[img]2669|right|Herb Jeffries||no_popup[/img]In July 1986, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Herb Jeffries, the first and only black singing cowboy.
I was introduced to singer-actor Jeffries by the actor Robert Sacchi, better known as the Man with Bogart's Face. We were soon joined by actor Henry Brandon, a German-American character actor born Heinrich von Kleinbach in Berlin. He appeared in more than 100 films, starting in 1932 when he played the villain Silas Barnaby in the Laurel and Hardy classic “Babes In Toyland.” Mr. Brandon appeared as Scar, a Comanche chief, in the 1956 John Ford classic, “The Searchers.” He was Comanche Chief Quanta Parker in “Two Rode Together,” with James Stewart and Richard Widmark.
For years, Mr. Brandon appeared as the lead in “The Drunkard,” a temperance play first performed in 1844. The dated melodrama lived on as a parody. It was featured in the W.C. Fields comedy “The Old Fashioned Way,” and in the 1940 Buster Keaton comedy, “The Villain Still Pursued Her.”
The fabulous showman P.T. Barnum originally produced “The Drunkard” in his museum as a warning against alcohol addiction.
Mr. Brandon passed away at the age of 77 in 1990 in Los Angeles.
For nearly two hours, Mr. Brandon and Mr. Jeffries told me tales of what it was like to work in films and on stage in the 1930s and ‘40s.
I next ran into Mr. Jeffries in 1996 at the 14th Golden Boots Awards at the Century Plaza Hotel, Century City.
Andrew J. Fenady had invited me to film interviews with Golden Boots Awards honorees.
Mr. Fenady has written and produced “Chisum,” starring John Wayne, “The Sea Wolf,” starring Charles Bronson and Christopher Reeve, and “The Man With Bogart's Face.”
The Golden Boot Awards was conceived by cowboy sidekick Pat Buttram. The last Golden Boot was in 2007 – seven years ago, because cowboy heroes have faded from the movie and television screens.
The interview I conducted with Mr. Jeffries will be seen in “Celluloid Cowboys,” a documentary about Western heroes, starting with Walter Cameron played the sheriff in “The Great Train Robbery” in 1903.
During Mr. Jeffries' musical career, he appeared with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and the Mills Brothers. His recording of “Flamingo” with Mr. Ellington in 1940 was a smash. While appearing in tin roof theatres and tobacco warehouses in the South, Mr. Jeffries observed thousands of small movie theatres where blacks went to watch cowboy movies because they weren't allowed in theatres for whites. Herb wanted to produce Westerns about black cowboys because there really were black cowboys in the Old West.
But Mr. Jeffries wasn't able to raise the money for his idea until one day when he was contacted by independent producer Jed Buell.
Mr. Buell was publicity director for Mack Sennett's Keystone Productions until it went broke after the crash of 1929.
Mr. Buell founded a small independent studio, Spectrum Pictures, where he produced a string of singing cowboy Westerns, starring Fred Scott. Co-producer was Stan Laurel. Mr. Buell also produced “The Terror Of Tiny Town” with an entire cast of midgets, many of whom appeared in “The Wizard of Oz” as munchkins.
Mr. Jeffries' interest in producing and starring in Westerns with an all black cast became a reality when Mr. Buell found money for the productions.
Mr. Jeffries also sang and performed his own stunts in “Harlem on the Prairie,””Two-Gun Man From Harlem,” “Bronze Buckaroo,” “California Gold” and “Harlem Rides the Range.”
In appreciation for his work as head of an entertainment unit during World War 11 and in Korea, Jeffries was given theDefense Dept. Award for Outstanding Activity of Entertainment to the Armed Forces.
Two months ago, on May 21, Herb Jeffries passed away from heart failure at 100 years old.
Mr. Hawkins may be contacted at rjhculvercity@aol.com
