Al St. John

Acting

Born Sep 09, 1893

From Santa Ana, California, USA

Died Jan 21, 1963

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Al St. John (September 10, 1893 – January 21, 1963) in his persona of Fuzzy Q. Jones basically defined the role and concept of "comical sidekick" to cowboy heroes from 1930 to 1951. St. John also created a character, "Stoney," in the first of a continuing Western film series, The Three Mesquiteers, that was later played (at a low point in his own career) by John Wayne. Born in Santa Ana, California, St. John entered silent films around 1912 and soon rose to co-starring and starring roles in short comic films from a variety of studios. His uncle, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, may have helped him in his early days at Mack Sennett Studios, but talent kept him working. He was slender, sandy-haired, handsome and a remarkable acrobat. St. John frequently appeared as Arbuckle's mischievously villainous rival for the attentions of leading ladies like Mabel Normand, and worked with Arbuckle and Charles Chaplin in The Rounders (1914). The most critically praised film from St. John's period with Arbuckle remains Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916) with Normand. The name Fuzzy originally belonged to a different actor, John Forrest “Fuzzy“ Knight, who took on the role of cowboy sidekick before St. John. As the studio first intended to hire Knight for the western series but then gave the role to St. John instead, he took on the nickname of his rival for his screen character. In most of his films, screen time was set aside for St. John to do a sort of solo comedy act, emphasizing amazing pratfalls and acrobatics. He might "find" a bicycle on a fairground set, and do an astonishing sequence of acrobatic stunts on the cycle, or he might try to capture a rat, bat, skunk, gopher, or bug with hilarious and chaotic consequences. Another stunt which he used in nearly every Western was virtually his trademark: he would mount his horse in apparently the standard manner, but somehow wind up sitting facing backward, and often would ride off with the hero in this unusual orientation. When Crabbe left PRC (according to interviews, in disgust at their increasingly low budgets), St. John was paired with new star Lash LaRue. Ultimately, St. John made more than 80 Westerns as Fuzzy. His last film was released in 1952. From that time on until his death in 1963 in Lyons, Georgia, he made personal appearances at fairs and rodeos, and travelled with the Tommy Scott Wild West Show. Altogether, Al St. John acted in 346 movies, spanning four decades from 1912 to 1952. Description above from the Wikipedia article Al St. John, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Al St. John

Known For

The General

The Scarecrow

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford

Start Cheering

Mabel's Strange Predicament

The High Sign

Riders of Destiny

Caught in a Cabaret

The Knockout

Valley of the Sun

Filmography — Acting

The General

The Scarecrow

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford

Start Cheering

Mabel's Strange Predicament

The High Sign

Riders of Destiny

Caught in a Cabaret

The Knockout

Valley of the Sun

Wolves of the Range

The Cook

Tango Tangles

Gunsmoke Trail

Cattle Stampede

Marked Men

His Private Secretary

Dead Men Walk

Frontier Revenge

Good Night, Nurse!

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

From Headquarters

The Rough House

Texas Justice

Coney Island

Tillie's Punctured Romance

Li'l Abner

The Star Boarder

Aloha

Billy the Kid Outlawed

Law of the Lash

That Little Band Of Gold

The Black Lash

The Voice of Hollywood

Devil Riders

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Songs and Bullets

Prairie Rustlers

Terrors on Horseback

The Golden Age of Comedy

The Garden of Weeds

Back Stage

Call of The Yukon

Out West

The New Janitor

Stagecoach Outlaws

The Law of 45's

The Butcher Boy

Pioneer Justice

The Riot

Dead Man's Gold

Arizona Terrors

Oh, Doctor!

Love Nest on Wheels

Gangster's Den

The Bell Boy

The Lone Rider Rides On

Mabel's Blunder

Bar 20 Rides Again

American Beauty

Border Roundup

Wild Horse Phantom

I'm from Arkansas

She Goes to War

His Prehistoric Past

Mabel's Married Life

A Face in the Fog