Fred Stone

by Fields, Armond

• ISBN13: 9780786411610
• ISBN10: 0786411619
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: McFarland Publishing

Summary

Fred Stone was one of America's most versatile and talented of Broadway's colorful entertainers. Audiences quickly discovered he could do anything and everything, from tightrope walking and acrobatics to song-and-dance, musical comedies, and straight drama. This work chronicles his extraordinary life and career. He was born in a log cabin August 19, 1873, in Valmont, Colorado, to a family that was part of the covered-wagon migration into the virtually unknown West. He joined a traveling circus at age 11 and two years later, joined a different one as a self-taught tightrope walker. During his teens, Stone performed on the variety stage, and at age 22, met Dave Montgomery, with whom he performed for over twenty years, including Broadway musicals, notably as the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. After Montgomery's tragic death in 1917, Stone continued to perform and shared his continued success with his closest friend Will Rogers, and Annie Oakley, Broadway producer Charles Dillingham, Western artists Charles Russell and Ed Borein, and author Rex Beach. Stone appeared in some 18 movies, from 1918 to 1940, including such western classics as The Westerner and Trail of the Lonesome Pine. In 1950, he retired from show business and during the last years of his life suffered from increasing blindness and heart trouble. He died at his Los Angeles home in 1959.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	v
Preface	1	(2)
The Roaming Stones	3	(10)
Frontier Circus Life	13	(17)
Feats of Altitudinous Flights	30	(18)
Montgomery and Stone	48	(20)
London Flats and White Rats	68	(20)
The Wizardry of Oz (1)	88	(21)
The Wizardry of Oz (2)	109	(15)
Headliners and Celebrities	124	(18)
Front and Center	142	(17)
Triumph and Tragedy	159	(23)
Regret and Resurgence	182	(19)
Fame's Stresses and Strains	201	(20)
A Family Affair	221	(19)
Where Do We Go From Here?	240	(23)
Hanging On	263	(16)
End of the Trail	279	(8)
Notes	287	(4)
Selected Bibliography and Source Material	291	(2)
Index	293