Background
Ben Johnson was born on 13 June 1918 in Foraker, Oklahoma, United States.
Ben Johnson was born on 13 June 1918 in Foraker, Oklahoma, United States.
He got into pictures first when he worked as a wrangler on The Outlaw (43, Howard Hughes). He doubled in dangerous sequences for John Wayne and Joel McGrea, and in a few vears lie was in real parts: The Naughty Nineties (45, Jean Yarbrough); Badman’s Territory (46, Tim Whean); Wyoming (47, Joseph Kane); Fort Apache (48, John Ford); 3 Godfathers (48, Ford); as Sergeant Tvree in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (49, Ford); Mighty foe Young (49, Ernest B. Sehoedsaek); as Travis Blue in Wagonmaster (50, Ford); Fort Defiance (51, John Rawlins); Wild Stallion (52, Lewis D. Collins); and loyally letting a pint- size Alan Ladd beat him up in Shane (53, George Stevens).
He was in Oklahoma! (55, Fred Zinnemann); Rebel in Town (56, Alfred J. Werker); War Drums (57, Reginald Le Borg); Fort Bowie (57, Howard W. Koch); Slim Carter (57, Richard Bartlett); Ten Who Dared (60, William Beaudine); Tomboy and the Chamj) (61, Francis D. Lyon); One-Eyed Jacks (61, Marlon Brando); Cheyenne Autumn (64, Ford); Major Dundee (64, Sam Peckinpah); The Rare Breed (66, Andrew V. McLaglen); Will Penny (67, Tom Gries); and Hang 'Em High (67, Ted Post).
He played Tector Gorch, brother to Warren Oates’s Lvle, in The Wild Bunch (69, Peckinpah); The Undefeated (69, McLaglen); Ride a Northbound Horse (69, Robert Totten); Chisum (70, McLaglen); weather-beaten, wistful, and restrained as Sam the Lion in The Last Picture Show (71, Peter Bogdanovich), and winning the supporting actor Oscar; Something Big (71, McLaglen); Corky (71, Leonard Horn); Junior Bonner (72, Peckinpah); as the villain in The Getaway (73, Peckinpah); as Melvin Purvis, every bit as set on celebrity as Dillinger (73, John Milius); Kid Blue (73, fames Frawley); Blood Sport (73, Jerold Freedman); Runaway! (73, David Lowell
Rich); The Train Robbers (73, Burt Kennedy); The Red Pony (73, Totten); Locusts (74, Richard T. Heffron); as the tolerant police chief in The Sit garland Express (74, Steven Spielberg); Rite the Bullet (75, Richard Brooks); Hustle (75, Robert Aldrich); The Savage Bees (76, Bruce Geller); Breakheart Pass (76, Cries); The Town that Dreaded Sundown (77, Charles B. Pierce); The Greatest (77, Cries); Greyeagle (77, Pierce); The Swann (78, Irwin Allen); The Sacketts (79, Totten); Wild Times (79, Richard Compton); Ruckus (80, Max Kleven); The Hunter (SO. Buzz kulik); Soggy Bottom U.S.A. (80, Ted Flicker); Terror Train (80, Roger Spottiswoode); Tex (82, Tim Hunter); The Shadow Riders (82, McLaglen); Champions (83. John Irvin); Red Dawn (84, Mil- ins); Wild Horses (85, Dick Lowry); Chernj 2000 (86. Steve Dejamatt); Let's Get Harry (86, Stuart Rosenberg); Trespass (86, Loren Bivens); Dark Before Dawn (88, Totten); Stranger On My Land (88, Larry Elikann); My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (90, Rosenberg); The Chase (91, Paul Wendkos); on TV in Bonanza: The Return (93, Jerry Jameson); Angels in the Outfield (94, William Dear); The Evening Star (96, Robert Marling); Ruby Jean and Joe (96, Geoffrey Sax).
Johnson has always been a rider, a man acquainted with horses. He was a rodeo cowboy once, and a horse rancher in Arizona. Along the wav, he kept company with the picture business, and plenty enough times acquit-ted himself as an absolutely natural actor. He acted from the saddle at first, but later on there was not a horse in sight, and there was Johnson (with Strasbergians for company), rising to a well- deserved Oscar.