Walter Brennan

Maternal great-grandson of John (1807-1882) and Bridget (née Neagle) Hewett (1817-1858). Both were born in Ireland and died in the state of Massachusetts.

Paternal grandson of William (1844-1925), born in Scotland, and Helen (née Griffith) Brennan (1848-1903), born in England. Both died in the state of Massachusetts.

Maternal grandson of Michael (1846-1903) and Margaret (née Hewett) Flanagan (1849-1904). Both were born in Ireland and died in the state of Massachusetts.

Son of William (September 2, 1868-August 17, 1936) and Margaret (née Flanagan) Brennan ((June 4, 1869-February 1, 1955). Both parents were born in the state of Massachusetts and died in the state of California.

In many ways the most successful and familiar character actor of American sound films and the only actor to date to win three Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, Walter Brennan attended college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying engineering. While in school he became interested in acting and performed in school plays. He worked some in vaudeville and also in various jobs such as clerking in a bank and as a lumberjack. He toured in small musical comedy companies before entering the military in 1917. After his war service he went to Guatemala and raised pineapples, then migrated to Los Angeles, where he speculated in real estate.

A few jobs as a film extra came his way beginning in 1923, then some work as a stuntman.

In 1925 Gary Cooper befriended another young, struggling, would-be actor named Walter Brennan. At one point they were even appearing as a team at casting offices, and although Cooper emerged in major and leading roles first, they would work together in the good years, too. Most memorably they starred in The Westerner (1940) together, where the general critical consensus was that Brennan's underplayed performance as Judge Roy Bean had stolen the film from Cooper.

He eventually achieved speaking roles, going from bit parts to substantial supporting parts in scores of features and short subjects between 1927 and 1938.

In June 1928, filming a scene in San Diego, CA, he accidentally drove a automobile into the harbor.

He has appeared in ten films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: King of Jazz (1930), The Invisible Man (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Fury (1936), Sergeant York (1941), My Darling Clementine (1946), Red River (1948), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Rio Bravo (1959) and How the West Was Won (1962).

An accident in 1932 cost him most of his teeth, and he most often was seen in eccentric rural parts, often playing characters much older than his actual age.

In 1936 his role in Come and Get It (1936) won him the very first Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He would win it twice more in the decade, and be nominated for a fourth. His range was enormous. He could play sophisticated businessmen, con artists, local yokels, cowhands and military officers with apparent equal ease.

He refused to have anything to do with Ward Bond, because of Bond's alcoholism and general loutish behavior. He turned down the role of Jeeter Lester in "Tobacco Road" (1941) because of the character's shiftlessness.

Hardly ever played the villain, usually being cast as the somewhat eccentric pal to the hero. An exception was his turn as the heartless Old Man Clanton in My Darling Clementine (1946), directed by the prickly John Ford. Ford and Brennan did not get along, and Ford was one of the few directors Brennan didn't collaborate with more than once throughout his career.

Director Howard Hawks had related the story that, after completing Red River (1948), he was approached by an actor but couldn't quite place the face. The actor removed his teeth and said, "Do you recognize me now?" Hawks immediately recognized him as Brennan.

His career never really declined, and in the 1950s he became an even more endearing and familiar figure in several television series, most famously The Real McCoys - The Lost Episode (1957).

The Real McCoys - The Lost Episode (1957) was such a hit that John Wayne's production company, Batjac, was persuaded to release a previously shelved film, William A. Wellman's Good-bye, My Lady (1956), about a boy, an old man, and a dog, during the show's run.

During the 1960s he was convinced that the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements were being run by overseas Communists, and said as much in interviews. He told reporters that he believed the civil rights movement in particular, and the riots in places like Watts (CA) and Newark (NJ), and demonstrations in Birmingham (AL), were the result of perfectly content "negroes" being stirred up by a handful of troublemakers and Communist agitators with an anti-American agenda.

Had four top-100 singles, including the Top 5 hit "Old Rivers" (Liberty Records) which first charted on April 7, 1962. The single spent 11 weeks on the Billboard charts and peaked at #5.

Campaigned for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, after the senator had voted against the Civil Rights Act.

In 1965 Brennan recorded a speech to warn about how Communists and beatniks were plotting to take over the United States through President Johnson's War on Poverty. That record was called "He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad".

Actively supported Ronald Reagan's campaign to become Governor of California in 1966.

Members of the cast and crew on the set of his last series, The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967)--in which he played the surprisingly complex role of an ex-army scout trying to undo the damage caused by his being a mostly absentee father--said that he cackled with delight and danced a little jig upon learning of Martin Luther King's assassination.

Always fiscally and ideologically conservative, he became politically active in later life when he saw many of the things he held dear being eroded by the counterculture movement. He supported George Wallace's presidential campaign in 1968 and in 1972 supported extreme right-wing Republican Representative John Schmitz (father of Mary Kay Letourneau), as the incumbent President Richard Nixon was viewed as too progressive by many Republicans.

Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1970.

Was offered the supporting role of Mr. Judson in Herbie Rides Again (1974), but was too ill with emphysema to take the job. It was then recast with John McIntire. Brennan died 90 days after the movie was released to theaters, on June 6, 1974.

Two of his three Oscar-winning performances were directed by William Wyler. This makes him one of four actors to win two Oscars under the same person's direction. The other three are: Jack Nicholson for Terms of Endearment (1983) and As Good as It Gets (1997) (both directed by James L. Brooks), Dianne Wiest for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994) (both directed by Woody Allen) and Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012) (both directed by Quentin Tarantino).

On August 27, 2019, he was honored with a day of his film work during the Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars.