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Mini Biography

One of the great stars of early American Westerns. McCoy was the son of an Irish soldier who later became police chief of Saginaw, Michigan, where McCoy was born. He attended St. Ignatius College in Chicago and after seeing a Wild West show there, left school and found work on a Wyoming ranch. He became an expert horseman and roper and developed a keen knowledge of the ways and languages of the Indian tribes in the area. He competed in numerous rodeos, then enlisted in the U.S. Army when America entered the First World War. He was commissioned and rose to the rank of colonel, eventually being posted as Adjutant General of Wyoming, a position he held until 1921. Resigning from the Army, he returned to ranching and concurrently served as territorial Indian agent. In 1922, he was asked by the head of Famous Players-Lasky, Jesse L. Lasky, to provide Indian extras for the Western extravaganza, The Covered Wagon (1923). He brought hundreds of Indians to Hollywood and served as technical advisor on the film. After touring the country and Europe with the Indians as publicity, McCoy returned to Hollywood and used his connections to obtain further work in the movies, both as a technical advisor and as an actor. MGM speedily signed him to a contract to star in a series of Westerns and McCoy rapidly rose to stardom, making scores of Westerns and occasional non-Westerns .. In 1935, he left Hollywood, first to tour with the Ringling Brothers Circus and then with his own Wild West show. He returned to films in 1940, in a series teaming him with Buck Jones and Raymond Hatton, but World War II and Jones's death in 1942 ended the project. McCoy returned to the Army for the war and served with the Army Air Corps in Europe, winning several decorations. He retired from the army and from films after the war, but emerged in the late 1940s for a few more films and some television work. He married Danish writer Inga Arvad and spent his later years as a retired gentleman rancher, occasionally touring with his own Wild West show. He died in 1978 at the age of 86.

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Trivia

Inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1974.

The Arapahoe Indians adopted Tim as a brother and called him "High Eagle."

Not only an expert on the Old West, but an authority on Indian folklore. One of the few white men still alive who could converse in Indian sign language.

Rode several horses with different names during his long career. In his earlier films he rode a snow-white horse named "Pal". In the "Rough Riders" series he mounted a black stallion called "Baron" and (later) "Ace".

In real life McCoy was a sharpshooter and famed for his fast draw. A film editor once timed it on 35mm film with 24 frames per second. It took exactly six frames from the blur of his hand to the smoke issuing from the end of his gun.

Hosted local TV (Los Angeles) with "The Tim McCoy Show" (1952) for children on weekday afternoons and Saturdays in which he provided authentic history lessons on the Old West. He won a local Emmy but wasn't there to pick it up. He was competing against "Webster Webfoot" in the "Best Children's Show" category and refused to show up saying, "I'll be damned if I'm going to sit there and get beaten by a talking duck!"

Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1973.

Personal Quotes

"I've never been sentimental about my horse. The horse doesn't give a damn about you. If you want to know the truth - horses are dumb."

Salary

Tim McCoy

Megan Ennis and Tim McCoy