Biography for
Tim McCoy (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

10 April 1891, Saginaw, Michigan, USA

Date of Death

29 January 1978, Nogales, Arizona, USA (heart attack)

Birth Name

Timothy John Fitzgerald McCoy

Height

5' 11" (1.80 m)

Mini Biography

One of the great stars of early American Westerns. McCoy was the son of an Irish soldier who later became police chief of Saginaw, Michigan, where McCoy was born. He attended St. Ignatius College in Chicago and after seeing a Wild West show there, left school and found work on a Wyoming ranch. He became an expert horseman and roper and developed a keen knowledge of the ways and languages of the Indian tribes in the area. He competed in numerous rodeos, then enlisted in the U.S. Army when America entered the First World War. He was commissioned and rose to the rank of colonel, eventually being posted as Adjutant General of Wyoming, a position he held until 1921. Resigning from the Army, he returned to ranching and concurrently served as territorial Indian agent. In 1922, he was asked by the head of Famous Players-Lasky, Jesse L. Lasky, to provide Indian extras for the Western extravaganza, The Covered Wagon (1923). He brought hundreds of Indians to Hollywood and served as technical advisor on the film. After touring the country and Europe with the Indians as publicity, McCoy returned to Hollywood and used his connections to obtain further work in the movies, both as a technical advisor and as an actor. MGM speedily signed him to a contract to star in a series of Westerns and McCoy rapidly rose to stardom, making scores of Westerns and occasional non-Westerns .. In 1935, he left Hollywood, first to tour with the Ringling Brothers Circus and then with his own Wild West show. He returned to films in 1940, in a series teaming him with Buck Jones and Raymond Hatton, but World War II and Jones's death in 1942 ended the project. McCoy returned to the Army for the war and served with the Army Air Corps in Europe, winning several decorations. He retired from the army and from films after the war, but emerged in the late 1940s for a few more films and some television work. He married Danish writer Inga Arvad and spent his later years as a retired gentleman rancher, occasionally touring with his own Wild West show. He died in 1978 at the age of 86.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

Spouse

Inga Arvad	(1945 - 1973) (her death)
Alice Miller	(? - 1931) (divorced) 2 children

Trivia

Inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1974.

The Arapahoe Indians adopted Tim as a brother and called him "High Eagle."

Not only an expert on the Old West, but an authority on Indian folklore. One of the few white men still alive who could converse in Indian sign language.

Rode several horses with different names during his long career. In his earlier films he rode a snow-white horse named "Pal". In the "Rough Riders" series he mounted a black stallion called "Baron" and (later) "Ace".

In real life McCoy was a sharpshooter and famed for his fast draw. A film editor once timed it on 35mm film with 24 frames per second. It took exactly six frames from the blur of his hand to the smoke issuing from the end of his gun.

Hosted local TV (Los Angeles) with "The Tim McCoy Show" (1952) for children on weekday afternoons and Saturdays in which he provided authentic history lessons on the Old West. He won a local Emmy but wasn't there to pick it up. He was competing against "Webster Webfoot" in the "Best Children's Show" category and refused to show up saying, "I'll be damned if I'm going to sit there and get beaten by a talking duck!"

Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1973.

In addition to making his home in Los Angeles, McCoy maintained a ranch in Wyoming for many years during his career.

During World War I, he served as an artillery officer in the US Army in France.

Personal Quotes

I've never been sentimental about my horse. The horse doesn't give a damn about you. If you want to know the truth - horses are dumb.

[about fellow western actor Buck Jones] Buck Jones was a very fine fellow. They sort of wondered when they teamed Buck and I, who'd been rivals, they might have expected a lot of fireworks, you know, that we'd be fighting one another on the set [of the "Rough Riders" western series] all the time. Instead of that, it worked out to be the most amiable association two actors could have. Buck and I got along beautifully and never got in each other's way. In fact, we were always helping one another. I think the Rough Riders was one of the best B-western series that's been made. Even though I was in it, I don't hesitate to say that. But then the war [World War II] came on and I quit to go back in the army.

Salary

War Paint (1926)	$4,000
Winners of the Wilderness (1927)	$4,000
California (1927)	$4,000
The Frontiersman (1927)	$4,000
Foreign Devils (1927)	$4,000
Spoilers of the West (1927)	$4,000
The Law of the Range (1928)	$4,000
Wyoming (1928)	$4,000
Riders of the Dark (1928)	$4,000
The Adventurer (1928)	$4,000
Beyond the Sierras (1928)	$4,000
The Bushranger (1928)	$4,000
Morgan's Last Raid (1929)	$4,000
The Overland Telegraph (1929)	$4,000
Sioux Blood (1929)	$4,000
The Desert Rider (1929)	$4,000
The Outlaw Deputy (1935)	$4,000
The Man from Guntown (1935)	$4,000
Bulldog Courage (1935)	$4,000
Roarin' Guns (1936)	$4,000
Border Caballero (1936)	$4,000
Lightnin' Bill Carson (1936)	$4,000
Aces and Eights (1936)	$4,000
The Lion's Den (1936)	$4,000
Ghost Patrol (1936)	$4,000
The Traitor (1936)	$4,000