Join C&I in saying hail and farewell to the Western icons that we’ve lost in 2024 thus far.
Seems like the year just began, and we’re already feeling the loss of those that have left us in the past four months. Help us honor the legacy of these Western greats by sharing in their memory.
N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday was widely credited with inspiring a renaissance in Native American literature with the publication of his 1968 Pulitzer Prizewinning novel House Made of Dawn. The Lawton, Oklahoma-born author, poet, essayist, and academic also drew upon his Kiowa heritage in The Way to Rainy Mountain, a 1969 book based on tales told to him by his grandmother. Momaday held the position of his native state’s poet laureate for two years and was an on-camera interviewee in several documentaries including Ken Burns’ The American Buffalo (2023). In 2007, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush for works “that celebrate and preserve Native American art and oral tradition.” Momaday died January 24 in Santa Fe. He was 89.
>> ReadN. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn.
Don Murray
Don Murray earned an Oscar nomination for his breakthrough performance in Bus Stop (1956) as a rodeo cowboy who falls for an ambitious singer (Marilyn Monroe). He also appeared in the western movies From Hell to Texas (1958), These Thousand Hills (1959), One Foot in Hell(1960), Kid Rodelo and The Plainsman (both 1966), and co-starred with Otis Young in The Outcasts, the 1968 – 69 series credited as the first TV western with a racially integrated lead cast. Murray died February 2 at age 94 in Goleta, California.
>> Check out more classic romantic westerns.
Toby Keith
Toby Keith was a proudly outspoken and sometimes controversial figure in the world of country music and beyond. Despite (or maybe because) of that, he claimed a fan base — and logged record sales — that could be counted in tens of millions. The Oklahoma-born singer-songwriter charted 20 No. 1 singles throughout his career including “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” “I Love This Bar,” “Beer for My Horses,” “As Good as I Once Was,” and “How Do You Like Me Now?!” In 2021, he and Ricky Skaggs were among a handful of artists given National Medals of the Arts by President Donald Trump. Keith also starred in two feature films: Broken Bridges (2006), which cast him opposite such notables as Burt Reynolds and Tess Harper as a faded country star who seeks reconciliation with members of his extended family; and Beer for My Horses (2008), a rowdy comedy-drama in which Keith portrayed a small-town Oklahoma deputy sheriff pitted against a Mexican drug lord who kidnapped his girlfriend (Gina Gershon). “Toby Keith was big, brash, and never bowed down or slowed down for anyone,” wrote Kyle Young, CEO of Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. “He relished being an outsider and doing things his way. For three decades, he reflected the defiant strength of the country music audience. His memory will continue to stand tall.” Keith was 62 when he passed away February 5 in Oklahoma after a lengthy battle with cancer.
>> Read our full tribute to Toby Keith.
Robert M. Young
Robert M. Young earned his spurs with The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, the acclaimed 1982 western drama that was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2022. Edward James Olmos played the title role in the fact-based movie, which focused on the 1901 manhunt for a poor Tejano farmer accused of killing a Texas sheriff. Young’s other credits as a filmmaker include features starring Paul Simon (One-Trick Pony), Farrah Fawcett (Extremities), and Tom Hulce and Ray Liotta (Dominick and Eugene). Young passed away February 6 at age 99 in Los Angeles.
>> Read our tribute to The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.
Charles Dierkop
Charles Dierkop, a veteran character actor best known for playing heavies in film and television, likely is most familiar to C&I readers for his portrayal of Hole in the Wall Gang outlaw George “Flat Nose” Curry in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). He later appeared opposite Butch Cassidy star Paul Newman again as Floyd, the bodyguard who serves as protection for Robert Shaw’s crime boss Doyle Lonnegan, in The Sting (1973). During a career that spanned more than six decades, Dierkop guested on several TV series, including Gunsmoke (three times), Bonanza, Lancer, The High Chaparral, Kung Fu, Alias Smith and Jones, and Bearcats!, and had a continuing role on the 1974 – 78 TV series Police Woman. He was 87 when he passed away on February 25 in Los Angeles.
>> Get the story behind the iconic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Ron Harper
Ron Harper, best remembered by television viewers for his roles in Land of the Lost (1976) and the 1974 Planet of the Apes spinoff, frequently guested on such TV series as Tales of Wells Fargo, Wagon Train, The Deputy, The Tall Man, Shotgun Slade, Laramie, The Big Valley, and Walker, Texas Ranger. Harper died on March 21 in Los Angeles. He was 91.
>> Discover more beloved classic western TV series.
Louis Gossett Jr.
Louis Gossett Jr. earned awards and critical acclaim for his vivid performances as the sage Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 TV miniseries Roots and the demanding gunnery sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 drama An Officer and a Gentleman. He also made a memorable impression early in his film career opposite James Garner in Skin Game (1971), an audaciously amusing comedy-drama about two brassy pre-Civil War con artists who operate a traveling scam in 1857 Missouri and Kansas. Working in tandem with Jason O’Rourke (Gossett), a New Jersey-born free Black man, smooth operator Quincy Drew (Garner) fleeces gullible marks with a cynical game plan: First, he sells his “slave” for top dollar; then, he helps Jason escape, so they can repeat their ploy in the next town. Gossett repeated his role as O’Rourke in Sidekicks (1974), a TV-movie spinoff with Larry Hagman in the Garner role; starred in the made-for-television westerns El Diablo (1990) and Return to Lonesome Dove (1993); and guested on such series as Cowboy in Africa, The Young Rebels, Bonanza, McCloud, and Alias Smith and Jones. Gossett died at age 87 on March 29 in Santa Monica, California.
>> Read our full tribute to Louis Gossett Jr.
Cole Brings Plenty
Cole Brings Plenty, who identified himself as Mnicoujou Lakota, co-starred in the first season of the Yellowstone spinoff 1923 as Pete Plenty Clouds, a Native American sheepherder who comes to the aid of a young woman fleeing an abusive Indian School. The nephew of actor Mo Brings Plenty, he and his uncle visited Washington, D.C., in May 2023 to talk with the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs about the boarding schools and other issues facing Native Americans. Cole Brings Plenty also appeared in episodes of the INSP western TV series Into the Wild Frontier and The Tall Tales of Jim Bridger, and was a media student at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. He died April 5 at the age of 27.
>> Read our full tribute to Cole Brings Plenty.
From our May/June and July 2024 issues.
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