Page 10 - carey-bunse_habs_ca2712

)

HARRY CAREY RANCH
(Clougherty Ranch)
HABS No. CA-2712 (Page 10)

summer retreats_ elsewhere during the hot summer months and visit his film locations.
Carey's credits include at least 233 films. His early work consisted of dozens of silent
films, many one and two reel serials, and after the advent of sound he continued to take
major roles in Westerns as well as other genres throughout the 1920s. He was chosen for
smaller parts and smaller films as the years passed, doing more character acting after
1930. In fact, Carey's only Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, came from
such a role, as President of the Senate in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Harry
Carey died in September 1947 and his last two films, Red River (1948) and So Dear to
19
My Heart (1949) were released posthumously.

Carey was not the only actor in the family. His wife and son also worked in film, both
well into their later years. Olive Carey made her first film in 1914, and appeared in
several other silent films over the next two years. She did not work during the 1920s,
when her children were quite young, but dabbled in the industry during the 1930s and
1940s. Olive Carey was most prolific in the 1950s and appeared on film only a few times
after 1960. Her last work was for the television mini-series, Hollywood, (1980) at the age
of 84. Harry Carey, Jr. has also enjoyed a long career, performing in over 100 films and
dozens of televisions shows from the time of his first credit in 1947 to the late 1990s.
The best-known work of his early career appears in 3 Godfathers (1948), She Wore a
Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Mister Roberts (1955). Like his father, he began in the
20
Western genre and his later career consists largely of character roles.

Harry Carey was not the first to come to the Saugus area to act in films that were being
shot on location. As noted above, Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, William S. Hart, and later,
Gene Autry were among the many who worked on movies and television shows filmed in
the region. These men also shared a love for the rugged Santa Clarita Valley that had
provided the ideal setting for many Western films. The Carey family embraced the local
film industry earlier than most by running a tourist attraction on the ranch that catered to
the public's general interest in the mythical West and early movie industry. Harry Carey,
Jr. actually credits his entrepreneurial mother as the driving force behind the Harry Carey
Trading Post, which was built in the early 1920s and successfully operated until 1928
when it was destroyed by flooding in the St. Francis Dam disaster.

During the ten years that they ran it, the Careys hired about forty Navajo Indians to live
and work at the Trading Post, which was located on the west side of San Francisquito
Canyon Road, where the main gate and the Caretaker's house are now. The Indian
employees made jewelry, raised sheep, and operated the stores and restaurant, "The

19
Hoffman, "A" Western Filmmakers, 278-281; Harry Carey, Jr., interview, January· 26, 2001; "Friends Bid
Farewell to Harry Carey ... , " The Signal (September 25, 194 7), I; Boston, "Stars Turned out for Carey Funeral in
1947," The Signal (September 28, 1997); "The Carey Family," www.amctv.com, as of April 18, 2000; Jim Beaver,
"Biography for Harry Carey," us.imdb.com, as of November 13, 2000; "Harry Carey Jr. Recalls His Dad," The Los
Angeles Times (November 24, 1979): 10-11; Larry Imber, "Nat bevine and Mascot Pictures,"
www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/levine (2000); Leslie Heumann and Helen Wells, "Historic Resources Inventory: Harry
Carey Ranch Historic District," DPR523 forms on file with California Office of Historic Places (July 6, 1993).
2
° Carey, Company of Heroes, 44-53, 183-185, 209; Hoffman, "A" Western Filmmakers, 472-473; "The Carey
Family," www.amctv.com, as of April 18, 2000