This column first appeared in February 2013.
Happy accidents of fate make my world go round. Last Monday I was puttering around playing with old stuff when I ran across an old wallet sized picture of cowboy star Buck Jones. As I turned it over in my hands I was surprised to find that it was actually a membership card to the “Buck Jones Ranger Club” from the 1930s. Apparently, Mr. Earl Miles of 426 E. Main Street was an “Official” Chief Ranger in the club.
Then, just as I was examining the little card and wondering which “Main Street” Earl lived on, a news flash came across the screen about the sad nightclub fire in Brazil that killed at least 235 people the night before. Another sad spectacle with charges of greedy promoters, blocked exits and pyrotechnics gone terribly wrong. Seems like we’ve heard this story before. Strangely, we had. For it was almost exactly ten years ago to the day that we heard the terrible details of a tragic nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100 people.
The Station nightclub fire began at 11:07 p.m. ET, on Thursday, February 20, 2003, at the glam-metal and rock-n-roll themed nightclub located in West Warwick, Rhode Island. The fire was caused by pyrotechnics set off by the tour manager during the performance of the band Great White. The indoor fireworks ignited flammable sound insulation foam in the walls and ceilings surrounding the stage. It took only 5 1/2 minutes for the fire to engulf the club. Less than a minute after the pyrotechnics ended, the entire stage was engulfed in flames and most of the band members, their entourage and fans were fleeing in panic. In addition to the 100 fatalities, some 230 people were injured while another 132 escaped unharmed. Among the dead was guitarist Ty Longley, who had joined the band in 2000.
The fire was the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in United States history and the tenth largest in world history. The recent nightclub tragedy on January 27, 2013 at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil ranks third all-time with 235 deaths. Number two on the list is the December 25th, 2000 fire known as the “Luoyang Christmas fire” in Luoyang, Henan, China claiming 309 lives.
But what about number one? Here’s where that serendipity thing I was talking about in paragraph one comes in to play. The worst nightclub fire in world history, to say nothing about American history, occurred on November 28, 1942 at the Cocoanut Grove in Boston, Massachusetts. 492 people perished in that fire just two days after Thanksgiving. Aside from the December 30, 1903 fire at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, Illinois (where 605 people died) the Cocoanut Grove was the deadliest single-building fire in American history.
The most famous victim in that World War II fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub? None other than Buck Jones himself. Did I mention that Buck was a Hoosier? Kismet? Fate? I don’t know but I can say that the only thing that would have made the moment eerier would have been if the Great White song “Once Bitten Twice Shy” would have been playing in the background.
Born Charles Frederick Gebhard on December 12, 1891 just outside Vincennes, Buck Jones was a real cowboy whose first full-time job after leaving the U.S. Cavalry (he joined a month after his 16th birthday after his mother signed a form saying he was 18) was working as a cowboy on the famed 101 Ranch near Bliss, Oklahoma. He had been wounded during the Moro Rebellion while serving in the Philippine Islands and was honorably discharged in December of 1909. He was shot from the back and the bullet nearly tore his leg off above the knee. He carried a scar an inch wide and about five inches long for the rest of his life. Yes, Buck Jones was tough.
Buck worked briefly as a mechanic at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for his friend, driver Harry Stillman. He married Odille (Dell) Osborne, a horsewoman with the 101 Ranch show, while working in the traveling 101 Ranch Wild West Shows. During World War I he worked in Chicago’s stockyards, breaking horses for the British and French armies. At the end of the war he joined the Ringling Brothers Circus, earning $50 a week but soon left big top for the gates of Hollywood. Buck was quickly hired by Universal Pictures for $5 per day as a bit player and stunt man. From there he bounced to Canyon Pictures, then to Fox Film Corporation which paid Buck $40 per week as a stunt man. Eventually, Fox increased his salary to $150 per week, and soon, he was a backup to Tom Mix. This led to his first starring role, The Last Straw, released in 1920. Buck Jones was on his way.
In 1925 Jones made three films with teen-aged fellow Hoosier actress Carole Lombard, an up-and-coming star herself. Jones had more than 160 film credits to his name, and by the 1920s, Buck joined Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, and Ken Maynard as the top cowboy actors of the day. Buck was earning $2,500 a week in 1927 when Fox let him go, fearing that the coming of sound would make outdoor pictures impossible. The next year, he started his own company, but his only film The Big Hop (a non-Western) failed. He then organized a touring Wild West show, with himself as a featured attraction. It was a risky, expensive venture that at first seemed destined to succeed. But then came the stock market crash of October 1929. The show folded in Danville, Illinois, not far from his birthplace. Buck was out of work for the first time in his life.
Dell sold her jewelry to pay their way back to California but the major studios weren’t interested in hiring Buck. He signed with the upstart Columbia Pictures, starring in B-westerns for $300 a week, a fraction of his top salary in the silent-film days. His voice, a rugged baritone, recorded well and the camera still loved him. His films of the 1930s, mostly westerns for Columbia and Universal Pictures, were very successful and helped re-establish him as a major box office draw. His star began to fade again in the late 1930s when singing cowboys became the rage. Jones, then in his late forties, was uncomfortably cast in conventional leading-man roles. In late 1940, he rejoined Columbia, starring in the serial White Eagle. The new serial was a hit, and Jones was again re-established as a first tier star.
His final series of Western features, co-produced by Buck and his old friend Scott R. Dunlap of Monogram Pictures, featured “The Rough Riders” trio: Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, and Raymond Hatton. While the series was in production, Pearl Harbor plunged the U.S. into World War II. McCoy, a long-time Army reservist, was called to active duty and left the series. After appearing with Hatton in the mediocre Dawn on the Great Divide (1942), Buck went on an East Coast war bond selling tour. The war bonds tour was exhilarating, but also exhausting. Scott Dunlap told Buck he knew a place where they could relax, unwind and have a little fun. It was November 30, 1942 and Dunlap took his friend Buck Jones to a trendy nightclub in Boston called the “Cocoanut Grove”.
Next week-Part 2: Buck Jones’s last stand.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
