Charles Stevens (May 26, 1893 – August 22, 1964) was an American actor. He appeared in nearly 200 films between 1915 and 1961. A close friend of actor

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked Vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckler film, swashbu ...

, Stevens appeared in nearly all of Fairbanks' films.

Early years

Stevens was born in Solomonville, Arizona, and his father was a white Arizona sheriff named George Stevens and mother a Mexican woman named Eloisa Michelena. Stevens was not, as many bios claim, the grandson of Geronimo. That erroneous information could be attributed to Stevens himself, who claimed such kinship, and film studios that promoted the supposed lineage.

Career

Stevens began his career during the

silent era A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, wh ...

, playing mostly Native Americans and

Mexicans Mexicans () are the citizens and nationals of the Mexico, United Mexican States. The Mexican people have varied origins with the most spoken language being Spanish language, Spanish, but many also speak languages from 68 different Languages o ...

in Westerns. During the 1930s and 1940s, he had roles in the film serials '' Wild West Days'' and '' Overland Mail''. In the 1950s, Stevens guest-starred on several television series, including ''

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok ''The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok'' is an American Western television series that ran for eight seasons from April 15, 1951, through September 24, 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from June 5, 1955, throug ...

'', ''

The Adventures of Kit Carson ''The Adventures of Kit Carson'' is an American Westerns on television, Western television series that aired from 1951 to 1955 and consisted of 104 episodes. While airing, the show was shown in over 130 markets and was sold to the Coca-Cola Bott ...

'', '' Sky King'', '' The Lone Ranger'', ''

Zorro Zorro ( or , Spanish for "fox") is a fictional character created in 1919 by American Pulp magazine, pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo de Los Ángeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashin ...

'', and '' The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin''. In two of those appearances in ''The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'', in 1954 and 1958, he played Geronimo. He made his last onscreen appearance in the film '' The Outsider'' (1961), starring

Tony Curtis Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz; June 3, 1925September 29, 2010) was an American actor with a career that spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films, in roles co ...

Death

Stevens died on August 22, 1964, and is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood in Los Angeles County, California.

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stevens, Charles 1893 births 1964 deaths Male actors from Arizona American male film actors American male silent film actors American male television actors Burials at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery Actors from Graham County, Arizona Male Western (genre) film actors 20th-century American male actors Western (genre) television actors