Myron Healey

Biography

Myron Daniel Healey (Petaluma, California, 1923 – Simi Valley, California, 2005) was an American actor whose career spanned more than half a century and produced hundreds of appearances on film and television. Though rarely a leading name, he became a familiar face to fans of classic Westerns and postwar B pictures.

The son of a doctor, he served in the Second World War as a navigator and bombardier with the Air Corps over Europe, and remained in the military reserve after the war, retiring as a captain in the early 1960s. His film debut came in 1943 with Young Ideas. In the postwar years he played villains and henchmen in low-budget Westerns, many made by Monogram Pictures alongside stars such as Johnny Mack Brown and Whip Wilson. The 1950s brought more varied work, including adventure series and crime dramas.

On television he was in constant demand, appearing on The Lone Ranger, The Roy Rogers Show, Laramie, The Virginian and Gunsmoke, and he took over the role of Doc Holliday for one season of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp when Douglas Fowley was unavailable. His reputation rests on the Western, a genre that earned him a Golden Boot Award in 2000. He died in 2005 after a fall that broke his hip, from which he never recovered.

Key films

• Rio Bravo (1959), Howard Hawks's ensemble Western, in a supporting role.
• In a Lonely Place (1950), Nicholas Ray's noir, as a post office clerk.
• Sunrise (1955) and other mid-decade Westerns in which he played hard-edged supporting parts.
• True Grit (1969), Henry Hathaway's Western starring John Wayne.
• Varan the Unbelievable (1958), the American version of the Japanese giant-monster film, part of his foray into horror.