RICHARD FARNSWORTH

'Richard Farnsworth' (September 1, 1920 – October 6, 2000) was an Academy Award-nominated American actor. Born in Los Angeles, California, he began his film career as a stunt man at the age of seventeen. He performed in several horse-riding stunts in such films as the Marx Brothers' ''A Day at the Races'' and Gunga Din. He received his first credit as "Dick Farnsworth" in ''Texas Across the River'' in 1966.

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Biography

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Biography

What differentiated Farnsworth from other western actors was his gradual step into acting from stunt work. Farnsworth was raised during the Great Depression. He lived with his aunt, mother and two sisters in downtown Los Angeles after his father died when he was seven years old. He had been working as a stable hand at a polo field in Los Angeles for $6 a week. When he was offered a chance to make $7 a day plus a box lunch, he started his career as a stuntman. When he was seventeen, he started by riding horses in films in 1937, in ''Marco Polo'' with Gary Cooper.
Farnsworth's career was largely in Western films, although he did appear in the television miniseries ''Roots''. In 1985, he appeared in the Canadian miniseries ''Anne of Green Gables'', winning a Gemini Award for his performance as Matthew Cuthbert. He also won a Genie Award in 1983 for his performance as stagecoach robber Bill Miner in the Canadian film ''The Grey Fox''. Another one of his prominent roles was as a suspicious sheriff in the film version of Stephen King's ''Misery''. He was on the set of ''Spartacus'' for eleven months. He laughed when he said he didn't look like a gladiator, but that's what he did, driving the chariots.
In 2000, at a press junket in Japan for ''The Straight Story'' Farnsworth was asked who his favorite western actors were. He said the best was Joel MacCrae, whom he called a working cowboy, a good horseman, looked good riding, a fine actor. Hank Fonda was next, and then John Wayne. But as a stuntman, he didn't hang much with the actors. He did his work, and would go his way. But he felt lucky he never had to get involved with the studio politics back then.
In 1979, Farnsworth was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for ''Comes a Horseman'', and in 1999 he was nominated for Best Actor for ''The Straight Story''. He said of all the awards he would have liked to have won, it would have been the Oscar. "I would've loved to have got the Oscar. At 80 years old, you don't get too many more shots at it and....well...the best horse don't always win the race. And that's how I feel about the Oscars," he said at a press junket in Japan.
When David Lynch asked to see if he wanted to be in the simple but emotional movie ''The Straight Story,'' Farnsworth had no idea who he was. Farnsworth did not like violence or swearing, and so his agent was very careful and told him that Lynch was the director who made ''The Elephant Man''. Fortunately, he liked this movie, even though it had been made 20 years prior. When Farnsworth and Lynch spoke, he again reiterated his dislikes. Lynch reassured him there would be none of that in this movie. The role, a rarity for a man his age, showed Hollywood that "there's a lot of talent out there." He garnered an Oscar nomination for the role.
When asked why he turned to acting, he indicated that a career of doing stuntwork and stuntwork coordinating had led to many sleepless nights. In addition, "The ground gets pretty hard when you're 57 years old," he said, and so he went into acting. He credited his agent for finding the right parts for him. "I couldn't do a nuclear physicist or a Philadelphia lawyer, but I've found parts where I seem to fit. When I quit doing stunts in 1977 — I haven't had any sleepless nights, the dialogue I've been doing has never bothered me. Where I had an advantage, I've been in the stunt business all my life. I started in the business in 1937 in a movie called ''Marco Polo'' with Gary Cooper. The camera never bothered me, 'cause I was doing my stuntwork, and I was oblivious to it. But there was a lot of actors who came from NY from the stage and the camera really bothered them. I had the advantage of not having the camera bother me."
Richard Farnsworth has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street. In 1997, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Farnsworth was married to Margaret "Maggie" Hill for 38 years. She is the mother his two children, Diamond and Missy. She passed away in 1985. Toward the end of his life, he met Jewly Van Valin on the bridle trail, a stewardess 35 years his junior. Farnsworth and Van Valin started riding together, and were engaged. When asked about it at the press junket in Japan, Farnsworth recounted that a doctor first said, "Mr. Farnsworth, Jewel's only in her 40s, and you're almost 80. Well, this could be fatal." Farnsworth came back with a retort, "Well, if she dies, she dies!"
He was well liked and busy in his community of Lincoln, New Mexico, where he had a sixty-acre ranch, and moved after his wife's death. Farnsworth was the spokesperson for the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium, an annual event in Ruidoso, NM. He made a VHS with cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell called ''Buckaroo Bard''. He also helped with the Last Great Cattle Drive of This Millennium in 1999. Shortly before his passing, he was presented with an award from the Governor of New Mexico for Excellence and Achievement in the Arts.
Farnsworth was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer in the early '90s. By 1999, he had been diagnosed as having terminal bone cancer. He made the movie ''The Straight Story'' while in considerable pain, and the crew marvelled that he hung on.
Shortly after ''The Straight Story'' was released, Farnsworth traveled to Japan for a press junket. In this 30-minute interview with members of the Japanese press, Farnsworth recounts a career that spanned from working as a stuntman on ''Marco Polo'' in 1937 with Gary Cooper to the many John Wayne movies he was in.
At the age of 80, Farnsworth — no longer able to bear the physical pain of the disease — shot himself with a single bullet at his ranch in Lincoln, New Mexico. He is survived by his son, Diamond Farnsworth, a stunt coordinator, daughter Missy, and fianceé Jewely Van Valin. He is interred with his wife Margaret in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

External links

★

★ Richard Farnsworth's Gravesite

★ Richard Farnsworth at NNDB

★ Good Interview by Guy Flatley of the NY Times

★ The Cowboy Kind Farnsworth wrote the forward to this book by Darrell Arnold. Published posthumously in 2001.

★ 1999 Disney Press Kit For ''The Straight Story'' with publicity photos

★ 1998 Des Moines Register Article

★ ''The Straight Story'' on Lynch Net Complete Film notes, interviews, photographs, audio and trailers 1999

★ [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,278109,00.html Obituary Cowboy's Way by Jeff Jensen, 2000