CHARLES STEVENS
May 26th, 1893 -- August 22nd, 1964

Above: Charles Stevens, looking even more disreputable than usual thanks to the moustache, in an unidentified film from the 1930s. Looks like he's playing a Mexican here, instead of his customary Indian or half-breed.

With his shifty eyes, his scrawny but wiry frame, and his delightful croak of a voice, Charles Stevens always played bullying, cowardly, and thoroughly untrustworthy henchmen. Charlie's characters would always back down from a fistfight, only to sneak back later and stick a knife in your back--and probably go and brag about in the saloon afterwards. Charlie was almost always cast as a half-breed, a go-between who helped his badman bosses manipulate the Indians against the heroes, but who would sell out either Indians or whites if given the chance. Stevens' delicious scheming lent spice to some of Universal's best western serials in the 1930s and 1940s, and the busy fellow also turned in an incredibly varied amount of character performances in major movies, his long career ranging from 1915 to 1961.

Charles was born in Solomonsville, Arizona. His dad was of Mexican ancestry and his mother was an Apache--and incidentally, a daughter of Geronimo's! Stevens performed in the Miller Brothers' Wild West Show while still a teenager and arrived in Hollywood at the age of twenty-three. He became good friends with Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and, starting with THE LAMB and ending with THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, appeared in nearly all of Fairbanks' movies, Westerns, swashbucklers, and comedies alike. Charles' career stayed on a steady course with the advent of sound, and he has the distinction of playing the same major role in both the English-language and Spanish-language versions of the epic THE BIG TRAIL. His parts did begin to get smaller as the thirties progressed, however, and by 1933 he was reduced to playing a "background" Indian in Mascot's serial FIGHTING WITH KIT CARSON. It would seem, however, that he was befriended by that serial's star, Johnny Mack Brown, as when Brown moved over to Universal Pictures, Charlie went with him, and played in every single one of his cliffhangers. The first of these, RUSTLERS OF RED DOG (Universal, 1935), only gave him another uncredited Indian bit, but WILD WEST DAYS (Universal, 1937), cast him in his first great cliffhanger part, that of half-breed henchman "Buckskin Frank." Stevens' character was a member of the outlaw group known as the Secret Seven; the band was headed by respectable citizens Russell Simpson and Walter Miller, who left all the disreputable work to Charlie and henchman Al Bridge. One of Stevens' Indian pals accidentally plugged poor Charles in the final chapter while he was fighting with Johnny Mack Brown, but Stevens had had his chance to display his unique henchman qualities for 13 straight weeks, and Charlie's future as a cliffhanger heavy was secure.

Above: Charles Stevens (fourth from left) incites the Indians to warfare against Johnny Mack Brown and the other good guys in WILD WEST DAYS (Universal, 1937). Al Bridge aids Charlie in his oratory.

Stevens and Brown teamed up again for FLAMING FRONTIERS (Universal, 1938). Once again a part-Indian henchman, this time named simply "Breed", Charles began the serial carrying out the orders of corrupt businessman Bart Eaton (James Blaine). Eaton was trying to grab control of Tom Grant's (John Archer) gold mine by making Tom's sister Mary (Eleanor Hansen) marry him. Johnny Mack, as a famous scout named Tex Houston, came to the aid of the Grants, and Blaine enlisted gambler/saloon owner Ace Daggett (Charles Middleton) to help him in his schemes. Dagget, however, wanted the mine all for himself, and double-crossed Eaton every step of the way. After Breed murdered a henchman who was about to squeal on Eaton and Daggett, Tom Grant was accused of the murder, and the two head villains, realizing that they'd lose the mine if Grant was hung, tried to turn Breed over to the law as a scapegoat. Breed would have none of it, though, and tried to outwit both heavies on his own, kidnapping Grant and imprisoning him in his own mine. Houston rescued Grant, though, and captured Breed, who squealed on Daggett and Eaton and paved the way for a final showdown between Houston and the two groups of heavies.

Above: Johnny Mack Brown stops his ally Chief Thundercloud (far left) from scalping Charles Stevens in FLAMING FRONTIERS (Universal, 1938).

I have almost forgotten to mention one of Charles' few non-Western roles, in Universal's detective thriller RED BARRY, which starred Buster Crabbe and was released in late 1938. Stevens was Moy, a Chinese henchman who was among those attempting to get ahold of some valuable war bonds. Charlie's part here was small, but in at least one scene in Chapter Six, he was allowed to display his weaselly nastiness, when explaining to detective Hugh Huntley how his death was to be made to look like a "very unfortunate accident."

Apparently, the treacherous "Breed" had escaped from jail following the fadeout of FLAMING FRONTIERS, since he was back again in THE OREGON TRAIL (Universal, 1939). That's right; Stevens played his FRONTIERS character in TRAIL, a unique occurrence in the history of serial henchmen. Johnny Mack Brown's character name was changed from Tex Houston to Jeff Scott; otherwise one might think he was the same character, too. This time Brown and his sidekick Fuzzy Knight were leading a wagon train of pioneers to Oregon, and Stevens, together with traitorous wagonmaster Bull Bragg (Jack C. Smith) spearheaded the attempts of Sam Morgan (James Blaine) to keep settlers out of the rich, unclaimed land. Breed's nasty career ended with this serial, when he was shot during a gun battle by Knight, but Charles Stevens' career was far, far from ended.

Above: Johnny Mack Brown fires at Indian attackers, unaware Jack C. Smith (closest to ground) and the knife-wielding Charles Stevens are creeping up on him in THE OREGON TRAIL (Universal, 1939).

The same year as OREGON TRAIL, Stevens appeared in the Preston Foster western GERONIMO, but did not play his famous grandfather; instead, the role went to Chief Thundercloud, who had played Johnny Mack Brown's sidekick in FLAMING FRONTIERS. Also in '39, Charles appeared in Randolph Scott's FRONTIER MARSHAL as Indian Charley, the drunken badman disarmed by Wyatt Earp (Scott) on the lawman's arrival in Tombstone. Stevens would go on to reprise this role two more times, in Richard Dix's TOMBSTONE: THE TOWN TOO TOUGH TO DIE, and in Henry Fonda's MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. But back to Stevens' serial career. Following OREGON TRAIL, Universal moved Johnny Mack Brown up to B-westerns, but Charles was by now firmly established in the studio's serial department, and once again delivered a terrific performance in WINNERS OF THE WEST (Universal, 1940), a fast-paced western in the same mold as Charlie's other Universal cliffhangers. Stevens was Snakeye, a half-breed who worked for outlaw leader King Carter (Harry Woods). Carter was dead set on keeping the Hartford Transcontinental Railroad from bringing law and order to his domain in Hellgate Pass, so he kept stirring up the local Indians to attack the railroad crew. It was naturally Stevens' job to keep the Indians on the warpath, and he continually led them in raids that were usually frustrated by hero Jeff Ramsay (Dick Foran). Finally, Carter dismissed Snakeye because of the henchman's failures, and Stevens attempted to incite the Indians to wipe out both the railroad crew and the outlaws. The Indians seemed about to take Snakeye up on it, when a cavalry patrol hove in sight of the village. Since Snakeye had assured the tribe that the cavalry would not arrive to prevent the projected attack, the Indians were understandably rather mad. They tomahawked Charlie on the spot, and wound up making their peace with the cavalry troops.

Above: Charles Stevens takes some money off the body of Edmund Cobb, a henchman who has tried to double-cross Stevens' boss Harry Woods, in WINNERS OF THE WEST (Universal, 1940).

Charles' last Universal serial was OVERLAND MAIL in 1942. Once again, Stevens was a half-breed henchman. This time his name was Puma, and, together with Harry Cording, Carleton Young, and several others, he disguised as an Indian to attack Tom Chatterton's stage line. Noah Beery Sr. was behind Stevens and Cording; he coveted Chatterton's mail franchise and had decided to drive him out of business in order to get the contract for himself. Lon Chaney Jr., as heroic frontiersman Jim Lane, battled to halt the stage raids, and finally shot Puma in a hectic underground gun battle. OVERLAND MAIL was Universal's last great western serial, and thus made a very appropriate farewell for Stevens, who had given some great moments of villainy to nearly all their earlier western classics.

Above, from left to right: Carleton Young, Robert Barron, Harry Cording, Charles Stevens, Ethan Laidlaw, and Riley Hill (seated) in OVERLAN MAIL (Universal, 1942).

Stevens continued to deliver memorable performances, no matter how small his role, throughout the forties and into the fifties, in films such as THE SHOWDOWN, RETURN OF THE BADMEN, and THE WALKING HILLS (in all of which he played good guys, showing his versatility). However, in 1954, he delivered two cliffhanger encores, long after everyone thought his serial career was over. The first was GUNFIGHTERS OF THE NORTHWEST (Columbia, 1954), in which he slipped back into his familiar half-breed role as "Caraboo." Caraboo slunk around running errands for outlaw Marshall Reed, spying on heroes Jock Mahoney and Clayton Moore, and inciting Indian chiefs Rodd Reddwing and Chief Yowlatchie to violence against miners and settlers. In short, it seemed like old times for Charlie. His final cliffhanger was MAN WITH THE STEEL WHIP, in which he had what amounted to a cameo, but a very appropriate one. He was Blackjack Sam, an "old half-breed", who was captured by hero Richard Simmons and forced to admit that he had been (guess what?) stirring up the renegade Indians to attack the settlers and blame their crimes on the peaceful reservation Indians. After squealing, Charlie was promptly shot by renegade Lane Bradford, and exited the serial world for the second and last time.

As Stevens grew older, he began to appear mainly on TV. He even got to finally play Geronimo, on THE ADVENTURES OF RIN TIN TIN, and was absolutely hilarious as a doddering, pathetic old Indian chief in an episode of MAVERICK, "Arizona Black Maria." His last important movie part was as the father of Kirk Douglas's murdered wife in THE LAST TRAIN FOR GUN HILL, in 1957. He had an uncredited bit in THE OUTSIDER in 1961, and retired shortly after, passing away in Hollywood in 1964.

It's a safe bet that any fan of vintage Western serials has seen (and enjoyed) a Charles Stevens performance more than once. And the fans of vintage Western serials also have seen and enjoyed Charles Stevens' performances, not once but many times. The sneaky little cuss was one of the Old Reliables, a prop of the Western, the B-western, and the cliffhanger, and one of the most unique and original of all the great serial henchmen.

Above: Charlie prepares to jump his great foe, Johnny Mack Brown, in THE OREGON TRAIL (Universal, 1939), but something tells me that he's going to lose out once again.