
Charles Starrett
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Charles Robert Starrett (March 28, 1903 – March 22, 1986) was an American actor best known for his starring role in the Durango Kid western series. When he retired he held the record for starring in the longest-running string of feature films (131 titles, half of them being "Durango Kid" films, for Columbia Pictures). A graduate of Worcester Academy in 1922, Starrett went on to study at Dartmouth College. While on the Dartmouth football team he was hired to play a football extra in the film The Quarterback (1926). Bitten by the acting bug, Starrett played minor roles in films and leading roles in stage plays. In 1928, he was a member of the Walker Company, a repertory theatre troupe headed by Stuart Walker. He played the romantic lead in Fast and Loose (1930), which also featured Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, and Frank Morgan. He also starred in the Canadian production The Viking (1931), filmed on location in Newfoundland, which had begun as a Paramount Pictures project. After that he was very active for the next two years but his roles were unremarkable. He was featured in Our Betters (1933), Murder on the Campus (1933). and in his most charming role as a young doctor named Orion in "Along Came Love", with the vivacious co-star Irene Hervey. Offscreen, he helped organize the Screen Actors Guild.
Known For

The villainous Dr. Fu Manchu races against a team of Englishmen to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan, because he wants to use the relics to cause an uprising in the East to wipe out the white race.
The Mask of Fu Manchu

Four survivors of a ship wreck are stranded on a deserted island, including a woman and the man she believes is responsible for the murder which her brother is in prison for.
Jungle Bride
A London taxicab driver cashes in on a big sweepstakes ticket and becomes the prey of a confidence-gang that sells him a nag of a cavalry horse on the claim that it is a brother to a current Derby winner.
Call It Luck

Durango, aka Steve Rollins rides into town with saddle pal Smiley Burnette. The boys go to the rescue of pretty Kathleen Case, who is being victimized by greedy relatives.
Junction City

Cimarron has found a lost treasure and the outlaw gang knows about it. They have made him a prisoner and are trying to get the location from him. However, he has sent for his friend Steve Reynolds and the Durango Kid will soon be on the job.
The Fighting Frontiersman

The Kinkaids and the Harpers both run stage lines and are friendly competitors. Appleby is after the stage line and convinces the two owners to build a spur line to the same town. Then he has both projects sabotaged pitting the friends against each other and running them out of money.
Texas Stagecoach

Foxhall Ridgeway, arriving in New York City from the West, stumbles onto a murder in the hotel room next to his. He gets tangled up into the affair, and with the aid of Phoebe, the hotel telephone operator who takes a liking to him, and also Countess Louise Browssiloff, who innocently had left some personal belongings in the murdered man's room and is most anxious to recover the incriminating evidence, Foxhall solves the murder mystery.
One New York Night

Charles Starrett returns as The Durango Kid in Columbia's El Dorado Pass. It all begins when Durango, in his everyday guise of Steve Clanton, is falsely accused of robbing a stagecoach. The genuine criminal is not only a thief but a coin collector, searching for a valuable specimen by staging holdups.
El Dorado Pass

Starrett tries to prevent a range war between settlers and the Native Americans. Blue and his fellow scoundrels think they can profit from the bloodshed,but the Durango Kid along with a couple of precocious youngsters put an end to Blue's terrorism.
Snake River Desperadoes

Charles Starrett returns as the Durango Kid in Columbia's Rough, Tough, West. For most of the film, however, Starrett is known as "Steve Holden," a former Texas Ranger who comes to a wide-open mining town to visit an old friend (Jack -- later Jock -- Mahoney). Alas, said friend has turned bad, and is busy arranging a major land grab when Steve arrives on the scene. With deep regret, our hero dons his Durango disguise to thwart his ex-friend's criminal activities.
The Rough, Tough West

A Western-genre narrative, loosely woven from old clips from B-Western features.
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

A man meets the daughter of his lover and they begin to fall in love.
Desirable

Elmer Stone, quarterback of the 1899 Colton College football team vows to remain a student until Colton beats its biggest rival, State University. Twenty-seven years later, Elmer is still in school and is a classmate of his son, Jack. Other than driving a milk wagon in his spare time, Jack is also the quarterback of the football team. A matter of his eligibility comes up but he is cleared and goes out to do-or-die for Colton against State University. Maybe they will win The Big Game, and Jack's father can get a life...and a job.
The Quarterback

A major Indian uprising is expected and Wyoming military posts are alerted. Colonel Dennison is meeting with Chief Eagle and his son Running Wolf when Chief Eagle is mysteriously shot. Steve Holden, an agent for the government peace commission, with the aid of a wandering shoemaker, Smiley, discover the troubles and the Chief's murder have been instigated by Cronin, the regimental scout, for personal gain for he and his gang of outlaws.
Laramie

After losing their Missouri home during the Great Depression, the Skitch family pulls up stakes and heads west to California to begin life anew. Comedy, released in 1933.
Mr. Skitch

The seemingly happy relationship between Tony and Jim is threatened when his manipulative, seductive former fiancee visits.
This Man Is Mine

In this western, a ranch foreman and the bosses son go to a saloon to slake their thirst and find themselves in the midst of a battle started by the feisty saloon owner's wicked ex-husband who loots the safe in the ensuing scuffle.
Lawless Plainsmen

Charles Starrett goes up against an entire family of criminals posing as respectable citizens in this entry in Columbia's long-running Durango Kid Western series.
Trail of the Rustlers

During the American Civil War, Valette Bedford waits patiently for her husband Duncan Bedford, to return home, praying that she will not become a widow.
So Red the Rose

Ted Haley rides to his brother's ranch and finds him dying from a knife wound. The brother names Sol Rothert as his killer. Leaving the house, Ted doesn't notice a mysterious man watching him, but he sees a rider gallop up to the house and enter, and Ted rushes to investigate.