Buzz Barton

Date of Birth: 3rd September 1913
Details of Death: 20th November 1980
Country of Birth: USA

Biography

Buzz Barton (his real name was William Lamoreaux) was raised on a ranch, and at 12 won the title of Champion Trick Rider and Fancy Rider. Although his skills had enabled him to star in a number of westerns beforehand (generally under the name Billie Lamar), in 1926 he was spotted by a talent scout from FBO at a performance show in Cheyenne, and was soon afterwards launched in "The Boy Rider" (1927) as Buzz Barton. John Holmstrom has written that "He was the archetypal junior cowboy of the closing years of the silent cinema...His russet hair bristled, his honest blue eyes glared defiance, he whooped exultantly. He was so completely the prairie rider that his name passed into the folk memory." Buzz Barton was the first personality to have a BB gun named after him - the first version (a rush job in 1932) being replaced a year later by the 103 model, a much finer product, with an old-style cocking mechanism that was harder to cock and thus made men out of small boys! He was generally the protagonist - his own boy - in his movies, rather than the sidekick, as indeed the titles of his various films (such as "The Freckled Rascal") attest. In the first years of talking pictures, he could continue to charm as an appealingly lanky adolescent in such features as "Flying Lariats" (1931); but as an adult he seemed to become just one cowboy amongst many, and (apart from one minor, uncredited role in 1967) he did not return to acting after the Second World War.

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