Walter Brennan - Career

Career

Finding himself broke, he began taking extra parts in 1929 and then bit parts in as many films as he could, including The Invisible Man (1933), the Three Stooges short Woman Haters (1934), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and also worked as a stunt man. In the 1930s, he began appearing in higher-quality films and received more substantial roles as his talent was recognized. This culminated with his receiving the very first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Swan Bostrom in the period film Come and Get It (1936). Two years later he portrayed town drunk and accused murderer Muff Potter in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Throughout his career, Brennan was frequently called upon to play characters considerably older than he was in real life. The loss of many teeth in a 1932 accident, rapidly thinning hair, thin build, and gravelly voice all made him seem older than he really was. He used these physical features to great effect. In many of his film roles, Brennan wore dentures; in Northwest Passage—a film set in the late 18th century—he wore a special dental prosthesis which made him appear to have rotting and broken teeth.

For director Jean Renoir: Brennan played the top-billed lead in Swamp Water (1941), a drama also featuring Walter Huston.

In Sergeant York (also 1941), he played a sympathetic preacher and dry goods store owner who advised the title character played by Gary Cooper. He was particularly skilled in playing the hero's sidekick or as the "grumpy old man" as in To Have or Have Not (1944), the Humphrey Bogart film which introduced Lauren Bacall. Though he was hardly ever cast as the villain, notable exceptions were his roles as Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner (1940), for which he won his third best supporting actor Academy Award, 'Old Man' Clanton in My Darling Clementine (1946) opposite Henry Fonda, and the Cinerama production How the West Was Won (1962) as the murderous Colonel Jeb Hawkins.

From 1957-1963, he starred in the television series The Real McCoys. The comedy about a poor West Virginia family that relocated to a farm in southern California ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962 before switching to CBS for a final season as simply The McCoys. Brennan joined with the series creator, Irving Pincus, to form Brennan-Westgate-Marterto Productions.

Brennan appeared in several other movies and television programs, usually, as an eccentric "old timer" or "prospector". Prior to the launching of The Real McCoys, Brennan appeared as himself as a musical judge in the 1953-1954 ABC series Jukebox Jury. On May 30, 1957, he guest starred on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. He also made a few recordings, the most popular being "Old Rivers" about an eccentric but much-beloved farmer; it was released as a single in 1962 by Liberty Records with "The Epic Ride Of John H. Glenn" on the flip side, and peaked at number 5 in the U.S. Billboard charts. In his music, Brennan sometimes worked with Allen "Puddler" Harris, a Louisiana native who was a member of the original Ricky Nelson Band. He also co-starred with James Garner in the 1969 Support Your Local Sheriff!, playing the head of the Danby Family.

Brennan starred as wealthy executive Walter Andrews in the short-lived 1964-1965 series The Tycoon, with Van Williams. In 1967, he starred in another series, The Guns of Will Sonnett, in which he played a man in search of his gunfighter son, James, with his grandson, Jeff, played by Dack Rambo. After the series went off the air in 1969, Brennan continued working in both television and feature films. He received top billing over Pat O'Brien in the TV-movie The Over-the-Hill Gang in 1969 and Fred Astaire in The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again the following year. From 1970 to 1971, he was a regular on the show To Rome With Love, which was his last TV show as a member of the permanent cast.