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The reel ... ooops! ... real Lash LaRue

You may want to go to the In Search Of ... webpage on the Old Corral.  Then go to the Social Security Death Index and California Death Records at RootsWeb, and see if you can find a record for Lash LaRue. In the California Death Records database, you will find that his Mother's maiden name is BUSSELLE, his father's last name is WILSON, and the records also list LaRue's birth date and location as 6/14/1917 and MICHIGAN, respectively.


Lash LaRue Comics

Lansing and Andrea Sexton provide the following info:

Citing Robert Overstreet's Comic Book Price Guide, Lash LaRue Western began publication in 1949 and ran for 46 issues, the last being dated January, 1954. I believe all 46 issues had photo covers. In any case, only the first 6 issues had photo back covers. The Gerbers' Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books illustrates the first 9 as well as number 46 and they do all have photo covers.

However, #46 was not the end of Lash's comic. In an unusual move, when Fawcett left the comic business, Charlton comics continued the series and even the numbering, beginning with #47, dated March-April 1954 and ending with #84, dated 1961. Most of these did not have photo covers although Overstreet indicates that #47 did.

In 1990, a small company called Americomics published Lash LaRue #1 and Lash LaRue Western Annual. #1 apparently contains reprints of Fawcett's issue #6 plus movie posters. The contents are partly color and partly black and white. Both issues have photo covers.

In addition to this long and successful run in his own comic, Lash also appeared in two issues of Fawcett Movie Comics, # 8 featured KING OF THE BULLWHIP (1950) and #11 THE THUNDERING HERD, dated June, 1951. Both have photo covers, #8 being an especially nice shot of Lash, gun drawn, standing just in front of Rush/Black Diamond.

Fawcett's related series Motion Picture Comics also featured Lash's film THE VANISHING OUTPOST in issue 11, dated July 1952.

Lash also appeared in Fawcett's Six-Gun Heroes issues 5 through 23 along with Hoppy, Rocky Lane and others. Issues 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 19 and 22 were Lash photo covers.

As with Lash's own comic, Six-Gun Heroes was at this point picked up by Charlton with issue 24, dated January 1954. I'm not sure how many issues Lash was in, although he was definitely still appearing in #30.

In January, 2004, Carl E. Kerley sent an e-mail noting that Lash's last appearance in Six-Gun Heroes was in issue #60 from 1960.




Above is the front cover of the six-page pressbook anouncing PRC's SONG OF OLD WYOMING as well as the new series of Cinecolor westerns starring Eddie Dean.  Note the spelling of LaRue as "Al La Rue" with a space between La and Rue.

The producer and director on the film is Robert Emmett, whose real name was Robert Emmett Tansey.  He had done just about every film related job in Hollywood since the silent days.  A couple years prior to working with Dean at PRC, Tansey put together the Trail Blazers trio series at Monogram.

The size of the pressbook is approximately 11 inches wide x 17 1/2 inches long.  On the right side, you will note a difference in the backgrounds, and there's a tannish line running top to bottom.  This is because I had to scan in two parts and merge them into a full size image --- and there was a color variation between the two scanned images that were used to form the final pressbook image.


Above, Al 'Fuzzy' St. John (1893-1963) portrayed a comedic saddle pal to Fred Scott, Bob Steele, Don Barry, and in PRC's Lone Rider series with both George Houston and Bob Livingston.  He created a screen character that ultimately would be fine tuned into the 'Fuzzy Q. Jones' screen personna that endeared him to so many western movie fans.  His most memorable sidekick roles came in the 1940s with Buster Crabbe and Al 'Lash' LaRue (above).  He passed away from a heart attack while working with the Tommy Scott Wild West show.


Above, from L-to-R are Black Jack O'Shea, Lash LaRue, Charlie King, Eddie Dean and Emmett Lynn in CARAVAN TRAIL (PRC, 1946), one of singing cowboy Eddie Dean's Cinecolor westerns.


(Courtesy of Minard Coons)

Lash at an early 1970s film convention.



(Courtesy of Donn & Nancy Moyer)

Above, Al "Lash" LaRue, circa early 1980s.



(Courtesy of Donn & Nancy Moyer)

Above, Lash LaRue disguised behind a beard, early 1980s photo.


LASH LINKS

  Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has information on Lash LaRue and Al St. John.  Click on:

Lash La Rue
Al "Fuzzy" St. John


Lash was the godfather to performer/entertainer J. P. Sloane  As a youngster, Sloane appeared as "Billy Kettle" in the Ma and Pa Kettle film series. And he also is on many of the Lash comic book covers.  You can read more at J. P.'s main website at: http://jpsloane.com/, or at his Lash LaRue tribute page at: http://www.howdyfolks.net/jpsloane/LashLaRue.html

Bill Black at AC Comics has a profile on Lash: http://www.accomics.com/accomicswesterns/lash.htm

The Indian Reader has an article on Lash: http://www.indianreader.com/lashlarue.html

LaRue was purportedly married ten or twelve times, and one of his wives was western heroine and great rider Reno Browne (Reno Blair), who worked at Monogram Pictures in the 1940s with Whip Wilson, Jimmy Wakely and Johnny Mack Brown.  Click on the 'Heroines' section off the Old Corral homepage to read about Reno Browne.


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