While working as a bank clerk, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a private with the 101st Field Artillery Regiment in France for two years[5] during World War I.[2][6] "While there, he suffered an injury to his vocal cords from exposure to mustard gas that left him with his screen trademark: a distinctively reedy, high-pitched voice that became a favorite for celebrity impersonators for decades."[7]
After the war, he worked as a financial reporter for a newspaper in Boston.[8] During the early 1920s, he made a fortune in the real estate market, but lost most of his money during a real estate slump.[4]
Finding himself penniless, Brennan began taking parts as an extra in films at Universal Studios in 1925, starting at $7.50 a day, equal to $130 today. He wound up working at Universal off and on for the next ten years.[9]
Around this time, Brennan received what he later described as "the luckiest break in the world." He was acting in a fight scene when an actor kicked him in the face and knocked out all of his teeth. As a result, Brennan wore false teeth. He said, "I looked all right off the set, but when necessary I could take 'em out and suddenly look about 40 years older."[5]
Brennan appeared in another Three Stooges short, Restless Knights, and a short titled Hunger Pains in 1935.
Work at MGM
A break for Brennan came when he was cast in The Wedding Night (1935), produced by Sam Goldwyn, alongside Gary Cooper (it was actually their second film together). He was only an extra, but his part was expanded during filming and it resulted in Brennan's getting a contract with Goldwyn.[5][11][12]
Goldwyn mostly loaned out Brennan's services to other studios. MGM put him in West Point of the Air (1935). He was reunited with Whale in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), in which he had a brief speaking part and also worked as a stuntman.
Brennan finally earned significant roles with a decent part in Goldwyn's Barbary Coast (1935), directed by Howard Hawks and an uncredited William Wyler.[13] "That really set me up", Brennan said later.[5]
Throughout his career, Brennan was frequently called upon to play characters considerably older than he was. The loss of many teeth in the 1932 accident, rapidly thinning hair, thin build, and unusual vocal intonations all made him seem older than he was. He used these features to great effect. In many of his film roles, Brennan wore dentures; in MGM's Northwest Passage (1940) – a film set in the late 18th century – he wore a dental prosthesis which made him appear to have rotting and broken teeth. Brennan was billed third in Northwest Passage after Spencer Tracy and Robert Young.
Zanuck at Fox announced he wanted to make The Man from Home, once a vehicle for Will Rogers, with Brennan.[16] Instead Brennan was top-billed in Fox's Maryland (1940), an attempt to repeat the success of Kentucky.[17] Brennan said he had been working constantly since Christmas 1937. "I'm just plain punch drunk", he said.[18]
Third Oscar: The Westerner (1940)
Brennan had one of his best roles in Goldwyn's The Westerner (1940), playing the villainous Judge Roy Bean opposite Gary Cooper. William Wyler directed and the film earned Brennan his third Best Supporting Actor Oscar within a five-year span.
Goldwyn bought Trading Post as a vehicle for Brennan, but the film never materialized.[19]
He was top-billed in a follow-up to Kentucky and Maryland at Fox, Home in Indiana (1944).
Brennan was particularly skilled in playing the sidekick of the protagonist or the "grumpy old man" in films such as Hawks' To Have and Have Not (1944).
He appeared in another Americana film at Fox, Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948), and then in one of the greatest films in his career, Red River (1948), playing John Wayne's sidekick.
He appeared in the war films The Wild Blue Yonder (1951) and Lure of the Wilderness (1952), a remake of Swamp Water in which he reprised his role, although with less screen time than in the original film.
He appeared as himself as a musical judge in the 1953–1954 ABC series Jukebox Jury. Brennan later said that he preferred television to films because there were not "long layoffs between jobs."[11]
He continued to appear in movies such as Gunpoint! (1955) and The Proud Ones (1956) and was in a short film about Israel, Man on a Bus (1955).
Brennan continued to appear in films and other TV shows during the series' run such as Colgate Theatre and another Howard Hawks picture, Rio Bravo (1959), supporting John Wayne and Dean Martin.
After five years on ABC, The Real McCoys switched to CBS for a final season. Brennan joined with series creator Irving Pincus to form Brennan-Westgate Productions.[24] The series was coproduced with Danny Thomas's Marterto Productions. It also featured Richard Crenna, Kathleen Nolan, Lydia Reed and Michael Winkelman.[28]
Following Brennan's success with The Real McCoys, he performed on several recordings. The most popular of these was "Old Rivers", a song about an old farmer and his mule. It was released as a single in 1962 by Liberty Records with "The Epic Ride of John H. Glenn" on the flip side. "Old Rivers" peaked at #5 on the U.S. Billboard chart, making the 67 year-old Brennan the oldest living person to have a Top 40 hit at the time.[29] At age 68, Brennan reached the Top 40 again, this time with "Mama Sang a Song" on November 17, 1962.
Brennan starred as the wealthy executive Walter Andrews in the short-lived 1964–1965 ABC series The Tycoon, with Van Williams.
Brennan had a support part in Those Calloways (1965), his first Disney film, again paired with Brandon deWilde. He had a small role in The Oscar (1966).
Walter Brennan in The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967)
In 1967, he starred in another ABC series, The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967–1969), as an older man in search of his gunfighter son. It ran for two seasons.[30]
Brennan was top-billed in Disney's The Gnome-Mobile (1967) and made a pilot for the TV series Horatio Alger Jones, which did not become a series.[31]
He joined the second season of the CBS sitcom To Rome with Love (1969–1971) with John Forsythe.[32] This was Brennan's last television series as a member of the permanent cast, although he did make a number of appearances on Alias Smith and Jones.[33]
In 1920, Brennan married Ruth Caroline Wells. They had three children in their 54-year marriage: Arthur, Walter and Ruth.[35]
In 1940, Brennan purchased the 12,000-acre Lightning Creek Ranch, 20 miles north of Joseph, Oregon. He built the Indian Lodge Motel, a movie theater and a variety store in Joseph, and continued retreating to the ranch between film roles until his death. Some members of his family continue to live in the area.
Brennan, a Roman Catholic, did not publicize his own religious affiliation, but declared in 1964, "I'm too old not to be a religious fella... It appears we are losing something a lot of people made a lot of sacrifices for."[38] That year, Brennan spoke at Project Prayer, a rally attended by 2,500 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The gathering, hosted by Anthony Eisley, sought to flood Congress with letters in support of school prayer following two decisions by the Supreme Court in 1962 and 1963 that had invalidated the practice of mandatory prayer in public schools, which the court ruled to have conflicted with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.[38]
According to his biographer Carl Rollyson, Brennan was fiercely opposed to communism and reportedly branded people as communists if they supported John F. Kennedy. Rollyson wrote that Brennan "thought that the Watts riots could have been stopped 'with a machine gun'." Rollyson also reported that Brennan's home "included a bunker stocked with weapons and food in anticipation of a Soviet invasion." Brennan reportedly expressed satisfaction at the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., much to the shock of the cast and crew of The Guns of Will Sonnett, and also rejoiced in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.[39]Everett Greenbaum, who wrote 32 episodes of The Real McCoys, described Brennan as a bigot who frequently uttered racist remarks.[40]
Brennan was one of the greatest character actors in motion picture history. While the roles that he played were diverse, he may be best remembered for his portrayals in Western films such as those of Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner, trail hand Nadine Groot in Red River and Deputy Stumpy in Rio Bravo. He was the first actor to win three Academy Awards and remains the only person to have won the Best Supporting Actor award three times. However, he remained somewhat embarrassed about how he had won the awards; in the early years of the Academy Awards, extras could vote, and Brennan was popular with the extras' union.[44] His third win prompted the disenfranchisement of the union from Oscar voting.[45] Following this change, Brennan failed to win the Oscar for his fourth Best Supporting Actor nomination in 1941 for Sergeant York. (The award went to Donald Crisp for How Green Was My Valley instead.)
^"Walter Brennan". www.tcm.com. Retrieved March 10, 2021. While there, he suffered an injury to his vocal chords from exposure to mustard gas that left him with his screen trademark: a distinctively reedy, high-pitched voice that became a favorite for celebrity impersonators for decades.
^"Walter brennan finance expert". Los Angeles Times. October 30, 1946.
^ abHopper, H. (July 17, 1960). "Walter brennan: Saga of reluctant performner is offbeat story of success". Los Angeles Times.
^Scheuer, Philip K. (September 5, 1960). "Showman Divulges First-Aid Program: 'Forgotten Fans in Sticks' Have Champion in Lippert". Los Angeles Times. p. 25.
^V. A. (May 6, 1957). "WALTER BRENNAN TO BE STAR ON TV". The New York Times.
^Actor to Aid Schmitz; New York Times, August 9, 1972
^Patrick, Peter J. (May 29, 2014). "Oscar Profile #188: Walter Brennan". Cinema Sight. Retrieved September 10, 2023. ...both wins said to be due to the high level of support he received from the extras union whose members were allowed to vote in the Academy Awards from 1936 to1940. His third win on his third nomination for 1940's The Westerner caused such a scandal that the extras' voting rights were taken away.
^Levy, Emanuel (January 10, 2015). "Oscar Actors: Brennan, Walter–Winning Champion (3 Supporting Oscars)". EmmanuelLevy.com. Retrieved September 10, 2023. In the early years of the Academy Awards, extras were given the right to vote. Brennan was extremely popular with the Union of Film Extras, and since their numbers were overwhelming, he won each time he was nominated. Some say that his third win led to the disenfranchisement of the Extras Union from Oscar voting.
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