Davy was my first friend when we got here from Germany in 1960. I wore my coonskin cap and my “outfit” with pride as I “explored” my back yard and hunted me a b’ar with my Daisy air rifle.
Fess Parker, dead at 85. He was a man, all right!
sniff
Bill
Aw, man, that is a downer.
Bummer. I loved Davy. Killed himself a bar when he was only three.
Daniel Boone was man…
I remember that series more than the Crocket movies. Used to watch reruns in the afternoons after school, circa 1971 or so.
RIP Fess Parker.
I remember watching Daniel Boone in the daytime, so I guess I caught them in reruns. Anyway, I’ve never seen Davy Crockett and I missed the coon-skin cap fad by at least a decade. But I liked the Daniel Boone show.
Dal McKennon, who played Cincinnattus in the series died last year at 90.
I thought he was at least 80 when the show was on–and I only saw that in reruns years after the original airings.
Looks like he played the part of the father (Jim Coates) in Old Yeller, too. Good to know that he has such great roles to be remembered by.
I had the coonskin cap before we ever left Germany, and I remember my Dad giving it to me, and recoiling in shock, because I didn’t know what I was holding!
I asked him about it, and he just told me to put it away in a safe place for now…
I cannot THINK of Crockett or Boone without seeing the chiseled good looks of Fess Parker.
“Well, you know, Bill, he was 85! Why you just NOW thinking about him?”
Because all my heroes aren’t supposed to die, I reckon.
Same thing with Mr. Rogers (my other friend when we got here). I was crushed when I learned he had died, and I always HATED him being “fodder” for stand-ups!
I spent a LOT of time in front of the ol’ B&W TV set, learning how to talk like y’all, and this is just a sad day for the “German Boy”. And not only just for me, but for kids who grew up with me too.
- Natural causes.
Damn right it’d be that way!
Q
I loved watching Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone on The Wonderful World of Disney. Fess Parker was instrumental in the creation of the Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, which spelled beginning of the end of the more homespun Frontier Village, where I had a summer job.
OK, let’s hear you recite the politically incorrect, schoolboy version.
Had a winery, too – I’ve had the wine.
And he had a bit part in Them!.
Funny how that works, isn’t it? You always think of them as kind of… I dunno, static? When you get to that age where you’re aware of people like actors or musical artists, you somehow expect them to be around forever, especially the ones who you grow up with. Hell, I can’t quite wrap my head around the idea of a world where all of The Beatles are dead, and we’re already halfway there.
From everything I’ve seen of him, ever (including outtakes from his show), he was one of the most genuinely nice and kind people I’ve ever seen. He gave the commencement speech at my university-alma-mater-to-be the year I graduated high school; I was later to become very jealous of that graduating class, since I was stuck with the lame-ass Secretary of Labor.
Not right now, okay? Please?
Thanks
Fess was one of the first to develop the Santa Ynez Valley as a top wine area. His winery, and that of his son Eli are among the top wineries in California. A true pioneer.
Old Yeller was on TCM just a week ago, SFG. I went downstairs for a sandwich and caught the last part of it, and then I didn’t want the sandwich anymore.
I believe Fess Parker chose his roles carefully, just as John Wayne did, and there sure isn’t anything wrong with that.
R.I.P., my friend I never met, but who I knew and loved anyway.
Y’all are just gonna have to forgive an old man’s grievin’, I reckon! :(
My local uhf station runs Daniel Boone weeknights at 9 pm.
A whole new generation of kids are growing up and loving Fess Parker. Darby Hinton played Israel, Boone’s son. He’s still alive and acting.
Fess Parker had a good life and I’ll miss him.
I always figured Fess was a nickname. Apparently not.
I had a crush on Patricia Blair as a young teen. She played Boone’s wife.
Still think she was cute in that show.
She also played Lucas McCain’s love interest in The Rifleman.
Fess Parker was one of those avuncular actors like Merlin Olsen and James Garner that you just wanted to be friends with, sit on the porch and shoot the shit with over a cold beer. I religiously watched Parker as Crockett and Boone and had a coonskin cap when I was about ten years old and they were all the rage. Adios, partner.
Not just for me, or what he meant to me, but what he meant, period.
It’s very nice that y’all brought those links to the thread.
Thank you.
Again, not for me, but just for what he meant to America at a time when she needed to remember.
My country which adopted me through my Dad, who handed me my first coonskin cap and told me to just…wait.
Glad I did, and glad I learned about those early days and The Alamo, and how hard they both fought to hew out a livin’.
It’s okay. I know, I’m “running” them both together, but to a little boy, that didn’t matter a bit. He’d (the German Boy) sort it out later.
It’s not about Davy or Dan’l after all, is it?
It’s about Mr. Fess Parker and what he made us believe.
And I believed.
I appreciate it, y’all, as I hope you’ll appreciate him!
Goin’ back to the song.
Thanks
Bill
Just think to how many raccoons this is like reading of the death of Pol Pot. (Parker was still one of the largest retailers of coonskin caps through the website for his winery hotel.