Harry Carey

A seminal figure in the history of the Hollywood Western, Harry Carey doesn't quite have the same iconic value in the popular imagination as another pioneering cowboy star, William S Hart. But this is mostly due to the relative unavailability of Carey's films from his starring heyday, and because, unlike Hart, he later carved a niche as a general purpose character actor, which is largely how later generations knew him. Nonetheless, Carey was something of a legend in his own time, and as both Western hero and a likable, elder statesman figure, he was a key player from the first half century of Hollywood cinema. The Bronx-born son of a Tammany judge, Carey studied at NYU but dropped out of its law school. He enjoyed an unexpected early success in show business writing a melodrama, "Montana", with which he toured for several years up until 1908. His follow-up effort, "Heart of Alaska", flopped, but soon thereafter he drifted into film work in New York, signing up with D.W. Griffith and Biograph Studios. Carey went to Hollywood with Griffith and company in 1911 and can be spotted in many of the master director's shorts and early features. Carey's later "good guy" image contrasts interestingly with his...

A seminal figure in the history of the Hollywood Western, Harry Carey doesn't quite have the same iconic value in the popular imagination as another pioneering cowboy star, William S Hart. But this is mostly due to the relative unavailability of Carey's films from his starring heyday, and because, unlike Hart, he later carved a niche as a general purpose character actor, which is largely how later generations knew him. Nonetheless, Carey was something of a legend in his own time, and as both Western hero and a likable, elder statesman figure, he was a key player from the first half century of Hollywood cinema.

The Bronx-born son of a Tammany judge, Carey studied at NYU but dropped out of its law school. He enjoyed an unexpected early success in show business writing a melodrama, "Montana", with which he toured for several years up until 1908. His follow-up effort, "Heart of Alaska", flopped, but soon thereafter he drifted into film work in New York, signing up with D.W. Griffith and Biograph Studios. Carey went to Hollywood with Griffith and company in 1911 and can be spotted in many of the master director's shorts and early features. Carey's later "good guy" image contrasts interestingly with his roles from some films during these days. His hair typically unkempt and dark eye makeup making his deep-set eyes look black, Carey played his fair share of roughnecks and villains, such as the traitor in Griffith's remarkable first feature-length epic, and his last effort for Biograph, "Judith of Bethulia" (1913).

Carey joined Hart, Tom Mix and Dustin and William Farnum in the front ranks of those setting the mold for all later cowboy heroes after he joined Universal Studios around 1916. An important part of his success was his collaboration in two dozen bracing little genre Westerns with one of Hollywood's most important talents, director John Ford, then just starting his career. Beginning in 1917 and continuing through 1921 at Universal, Carey starred in, sometimes wrote stories and screenplays for, and even on occasion produced such Ford films as "Bucking Broadway" (1917), "Hell Bent" (1918), "Bare Fists" (1919), an early version of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" (1919), "Marked Men" (1920), "Desperate Trails" (1921), and one of the most notable of the early John Fords, "Straight Shooting" (1917). He often essayed the recurring role of 'Cheyenne Harry', a true prototype for all the leathery, laconic men of action who would later ride down Western cinema trails. Working with other directors, Carey honed his subtle, expressive deadpan on such other vehicles as the first version of "The Three Godfathers" (1916), "The Fighting Gringo" (1917), "Hearts Up!" (1920) and "The Fox" (1921).

Carey's partnership with Ford and his tenure at Universal effectively ended in 1921, and the actor spent the rest of the decade working in a variety of mostly action pictures at other studios. Mostly these were small outfits such as Producers Distributing Corporation, Film Booking Office and Pathe, before these latter two were absorbed into RKO. Credits from this period include "The Kick Back" (1922), "The Flaming Forties" (1924), "Soft Shoes" (1925), "Slide, Kelly, Slide" (1927, in support of the considerably younger William Haines) and Clarence Brown's spectacular Alaskan adventure for MGM, "The Trail of '98" (1928).

Fifty years old at the coming of sound, Carey moved into stage work and personal appearances for a time but returned to full-time film acting in 1931. With the early sound jungle epic "Trader Horn" (1931) and such films as the important early gangster classic "Bad Company" (1931), Carey made a successful transition to solid character actor, usually playing stoics or authority figures. He did essay a few more leads in Westerns at Poverty Row studios like Mascot and Ajax in efforts like "The Devil Horse" (1932) and "The Wagon Trail" (1935) but he most often received prominent billing playing supportive roles in such handsome productions as Howard Hawks' "Barbary Coast" (1935) and, in a one-shot reunion with Ford, "The Prisoner of Shark Island" (1936). Carey's comfortably craggy face and attractively ambling monotone delivery were perfectly in keeping with the sturdy image he had always projected, and he proved himself a versatile player equally at home on the range or in modern, cosmopolitan stories such as "Kid Galahad" (1937) and "You and Me" (1938).

Some of Carey's best films were B-films of the period such as "King of Alcatraz" (1938). Especially notable was the seriocomic Western, "The Last Outlaw" (1936). Based on a story by Ford, this very early "revisionist" Western had Carey movingly playing a cowboy outlaw released from prison into an age where the frontier is no more, learning to both adapt and redeem himself. He was equally superb in one of his best-remembered later roles, as the vice president in Frank Capra's famous "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939). Even though the film paints a dark portrait of political corruption, Carey's intensely dignified, compassionate presence at the head of the Senate suggests the possibility that the young senator's (James Stewart) desperate filibuster may not be in vain. Carey deservedly earned an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor.

Carey continued giving fine performances in a wide variety of films ranging from the early film noir, "Among the Living" (1941) to Hawks' "Air Force" (1943, typically cast as the crew chief). He was especially good in the rural drama "The Shepherd of the Hills" (1941) and both he and his longtime wife, Olive Carey (also known as Olive Fuller Golden) were always welcome presences. Carey inspired newer Western stars like John Wayne and such successors to his type of role as Ben Johnson and his own son, the likable character player Harry Carey Jr (with whom he acted in Hawks' masterful "Red River" 1948). Shortly after he died, his old colleague John Ford dedicated his remake of "Three Godfathers" (1948)--with Carey Jr in one of the title roles--"to the memory of Harry Carey, bright star of the early Western sky".

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