 | The 'brains' and 'action' heavies who had meaty roles and lots of dialog ... and the players who were fathers, ranch owners, lawman, mayors, judges, lawyers, storekeepers, newspaper editors, wardens, etc. |
| Charles K. French 1860 - 1952 |  (Courtesy of Jack Tillmany) |
 Above are Buck Jones and Charles K. French in THE CRIMSON TRAIL (Universal, 1935) and a lobby card from that film is shown below. French was in his mid-seventies when he did this film. |  | Another of the kindly "father figures" of the B western was Charles K. French, and until I did this section on him, I never realized his age (he was born before the Civil War). He has about 75 sound film credits of which 42 are westerns and 7 are serials. This Ohio native began work in Hollywood in early silent films for D. W. Griffith and others. While researching for their Best Of The Badmen book, authors Boyd Magers, Bob Nareau and Bobby Copeland discovered that Charles K. is not the father of Ted French (1903-1978), who worked in about twenty oaters during the 1940s. And he is not the grandfather of Victor French (1934-1989), the burly and bearded helper to Michael Landon on TV's LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE and HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN. However, Ted and Charles K. were close friends, and Charles became Victor's "adopted grandfather". You may want to go to the In Search Of ... page on the Old Corral. The California Death Records database has a record on Charles Ekrauss French - birthdate and location of 1/17/1860 and Ohio, and he passed away on 8/2/1952.
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Jim Tipton's Find A Grave website has a record for Charles K. French who is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. Note that the name on the grave marker shows Charles E. Krauss French: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10810
 (Courtesy of Les Adams) Above from L-to-R are Lafe McKee, George Chesebro, Jack Perrin, Slim Whitaker, Benny Corbett (on Whitaker's back), and in the background at the table is Charles K. French. From RIDIN' GENTS (Reliable, 1934), one of the Bud 'n' Ben shorts starring Perrin and Corbett.  Above from L-to-R are Charles Brinley, Buck Jones, Charles K. French and Paul Fix in a re-release lobby card from THE CRIMSON TRAIL (Universal, 1935). |
Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has information on: