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West Texas news and sports/Dec. 15, 1996
News digest / Sports digestThe San Angelo Standard - Times Online Other famous San AngeloansSkip to next story The following list of celebrities with ties to San Angelo was put together by digging through the Standard-Times archives and calling on local historians. If you know of others we've missed, pass the information along to the Standard-Times by calling us at (915) 658-9900, category 2113; e-mailing us at standard@texaswest.com; or writing to us at P.O. Box 5111, San Angelo, TX 76902. By SCOTT STANFORD
Regional Editor Joan Crawford may be the biggest celebrity with ties to San Angelo, but there are certainly others who have gone on to some level of fame after being born in or spending some part of their lives in San Angelo. Following is a list of some of the city's past and current stars: Singer-songwriter Ernest Tubb called San Angelo home in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He lived in a small frame home facing an alley between West Harris and College Avenues. He broadcast a radio show in San Angelo, worked for a mattress company here and owned a tavern on Beauregard. He moved to Fort Worth in 1942 and his music career took off. Tubb recorded more than 250 songs and sold more than 30 million records. His biggest hits were ``Walking the Floor Over You,''and ``Waltz Across Texas.'' He also wrote and sang ``Swell San Angelo.'' Tubb, whose last San Angelo performance was at the Dixie Club in 1982, died in 1984 at the age of 70. Actor Fess Parker, who played Daniel Boone on the television series of the same name and Davy Crockett in a series of Walt Disney films about the Texas legend, was born in Fort Worth but moved to San Angelo at age 5. Parker's father, Fess Parker Sr., was a Tom Green County commissioner for two terms. Fess Jr. played football at San Angelo High School, from which he graduated in 1943, and he worked as a newspaper carrier for the Standard-Times as a youth. Parker, 70, starred in 17 films, numerous television series and recorded several songs. He currently lives in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he owns a winery. Big game hunter and explorer Frank ``Bring 'Em Back Alive'' Buck moved to San Angelo at the age of 17 to live and work on his brother's ranch. Buck was renowned in the 1920s for his exploits capturing wild animals for zoos and exhibits all over the U.S. Signed to a film contract to do a series of short films about his exploits in the jungle in 1930, he came back with such spectacular footage that the work was turned into a full-length action film, ``Bring 'em Back Alive,'' with Buck as the star. Buck starred in four other action adventure films and wrote two books. He died in San Angelo in 1950 at the age of 65. Guinn ``Big Boy'' Williams, who starred with John Wayne in ``The Alamo'' and ``The Comancheros,'' was born in Decatur where his father was a congressman, but his parents moved to San Angelo in 1932 and spent the remainder of their lives here. Williams, who often visited his parents in San Angelo and once owned a ranch nearby, was a lead star in several westerns during the 1930s but spent much of his career playing character roles aimed at comedy relief. He had roles in more than 80 films between 1919 and 1962, when he died at his home in Burbank. Broadway playwright Jay Presson Allen, 74, was born in Fort Worth but raised in San Angelo, where her parents owned a department store. She has authored several Broadway hits including ``The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,'' ``Forty Carats'' and ``Tru,'' as well as several movie screenplays including ``Cabaret,'' and ``Prince of the City.'' She has also written novels and for television series. She lives in New York. The Rev. Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco is well known in San Angelo for quarterbacking the Blackshear Leopards to the 1946 state championship. But he is also known as the leader of one of the nation's most activist church congregations. The church feeds nearly 5,000 people each day and reaches out to homosexuals, AIDS victims, drug addicts and the homeless in one of San Francisco's worst neighborhoods. Williams recently received the Distinguished Alumnus Award by the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, an award Bishop Desmond Tutu and poet Maya Angelou recommended him for. One of the films Fess Parker made for Disney was ``Old Yeller,'' based on the book written by Fred Gipson. Gipson was a native of Mason, but he also lived in San Angelo during the late 1930s when he was a reporter for the Standard-Times. He was married to a San Angelo woman, the former Tommie Wynn. Other books Gipson wrote include ``The Hound-Dog Man,'' ``Big Bend,'' and the sequel to ``Old Yeller,'' ``Savage Sam.'' Gipson died at the age of 65 in 1973 at his ranch home near Mason. Elmer Kelton, the award-winning western author, was raised on a ranch near Crane. But he honed his writing skills at the Standard-Times, Ranch Magazine and Livestock Weekly before becoming one of the country's best-known western authors. He has written more than 35 novels including ``The Time it Never Rained,'' and `'The Good Ol' Boys,'' which was made into a 1995 television movie starring Tommy Lee Jones. Kelton continues to live and write in San Angelo. Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves, the only pitcher to win four consecutive Cy Young Awards, was born at San Angelo's Shannon Medical Center while his father was stationed here, though the family moved to Las Vegas when Maddux was an infant. Jack Pardee, who played football for Bear Bryant's first team at Texas A&M; and won fame as coach at the University of Houston and the Houston Oilers, was raised in Christoval but attended school in San Angelo. Norm Cash, the Detroit Tigers' first baseman who led the American League in hitting in 1961, played baseball and football at San Angelo College before doing the same at Sul Ross in Alpine. Cash ranched in Eldorado and died in a boating accident in 1986 on Lake Michigan.Skip to next story Back to the top |