Al St. John

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 costarring 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 sandyhaired handsome and a remarkable acrobat St John frequently appeared as Arbuckles 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 Johns 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 CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia