Actor Fess Parker died 18 March 2010 of natural causes. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, on 16 August 1924, Parker was best known for playing American frontier icons. Parker played Davy Crockett seven times for the Disneyland series (1954-56), and then appeared as the title character in 159 episodes of Daniel Boone (1964-70). He was nominated for an Emmy Award for “Most Outstanding New Personality” in 1955.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Parker studied drama. He had several uncredited screen roles in the early 1950s, but was typecast as Davy Crockett, and had difficulty finding other Hollywood work. He retired from acting after Daniel Boone ended, aside from a role in Climb an Angry Mountain (1972) and the one-shot The Fess Parker Show (1974).
His genre roles include: Harvey (1950), Them! (1954), and a cameo audio appearance (he’s heard in the background, singing the Davy Crockett theme “King of the Wild Frontier”) in Back to the Future (1985).
After retiring from acting, Parker went into real estate, and then founded a very successful winery and resort in Santa Barbara, California. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Marcella Rinehart, and two children.