By Jack James
Have you ever heard the term “six degrees of separation?” Six degrees of separation is the idea that all living things and everything else in the world are six or fewer steps away from each other so that a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. Well, I am three degrees separated from the great actor Arthur Hunnicutt!
I have had a friend here in Lavaca named Sid Hunnicutt for years. Some time ago, I found out that the actor Arthur Hunnicutt is his second cousin! Sid’s grandfather is the brother of Arthur’s father. He was one of the stars of one of my favorite John Wayne movies El Dorado.
Arthur Hunnicutt was born in 1910 in Gravelly, Arkansas in Yell County. He was a thin character actor who was known for playing humorously wise country roles. He enrolled at the University of Central Arkansas and Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway, but was forced to drop out in his third year with money troubles. He moved to Massachusetts and joined a theatre company and ended up in New York where he acted in roles on Broadway. He played the leading role in “Tobacco Road”, a part his rangy country identity was made for. He played in some roles in small films in the early 1940s, and then returned to stage work. In 1949 he came back to Hollywood permanently and began a long career as a supporting player. His acting in the Howard Hawks movie The Big Sky (in 1952) won him the respect of actors and an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor. He continued playing parts much like this for the remainder of his career.
Arthur worked with the greatest actors and actresses of Hollywood and in 91 movies including El Dorado, Cat Ballou and Red Badge of Courage. He was struck with oral cancer and died in 1979. He and his wife are buried in Coop Prairie Cemetery in Mansfield, Arkansas.
