From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Timothy John Fitzgerald "Tim" McCoy (April 10, 1891 – January 29, 1978) was an American actor.

Early years

Born the son of an Irish Union Civil War soldier who later became police chief in Saginaw, he became a major film star most noted for his roles in Western films. He was so popular with youngsters as a cowboy star that he appeared on the cover of Wheaties cereal boxes.

He attended St. Ignatius College in Chicago and after seeing a wild west show there, left school and found work on a Wyoming ranch. He became an expert horseman and roper and developed a knowledge of the ways and languages of the Native American tribes in the area. He competed in numerous rodeos, then enlisted in the United States Army when America entered the first World War.

Military career

McCoy was also a decorated soldier in the United States Army during World War I (although not in combat or overseas)^[1] and again in World War II in Europe, rising to the rank of Colonel with the Army Air Corps. He also served the state of Wyoming as its Adjutant General between the wars with the brevet rank of Brigadier General. At 28, he was reputed to be the youngest Brigadier General in the history of the US Army. McCoy was a known expert in Indian sign language and was accepted as a 'brother' by the Arapahoe Tribe on the Wind River Reservation. When Hollywood needed an authentic group of Indians for a movie in Utah, his name came up and McCoy resigned from his position as Adjutant General for the State of Wyoming and recruited a group of indians and was hired on by the production company as a sort of laision between the company and the indians.

Acting career

Early career

In 1922, he was asked by the head of Famous Players-Lasky, Jesse L. Lasky, to provide Native American extras for the Western extravaganza, The Covered Wagon (1923). He brought hundreds of Native Americans to the Utah location and served as technical advisor on the film. After the filming was completed, McCoy was asked to bring a much smaller group of indians to Hollywood where they performed a sort of live introduction to the film. After touring the country and Europe with the Native Americans as publicity, McCoy returned to his Wyoming ranch, but Hollywood called again, and useing his connections,he obtained further work in the movies, both as a technical advisor and as an actor. MGM quickly signed him to a contract to star in a series of westerns and McCoy rose to stardom, making numerous westerns and an occasional non-western. One notable western was The Law of the Range (1928) in which he starred with Joan Crawford.

In 1935, he left Hollywood, first to tour with the Ringling Brothers Circus and then with his own wild west show. The show was not a success and is reported to have lost $300,000. $100,000 was McCoy's own money. It folded in Washington D.C. and the Cowboy performers were each given $5 and McCoy's thanks. The Indians on the show were returned to their respective reservations by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He returned to films in 1940, in "The Rough Riders" series, teaming him with Buck Jones and Raymond Hatton, but World War II and Jones's death in 1942 ended the series.

Interupted by WWII

In 1942 McCoy ran for the Republican nomination for the open US Senate Seat from Wyoming. Interestingly enough, during that campaign, he established the first state-wide radio hookup in Wyoming broadcasting history. He lost in the primary and almost the very next day volunteered for active duty with the U.S. Army. He had maintained his Army Reserve commission and was immediately accepted. McCoy spent the war in the U.S. Army and performed liaison work with the Army Air Forces in Europe, winning several decorations. He retired from the army and, according to lore, never lived in Wyoming again. His ranch Eagle's Nest" was sold. He retired from films after the war, but emerged in the late 1940s for a few more films and some television work.

Television host

McCoy hosted a KTLA television show in Los Angeles in 1952, called "The Tim McCoy Show", for children on weekday afternoons and Saturdays, in which he provided authentic history lessons on the Old West and showed his old western movies. His co-host was the actor Iron Eyes Cody who, while of Italian lineage, played an American Indian both on and off screen. Colonel McCoy was also the leading expert in the country on Native American sign language.

He won a local Emmy but didn't attend to receive the award. He was competing against "Webster Webfoot" in the "Best Children's Show" category and refused to show up saying, "I'll be damned if I'm going to sit there and get beaten by a talking duck!"

Legacy

For his contribution to the film industry, McCoy was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1973, McCoy was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. McCoy was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1974. On January 16, 2010 McCoy was inducted into the Hot Springs County (Wyoming) Hall of Fame. He ranched in the county for over 30 years. Accepting the honor on his behalf was his son Terry. Included in the 2010 class were Governor Dave Freudenthal of the State of Wyoming, Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court Bart Voigt, former Wyoming State Treasurer Stan Smith, and local high school teacher Karl Allen.

Personal life

He was married to Agnes Miller, the daughter of Henry Miller the famous British stage actor and producer. Their marriage resulted in three children: Gerald, a girl Margarita and a son D'Arcy. They were divorced in 1931 and Mrs McCoy received a portion of the McCoy ranch holdings in Hot Springs County, Wyoming. McCoy kept that portion known as the 'Eagles Nest'.^{[citation needed]}(See 1931 divorce decree at Big Horn County, Wyoming, Clerk of Court's office)

His second marriage was to Inga Arvad in 1945, they had two sons - Ronald and Terence. McCoy was married to Arvad until her death from cancer in 1973. Arvad was a controversial Danish journalist investigated in the early 1940s due to rumors that she was a Nazi spy, rumors that spawned from photographs of Arvad as Adolf Hitler's companion at the 1936 Olympics and that she had twice intereviewed him. Arvad had also had several previous marriages and an affair with John F. Kennedy. J. Edgar Hoover surreptitiously audiotaped her bedroom trysts with Kennedy as a result of the FBI's investigation and journalist Seymour Hersh reported in his book The Dark Side of Camelot that Kennedy tried to retrieve those tapes throughout his presidency.

In 1973, Tim McCoy was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He also was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

McCoy died in 1978 at the Post Hospital on Ft. Huachuca, Sierra Vista, Arizona and was later cremated. Originally, his ashes were returned to his Nogales home. Nine years later, his remains, and those of wife Inga, who had died in 1973, were returned to his birthplace at Saginaw, Michigan for burial there in the Mount Olivet Cemetery next to his family's plot.

Filmography

Further reading

• Tim McCoy Remembers the West: An Autobiography by Tim McCoy and Ronald McCoy (1977)

Hardback:

ISBN 0385127987

ISBN 978-0385127981

Paperback:

ISBN 803281552

ISBN 978-0803281554

• Tim McCoy on the Tomahawk Trail by Gaylord Du Bois. Big Little Book, Whitman, 1937. Western novel about Tim McCoy (full text).

• Tim McCoy—A Wyoming Poet. RoundTop Records, LLC., Thermopolis, Wyoming

Paperback:

ISBN 978-0979697005

DVD

• Col. Tim McCoy's The Silent Language of the Plains! RoundTop Records, LLC. Thermopolis, Wyoming

ISBN 978-0979697012

Notes

External links

• Tim McCoy at Internet Movie Database
• The Tim McCoy Show at Internet Movie Database