| Eddie Dean (1907 - 1999) and Al 'Lash' LaRue (1917 - 1996) were certainly unique individuals ... their backgrounds and experiences were different, almost opposite of each other.
Dean was born Edgar Glosup in 1907 in Texas. LaRue was born Reu Alfred Wilson in 1917 in Michigan. Somehow, someway, these two performers came together in 1945 at Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). Eddie Dean was PRC's new 'singing cowboy' and beginning a series of westerns to be filmed in Cinecolor, a two-strip color process (similar to Republic's TruColor) that was much less expensive than the more traditonal three-strip Technicolor. Dean and LaRue's first film together was Dean's SONG OF OLD WYOMING (PRC, 1945). They would pair up in two more westerns, WILD WEST (PRC, 1946) and THE CARAVAN TRAIL (PRC, 1946), before riding separate trails during the decline of the B western in the post World War II years. (Note: the Dean/LaRue film, PRAIRIE OUTLAWS, was not new, but a shortened, B&W version of WILD WEST.) A half dozen or so years after SONG OF OLD WYOMING, the starring careers of Eddie Dean and Lash LaRue were over. Collectively, these two men would make about forty starring films in total. Dean would be remembered as having the greatest singing voice of the B western cowboys. And LaRue would be forever recalled as the black-garbed, bullwhip-cracking, anti-hero who became known as 'Lash'. Want to read and see more about Eddie Dean and Lash LaRue. Click on the images below, and you'll be transported to their webpages. |
