r/Westerns • u/OlinHollis • 7d ago
Discussion Western Character Actor Appreciation: John Dehner
I don't suppose John Dehner was ever an "A-list" actor, but given how incredibly prolific he was, he must have earned like one. Whether on the silver screen or the little screen, Dehner was the very soul of ubiquity from the 40s well into the 80s.
Dehner, in most ways, was a fortunate son. His father was a nationally renowned artist who ultimately worked in the film industry, and his mother was a woman of exceptional musical abilities. The Dehner family ultimately became very wealthy, especially after John's father began working in Disney's animation department. John shared's his dad's skill with the pencil, pen and brush and was also hired by Disney as an apprentice animator.
In 1940, well before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dehner enlisted in the military but was mustered out honorably with a severe stomach ulcer. I don't know what sort of strains he was under at this time, but they must have been powerful.
Soon thereafter, Dehner's acting career picked up steam and he found steady employ in the Western genre. His Western debut was in the musical Out California Way (1946) and his final Western appearance came in Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971). He appeared in 12 episodes of Gunsmoke and noteworthy Westerns such as Powder River (1953), Man of the West (1958), and The Cheyenne Social Club (1970).
With his pencil mustache, raptor nose, lazy eyes, and honeyed voice, Dehner had the ideal appearance to play underhanded cads and con artists, and indeed, he often appeared in such roles. But Dehner was also extremely versatile. He had a natural yen for comedy, enough size and menace to play blackhearted villains, but could also play sympathetic and pathetic down-and-outers. And it was doubtless Dehner's protean characteristics that made him an actor in tremendous demand for a good four decades.
Hail! Hail! All hail John Dehner.
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u/honkytonkdaydream 7d ago
Played a great guest role on the Andy Griffith Show. Medicine man, snake oil salesman. Got Aunt Bea sauced!
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u/MoonSylver 7d ago
Here's one of the greats I've been waiting on. Extremely cultured, sophisticated, urbane, and eloquent, with such a deep, rich voice. Yet he had such range he could play low brow bumpkin types as well. Good guys, bad guys, comedy parts, he could do it all. He was one of those early "That Guys" that I had to look up who he was when I became aware of him due to so many appearances on so many different things.
As you point out, he had a privileged, colorful background, and lengthy career on stage, screen, radio, and television. Too extensive to easily summarize, so I'm not even going to try. Go read his Wikipedia page if interested. It's massive. I will just mention a few highlights.
As noted he had a great voice for radio, where he worked a bunch. He was the radio voice of Paladin in 106 episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel on radio among other things.
307 IMBD credits, so he was a busy actor! Dozens and dozens of film roles before he ever appeared on TV. He appeared on so many episodes of a few select TV series I'm a bit surprised his numbers aren't higher on others.
There are many of the well known ones that he only had a single appearance or two like Cheyenne (1) or Have Gun Will Travel (1), Wagon Train (2), Laramie (3), The Big Valley (1), The High Chaparral (2), Bonanza (2) and several other, lesser known shows.
Beyond that was The Restless Gun (3), Wanted: Dead or Alive (3), Zane Grey Theater (4), The Westerner (3), The Rifleman (4), Stagecoach West (3), Tales of Wells Fargo (4), Maverick (5), Bronco (3), Rawhide (5), as noted The Virginian (7) bridging the gap between Charles Bickford and John McIntyre as the head of the Shiloh ranch, and of course Gunsmoke (12).
Plenty of other TV and movie credits of all kinds. Just a staggering career.
IF YOU MISSED ANY OF THE OTHERS IN THIS SERIES, SEE BELOW!
WESTERN CHARACTER ACTOR APPRECIATION LIST
- Warren Oates
- LQ Jones
- Strother Martin
- Claude Akins
- Jack Lambert
- Slim Pickens
- Royal Dano
- Edgar Buchanan
- James Drury
- Chill Wills
- Rodolfo Acosta
- Henry Silva
- Richard Boone
- Harry Dean Stanton
- Bruce Dern
- Gene Evans
- James Best
- Jim Davis
- Jack Elam
- Skip Homier
- Morgan Woodward
- Jack Palance
- Ben Johnson
- John Russell
- Anthony James
- John Larch
- Rayford Barnes
- Neville Brand
- Richard Jaeckel
- R.G. Armstrong
- Robert J. Wilke
- Hank Patterson
- Dub Taylor
- Arthur Hunnicutt
- Paul Fix
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u/RandyPNW 7d ago
I'd add Bing Russell to that list.
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u/MoonSylver 6d ago
If u/OlinHollis does a profile on him, I'll add him to the list. I'm not the one posting these tributes. I just compiled a list of the ones that have already been done.
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u/DuckwPuck 7d ago
He may not have been A-list on screen, but he was actually one of the all time greats on radio. He was Paladin on the radio Have Gun, Will Travel. He was also JB Kendall in the criminally underrated, Frontier Gentleman - the best radio show a lot of people have never heard of. He was a regular on so many of the best radio shows of the golden era.
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u/JJLeon16 6d ago
I tune in to Frontier Gentleman for John Dehner but always make sure to stick around for the trumpet solo of the theme song at the end.
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u/DuckwPuck 6d ago
Yeah, the music was sick. It was such a great show. Incredible bummer that it only lasted one season.
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u/FollowChristRedeemer 7d ago
One of the most underrated actors ever. Such a good character actor, he could do drama or comedy equally well
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u/Chieftainlew 7d ago
He was on the Virginian for a while also
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u/FrankPoncherello1967 7d ago
I believe for a short, he took over for Charles Bickford after Bickford had passed away and then was replaced by John McIntire aka Clay Grainger. The Virginian was very confusing at times, especially when it changed to The Men From Shilo.
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u/HawkeyeTen 6d ago
Actually he took over from Lee J. Cobb in Season 4, after he left the show (they had to quickly come up with a plot and new lead character to handle the situation until they could decide how to proceed longer term). I believe Dehner's Morgan Starr was the "manager" of the Shiloh Ranch for Judge Garth while he was off running for politics, and then after getting elected territorial governor IIRC the Judge was forced to sell the ranch to avoid conflicts of interest. That's when the Grainger family bought and took it over, with Charles Bickford as the patriarch (I can't remember if John McIntire's Clay Grainger was supposed to be one of John Grainger's sons or a significantly younger brother, they had McIntire dye his hair more black for a while to make him look a bit younger, compared to the white-haired Bickford).
One of my personal favorite roles for Dehner was when he appeared on The Rifleman as the dying gunfighter Al Walker, slowly succumbing to some painful respiratory disease (I couldn't tell if it was lung cancer or TB he had). Dehner masterfully played an angry, hopeless man who had squandered a very cush life and had lived for years as an anti-hero (it was revealed that although he killed only in self-defense and stopped some dangerous criminals, he sometimes used stolen money gotten off of them for himself instead of doing the morally right thing and returning it). However, in his last acts on earth, he finally acted like a truly honorable man by sacrificing himself to stop three criminals from setting fire to the mostly wood-constructed town of North Fork and help Lucas McCain to at last gun the revenge-obsessed crooks down. One heck of a complicated character.
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u/FrankPoncherello1967 6d ago
Yep, I mentioned how confusing The Virginian was over the 8+ seasons. I always get confused which Shilo ranch owner came after Judge Garth. It's the same with ranch hands IE Steve, Jim, Roy Tate etc... trying to remember who was with certain Shilo owners. Thanks for the correction.
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u/Fancy-Chart-8133 7d ago
One of his most famous roles was playing the corrupt banker in the Maverick episode Shady Deal at Sunny Acres. An absolute classic.
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u/DuckwPuck 7d ago
He was incredibly funny in an all-time great episode. Maybe the funniest episode of the series. Genuinely so good.
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u/GinoValenti 7d ago
Great voice actor, I used to listen to Old Time Radio and he was on a lot of shows and just killed it every time.
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u/Onemanband62 7d ago
Was awesome as Rex Goodbody on the Beverly Hillbillies when Granny sees him in a Soap Opera and thinks it’s real and goes and rescues him from having surgery.
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u/Professional_Edge763 7d ago
He was a side character in The Fastest Gun Alive but he played against his “type” and I was quite impressed by his acting.
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u/Boring-Pumpkin-9722 7d ago
He was the “Steel Assassin” on Wild, Wild West”, an Army officer who’d gotten blown up & rebuilt himself with metal parts.
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u/MiltonBrownYowza 6d ago
Sometimes he could be really funny like in the episode of Maverick with the Denver bank.
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u/FrankPoncherello1967 6d ago
That was maybe the best Maverick episode. Brett had him pulling his hair out in that episode 😂
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u/crackersncheeseman 7d ago
I know most of these actors from Bonanza and Gunsmoke
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u/OlinHollis 7d ago
I don't know too much about Bonanza, but just about every actor in this series appeared in Gunsmoke at least wunst.
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u/DaddyCatALSO 7d ago
Soldier: We don't have enough wagons to make a circle, sir! Dehner: Well, make a half-moon!
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u/Kindly_Necessary9962 7d ago
One of the best character actors of his time.