Paul Brinegar


Paul Alden Brinegar Jr. was an American character actor best known for his roles in three Western series: The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Rawhide, and Lancer.

Early years

Brinegar was born in 1917 in Tucumcari in eastern New Mexico, the first child of Louise and Paul A. Brinegar Sr., who was a farmer. His family relocated several times during his childhood, first moving to Alamogordo, then to Las Cruces, and finally to Santa Fe. In Santa Fe, Brinegar became interested in acting, performing in stage productions at his local high school.
After his graduation in 1935, Brinegar left Santa Fe to attend Pasadena Junior College in California. There, he studied drama, literature, and art. According to the United States Census of 1940, he was back in Santa Fe by May of that year, living with his parents and his two younger brothers, Warren and Robert.
The 1940 census also identifies him at that time as an independent "writer" and his father then as a freelancing "general short-hand reporter". Soon thereafter, young Brinegar joined the United States Navy to serve four years during World War II as a Chief Radioman in the South Pacific. After the war, he returned to California, where he applied his military training and experience to earn a living in the Los Angeles area as a radio repairman. He also resumed his pursuit of an acting career in his spare time, playing bit parts in movies.

Career

Brinegar's first credited appearance in a feature film was in Larceny. From there, he launched a steady film career that slowed considerably in the late 1950s, after he began appearing on television, but did not end until 1994, when Brinegar made his final screen appearance, as a stagecoach driver, in the 1994 film version of Maverick.
Brinegar was cast in more than 100 Western films produced between 1946 and 1994, often specializing in playing "feisty, grizzled cowboy sidekicks". On television, from 1956 to 1958, he played James H. "Dog" Kelley, the mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, in the ABC/Desilu series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp starring Hugh O'Brian. Brinegar appears in that series 33 times as Kelley and in one other episode in another role. He also portrays Ludwig, a bartender, in the 1959 episode "The Ringer" of The Texan starring Rory Calhoun. Brinegar, however, is best remembered as the cattle-drive cook George Washington Wishbone on the CBS series Rawhide. Earlier, he had played a similar role, as the character Tom Jefferson Jeffrey, in the 1958 movie Cattle Empire upon which Rawhide was based.
Brinegar also made two guest appearances on CBS courtroom drama Perry Mason. His first appearance on that series, prior to Rawhide, is in the 1958 episode "The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary". His second appearance on Perry Mason is in the series' ninth and final season, in the 1966 episode "The Case of the Unwelcome Well".
In the 1968–1970 CBS Western series Lancer, Brinegar had the role of Jelly Hoskins; and in 1969 he appeared in Charro! starring Elvis Presley. Then, in 1973, he played the barman in Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter. From 1982 to 1983, returning to television, Brinegar portrayed a humorous cowboy-like character, Lamar Pettybone, during the first season of the ABC series Matt Houston. Later, he reprised a revised version of his Rawhide Wishbone character for the 1991 TV movie The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, in which he delivers a brief monologue that contains references to several old television Westerns.

Death

Brinegar died of emphysema at the age of 77 in Los Angeles on March 27, 1995.

Filmography

TV and film roles

Abilene Town - Gambler Larceny - MechanicTake One False Step - Reporter Sword in the Desert - British Soldier Pinky - Western Union Clerk The Gal Who Took the West - Tailor Young Man with a Horn - Stage Manager A Ticket to Tomahawk - Henchman Storm Warning - Cameraman #1 Insurance Investigator - Mr. Spangler, Hotel Orderly Journey Into Light - BumHere Come the Nelsons - Thin Cop The Captive City - Police SergeantPat and Mike - Caddy We're Not Married! - Beauty Contest Spectator It Happens Every Thursday - Mr. Sweetzer, Hotel Clerk Fast Company - Smokey - Poker Player Captain Scarface - CleggSo Big - Farmer Phantom of the Rue Morgue - Angry Accuser in Street Rails Into Laramie - Bandleader The Rocket Man - Dave Harris Human Desire - Brakeman Dawn at Socorro - Desk ClerkRogue Cop - Arcade Clerk A Star Is Born - Man at Funeral Four Guns to the Border - Barber The Silver Chalice - Audience Member The Public Defender - Bud / Vic Oliver / BailbondsmanCell 2455 Death Row - Prisoner I Died a Thousand Times - Bus Driver Highway Patrol - BlaineyRansom! - Bank Clerk Inside Detroit - Irate Worker Tales of the Texas Rangers - HoboCheyenne "Lone Gun" - Slim MantellWorld Without End - Vida Santiago - Alkali Fighting Trouble - Mailman Flight to Hong Kong - Castairs Noah's Ark - Doug ConnorThe Spirit of St. Louis - Okie Alfred Hitchcock Presents