Al St. John

Acting September 9, 1893 (69 years old) January 21, 1963 Santa Ana, California, USA

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Al St. John (September 10, 1893 – January 21, 1963) in his persona of Fuzzy Q. Jones basically defined the role and concept of "comical sidekick" to cowboy heroes from 1930 to 1951. St. John also created a character, "Stoney," in the first of a continuing Western film series, The Three Mesquiteers, that was later played (at a low point in his own career) by John Wayne. Born in Santa Ana, California, St. John entered silent films around 1912 and soon rose to co-starring and starring roles in short comic films from a variety of studios. His uncle, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, may have helped him in his early days at Mack Sennett Studios, but talent kept him working. He was slender, sandy-haired, handsome and a remarkable acrobat. St. John frequently appeared as Arbuckle's mischievously villainous rival for the attentions of leading ladies like Mabel Normand, and worked with Arbuckle and Charles Chaplin in The Rounders (1914). The most critically praised film from St. John's period with Arbuckle remains Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916) with Normand. The name Fuzzy originally belonged to a different actor, John Forrest “Fuzzy“ Knight, who took on the role of cowboy sidekick before St. John. As the studio first intended to hire Knight for the western series but then gave the role to St. John instead, he took on the nickname of his rival for his screen character. In most of his films, screen time was set aside for St. John to do a sort of solo comedy act, emphasizing amazing pratfalls and acrobatics. He might "find" a bicycle on a fairground set, and do an astonishing sequence of acrobatic stunts on the cycle, or he might try to capture a rat, bat, skunk, gopher, or bug with hilarious and chaotic consequences. Another stunt which he used in nearly every Western was virtually his trademark: he would mount his horse in apparently the standard manner, but somehow wind up sitting facing backward, and often would ride off with the hero in this unusual orientation. When Crabbe left PRC (according to interviews, in disgust at their increasingly low budgets), St. John was paired with new star Lash LaRue. Ultimately, St. John made more than 80 Westerns as Fuzzy. His last film was released in 1952. From that time on until his death in 1963 in Lyons, Georgia, he made personal appearances at fairs and rodeos, and travelled with the Tommy Scott Wild West Show. Altogether, Al St. John acted in 346 movies, spanning four decades from 1912 to 1952. Description above from the Wikipedia article Al St. John, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Al St. John

Biography

Movies 275

The General

Caught in a Cabaret

The Golden Age of Comedy

The Lone Rider in Cheyenne

Start Cheering

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford

Valley of the Sun

Exposed

Tillie's Punctured Romance

Won in a Closet

Marked Men

A Lawman Is Born

Billy The Kid's Round-Up

The Muppets Go to the Movies

Mabel's Married Life

The Dance of Life

A Face in the Fog

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

Bar 20 Rides Again

His Brother's Ghost

The Painted Desert

Love Nest on Wheels

The Lone Rider Rides On

Frontier Outlaws

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Texas Justice

Knight of the Plains

Mabel's Strange Predicament

I'm from Arkansas

Tango Tangles

Billy The Kid's Fighting Pals

Return of the Lash

Wolves of the Range

Love

The Garden of Weeds

Fatty and Mabel’s Simple Life

That Little Band Of Gold

Mabel's Busy Day

The Lone Rider in Ghost Town

Raiders of Red Gap

Death Rides the Plains

The Law of 45's

Billy the Kid's Range War

Billy the Kid Trapped

Moonlight on the Range

Melody of the Plains

The Kid Rides Again

The New Janitor

Billy the Kid in Santa Fe

Fatty's Magic Pants

Son of Billy the Kid

Days of Thrills and Laughter

His Sister's Kids

His Prehistoric Past

She Goes to War

Fugitive of the Plains

Mabel and Fatty’s Married Life

Stagecoach Outlaws

Li'l Abner

Mabel, Fatty and the Law

His Private Secretary

Stout Hearts But Weak Knees

Rustlers' Hideout

The Voice of Hollywood

Billy the Kid Outlawed

The Plumber

High Spots

The Cook

The Butcher Boy

Murder on the Yukon

The Knockout

Law of the Lash

The Scarecrow

The Lone Rider Crosses the Rio

He Did and He Didn’t

His Wife's Mistake

The Black Lash