them now cult favorites. Every time I see one of his '50s or early '60s Budd Boetticher-directed Westerns like SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (1956), or RIDE LONESOME (1959), I'm reminded how much of a hero he was to me ... and still is. In his last film, Sam Peckinpah's RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (1962), he co-starred with Joel McCrea, another actor who had transitioned into Oaters later in his career. As a young boy I saw Randy in person in Fort Worth and thought I had gone to cowboy heaven.