Biography
Born in Oklahoma of Cherokee-Irish stock, Ben Johnson virtually grew up in the saddle. A champion rodeo rider in his teens, Johnson headed to Hollywood in 1940 to work as a horse wrangler on Howard Hughes'
The Outlaw. He went on to double for Wild Bill Elliot and other western stars, then in 1947 was hired as
Henry Fonda's riding double in director
John Ford's
Fort Apache (1948). Ford sensed star potential in the young, athletic, slow-speaking Johnson, casting him in the speaking role of Trooper Tyree in both
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and
Rio Grande (1950). In 1950, Ford co-starred Johnson with another of his protégés, Harry Carey Jr., in Wagonmaster (1950). Now regarded as a classic, Wagonmaster failed to register at the box office; perhaps as a result, full stardom would elude Johnson for over two decades. He returned periodically to the rodeo circuit, played film roles of widely varying sizes (his best during the 1950s was the pugnacious Chris in
George Stevens'
Shane [1953]), and continued to double for horse-shy stars. He also did plenty of television, including the recurring role of Sleeve on the 1966 western series The Monroes. A favorite of director
Sam Peckinpah, Johnson was given considerable screen time in such Peckinpah gunfests as
Major Dundee (1965) and
The Wild Bunch (1969). It was
Peter Bogdanovich, a western devotee from way back, who cast Johnson in his Oscar-winning role: the sturdy, integrity-driven movie house owner Sam the Lion in
The Last Picture Show (1971). When not overseeing his huge horse-breeding ranch in Sylmar, California, Ben Johnson has continued playing unreconstructed rugged individualists in such films as
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1991) and
Radio Flyer (1992), in TV series like
Dream West (1986, wherein Johnson was cast as frontier trailblazer Jim Bridger), and made-for-TV films along the lines of the
Bonanza revivals of the 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide