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RIP Johnny Crawford

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 12:13 pm
by SpacemanSpiff
Former child and western actor, best know for playing Chuck Connors' son in "The Rifleman" series. Age 75,

https://variety.com/2021/tv/global/john ... 234963779/

Re: RIP Johnny Crawford

Posted: Tue May 11, 2021 2:22 pm
by wbtravis007
I was sorry to hear this. I loved The Rifleman. He was actually good in it, I thought.

One year for my birthday I got a toy replica of the rifle. I remember seeing a wrapped gift on the top shelf of the closet. I managed to get high enough to open the bottom corner just enough to be able to tell what it was. I don’t remember ever doing that besides that time. Man, I was excited. Turned out, though, that when my birthday came around we found out that my Mom had gotten one for my older brother, too. I know that that’s a common practice in some families— getting all the kids something so everyone will be happy and nobody feels jealous— but this was not something that we had ever done before, and I don’t think it ever happened again after that. I definitely remember being kind of ticked off and feeling like I had been gypped in a way. I don’t remember saying anything about it though. I was really happy to get that rifle.

One of the handful of things I feel bad about doing in my life involved Johnny Crawford. I was around 10 or so. Back then, the Houston livestock show and rodeo was at Sam Houston collesium. Every year they’d have a country entertainer signed to perform every night for a week or so. We’d go every year. Usually it was a pretty big name, like Roy Rogers or Eddy Arnold, somebody like that. Well, that year, believe it or not, it was Johnny. He had an album out I think and actually had a couple of hits. On the way home my Mom said something about how he wasn’t a very good singer, and I to this day remember word for word my response: “Well he can sing better than you can!” Almost immediately after I said that I felt terrible about it. I didn’t get in trouble about it or anything, although I’m not sure why I didn’t since being disrespectful to any adult was definitely frowned upon big time, but I just felt like I had probably really hurt my Mom’s feelings. I knew she didn’t deserve that. I’m sure she didn’t think anything about it, but it’s still something that I regret to this day.