Last night while watching Svengooli's feature film The Village of the Giants, I recognized one of my old TV favorites, Johnny Crawford, from The Rifleman. Out of curiosity, I searched the web for information on what became of him. Here is what I found:You wouldn't think a former rodeo cowboy would end up leading a dance band that specializes in music from the '20s and '30s, but readers may recognize the name Johnny Crawford for another reason: For five years, Crawford played Mark McCain, Chuck Connors' son on one of the most memorable Westerns from the early years of network TV, "The Rifleman."
Crawford, now 63, has amassed a lengthy resume over the years. In addition to his current job leading the Johnny Crawford Dance Orchestra, he's an Army veteran, stage and film actor, former teenage heartthrob and one of the Mouseketeers from the first season of "The Mickey Mouse Club" in 1955.
Those who remember Crawford on that show (Disney dropped his option when they pared the kiddie crop from 24 to 12 after 1955) or his Emmy-nominated role in "The Rifleman" may wonder how Crawford managed to survive the pressures of being a child star and, in his teenage years, a pop star ("Daydreams," "Patti Ann," "Cindy's Birthday"). But talk to him now and you'll quickly understand why: It has to do with the combination of a centered upbringing and having so many other interests he probably never had time to crash and burn.
"I always say that life is not easy for anybody," he says by phone from his Los Angeles office. "People hear about the young actors who have a rough life, but there are plenty of other kids who aren't actors who have a rough time, too, and I don't know if the ratio is any different."
In the late '80s, a two-year stint as a vocalist for Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks convinced Crawford that he could make a living performing the music from the '20s and '30s that he obsessively loves. He formed his dance orchestra in 1990 and is reissuing the band's 2008 CD, "Sweepin' the Clouds Away" this month. It's already available online and will be in record stores by June 16, his publicist swears, although Crawford the perfectionist is still tinkering with it.
Musical family
Crawford came by his musical interest through family ties. His paternal grandfather had been a jockey in Chicago, but a fall from a horse redirected his career toward music. He became first a song plugger and later an important music publisher. Although he died before Crawford was born, his grandfather left a trove of sheet music and original recordings that his grandson fell in love with.
"My parents bought a record player for my brother (former actor Bobby Crawford) and me, for our room, and I grew up playing these dance band records - Eileen Stanley recordings, Paul Whiteman. I just loved 'em."
Inevitably, as he became a teenager, he "got sidetracked by Johnny Ray and Frankie Laine, but then I would every once in a while put on one of those old dance band records. And early on I remember thinking, this is really wonderful and it doesn't sound like any of this other stuff I was hearing."
His mother's side of the family was also musical, he adds. His maternal grandfather was a violinist who became concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic in 1918 and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the late '20s, and his mother was a classically trained pianist who continued to play at home even after she developed her acting career.
When Crawford was just 5, a producer wanted to cast him in a stage play.
"My mother, who was still doing theater work around L.A. at the time, was not comfortable with the idea of us getting into acting," Crawford says. "She was afraid it would lead to disappointment. So they put it to me. I felt kind of guilty that I should want to do it, but I said, 'Yeah, I'd like to do that.' "
One of first Mousketeers
After a number of small parts in film, theater and TV, he was tapped as one of the original Mouseketeers when Disney unleashed the daily "Mickey Mouse Club," in glorious black and white, and changed the whole notion of children's TV in the United States. For millions of Baby Boomer kids, even more than "Howdy Doody," "Hopalong Cassidy" or "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," "Mickey Mouse" became destination TV.
Although disappointed to lose the Mouseketeer gig, Crawford kept working between 1956 and the start of "The Rifleman" in 1958. Like lots of kids in the '50s, Crawford was nuts about Westerns, but he kept getting overlooked for those parts because he didn't look like the blond, muscular idea of an American kid. Finally, a role in what he calls "a grade-B movie that was really a grade-C movie," "The Courage of Black Beauty," enabled him to learn to ride horses, and that made him more attractive when the next big Western part came along.
"The Rifleman" was originally an episode of "The Zane Grey Theater," a TV series produced by former film crooner Dick Powell. As excited as he was to be doing a Western, Crawford was just as thrilled to be working for Powell because he was already a fan of music and film musicals from the '20s and '30s. Powell at first thought the 12-year-old "was putting him on," Crawford says, "when I asked him about 'Hollywood Hotel.' "
After "The Rifleman" ended, Crawford kept working, snagging roles in TV and film. He has more than 60 TV credits to his name, appeared in films such as "El Dorado" and "The Naked Ape," spent two years in the Army before his discharge in 1967 and then turned to stage work until he formed the orchestra.
Although Crawford keeps contact information for some 500 musicians he can call on to work with the orchestra, it's not always as easy as just picking up the phone.
"Trying to play the music in an authentic style that is no longer used is a real challenge, and I find I have better luck with younger musicians," he concedes. "They don't have as much attitude."
Authenticity is important to Crawford's music, which is why many of the familiar songs on his album, such as "Isn't It Romantic" and "You Were Meant for Me," may not sound like the versions we heard at our cousin's wedding or even on original recordings and old films. One reason has to do with the limitations of early recording equipment. But the real difference has to do with the orchestrations, Crawford explains. Today, "wedding bands" will offer predictable arrangements of classic songs in a single key. But the original orchestrations were far more complicated, with key and tempo changes that might vary from orchestra to orchestra.
More to the point, the orchestrations were meant for unamplified performances in concert halls and hotel ballrooms that were specifically designed for orchestral performances.
"My CD is really about the orchestrations," Crawford says. "This music is so rich, and what's exciting is that, because of the Internet and iTunes, young people can discover it for the first time."
Today, Johnny Crawford lives in Los Angeles and is separated from his wife, Charlotte, the high school sweetheart he reconnected with in 1990 and married five years later.
These days, rodeos and "The Rifleman" may be behind him, but you don't get the idea he's wallowing in the past.
Except, of course, for the music he's loved since he was just a little kid, playing his grandfather's old 78s on his bedroom record player.
"Sweepin' the Clouds Away" is available at www.cdbaby. com.
Hear a young Johnny Crawford sing Cindy's Birthday
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=36155903
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