Thursday, March 18, 2010

Fess Parker, R. I. P.

Fess Parker, TV's `Davy Crockett,' dies at 85 - washingtonpost.com: "Actor Fess Parker, who became every baby boomer's idol in the 1950s and launched a craze for coonskin caps as television's Davy Crockett, died Thursday of natural causes. He was 85.

Family spokeswoman Sao Anash said Parker, who was also TV's Daniel Boone and later a major California winemaker and developer, died at his Santa Ynez Valley home. His death comes on the 84th birthday of his wife of 50 years, Marcella."

5 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Damn. Enjoyed many hours (just recently) watching his show. RIP.

Zack said...

I heard he got killed by a renegade raccoon ... who scalped him for a cap.

Anonymous said...

I had a coonskin cap, needless to say, and can still sing not only the theme song but the Mike Fink song from the River Pirates episodes.

RIP


Jeff

Ed Gorman said...

For some reason Fess Parker in any show never appealed to me and I can't tell you why. I probably didn't do much for him either.

Fred Blosser said...

I always imagined Andy Griffith as Manly Wade Wellman's John the Ballad-Singer, but Wellman himself reportedly favored Fess Parker.

I watched the Crockett shows again on DVD a couple of years ago, and they hold up very well -- I have no idea what today's youngsters would think.