Fess Parker made his initial splash as an actor in 1954, playing a supporting role in the giant ant classic Them!, then quickly came hack down from the science fiction universe to Earth. Well, halfway to Earth. As a result of Them!, he landed high on a mountaintop in Tennessee, tackling the star-making title role in Davy Crockett, a "Frontierland" trilogy seen on ABC-TV's Wednesday night anthology series Disneyland in 1954-55.
"Crockett mania" swept the younger generation like nothing before or, perhaps, since. As hot as the later crazes for Elvis Presley or the Beatles, it was a smash hit, with related merchandise (3,000 items!) ranging from phonograph records ("The Ballad of Davy Crockett" topped the music charts) to vinyl swimming pools. The price of raccoon fur jumped from 25 cents to $8 a pound as 5,000 coonskin caps a day were sold to fans of the show (and the actor) that had taken America by storm. As Disney unleashes a new retelling of The Alamo (with Billy Bob Thornton as Crockett) in April, STARLOG seizes the opportunity — off-topic as it might be — to look back at one of the first great heroes, and role models, of the Baby Boomer generation.
A native of Fort Worth, Texas, and the son of a tax assessor, Parker was a six-foot-five, 26-year-old Navy veteran when he came out to California in 1950 and enrolled at USC, where he studied at its School of Theater. He soon landed a role ("I was listed as 'Seaman, Fireman and Others'!") in a West Coast touring production of Mister Roberts, and then began his motion picture career with supporting parts. Parker had a small but choice role in Them!, in a humorous scene as the civilian pilot of a crashed plane, confined to a booby hatch. The character explains to government investigators that he was forced to ditch his plane to avoid a mid-air collision with a giant flying ant, and extracts from them a promise to help arrange for his discharge. But to keep a lid on the story of the ants' mutation, the investigators instead order his doctor to keep him there!
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