John Ford and Harry Carey at Universal Studios

Neva Gerber

Neva Gerber was 21 years old in 1912 when her film career began with the Kalem Film Company. She joined the Universal Film Company in 1916 and was Carey's costar in four films. Pleasant and attractive, her substantial presence and self assurance made her a forceful costar for Carey. In the 1920's Gerber teamed with actor-director Ben F. Wilson to make a series of action movies, mostly serials and westerns. Gerber appeared in two talkies directed by Wilson. After his death in 1930, she left the screen.

Hoot Gibson

Hoot Gibson's film career began in 1910 with a few films for the Biograph Company interspersed among rodeo competitions. In 1914 he was a stuntman for the serial, The Hazards of Helen, doubling the serial's star Helen Holmes. His stunts included fights on trains and transfers from a train to a horse. He had supporting roles in numerous western shorts, including playing the villain in Knights of the Range (1916) opposite Harry Carey. Hoot appeared in three of the 1917 westerns made by Carey and Ford: Straight Shooting, The Secret Man, and A Marked Man. Hoot's starring career at Universal Studios was launched in two films directed by Ford, Action (1921) and Sure Fire (1921). In these films, Hoot plays a wandering cowboy who rescues his co-star from outlaws. Hoot became a popular western star for Universal. Films with titles such as Ridin' Wild (1922), Thrill Chaser (1923), Hit and Run (1924), Hurricane Kid (1925), and Galloping Fury (1927) guaranteed Hoot's fans five reels of action and fun. Hoot's easy going approach gave his films a lighthearted tone. A deft comedian, he featured as much comedy as drama.

As talkies arrived, Hoot continued as a western star, but with lower budgets from producers such as M.H. Hoffman Inc (distributed on a state rights basis by Allied Pictures Corporation) and Walker Futter Productions (Diversion Pictures). In 1935, Hoot co-starred with Harry Carey in Powdersmoke Range, advertised by RKO as the "Barnum and Bailey of Westerns" (whatever that means). The cast list of this "all star" (B western stars) film included Bob Steele, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Tom Tyler, William Farnum, and other westerners from the silent era. Hoot made a final set of program westerns in 1944 and retired from the screen.

Mignonne Golden

Mignonne Golden had a brief screen career. She only appeared in six films, 1920-1923, all starring Harry Carey. The Wallop (1921) was directed by Ford. The other five were directed by Val Paul, three at Universal and two at Robertson-Cole. Mignonne was Carey's sister-in-law, the sister of Olive Golden Carey. Besides supporting Carey in six films, Mignonne appeared with him in his stage act. In the 1920s, Carey made several vaudeville tours featuring Western sketches with Mignonne in support .

Joseph Harris

Most of Joe Harris's films were westerns. Harris began his screen career in 1914 and had made over 60 shorts by 1916. Harris appeared with Carey in approximately twenty films. In 1918 he played the villain in Hell Bent, the first of his seven Carey/Ford film roles. While at Universal, Harris also appeared in Ford directed films starring Frank Mayo and Hoot Gibson. In 1922 at Fox Films, he appeared in Ford directed films starring Buck Jones and Tom Mix. His final two films in 1923 starred Carey.

Harris was a lifelong friend of Harry Carey. After his movie career ended, he worked for Carey and lived with the Carey family, presumably on Carey's ranch. Carey had been dead for several years when Harris died in 1953, reportedly at the home of Harry Carey Jr.

Gloria Hop

Gloria Hope has 27 credited film appearances from 1917 to 1926. A pretty blond, her roles were frequently as the sister or the youthful love interest of the star. Beside Universal, She acted for Ince, Triangle, Paramount and Goldwyn. She was the much younger love interest of Carey in two 1919 films, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and The Rider of the Law. In 1920, she was the love interest of Tom Mix in The Texan. In 1922, she had a featured role in the Mary Pickford vehicle Tess of the Storm Country. In 1926, Gloria married actor Lloyd Hughes and retired. The marriage lasted 32 years until Hughes' death in 1958.

Duke R. Lee

Duke R. Lee was active from 1914 to 1946. A hearty-looking actor with an open, unpolished manner, Lee made a jovial and lively friend or a menacing enemy. Almost all his films were westerns. He was in many Carey films, six of them directed by Ford. He also appeared with notable silent westerners Tom Mix, Jack Hoxie, Art Accord, Hoot Gibson and Jack Holt. Lee continued into talkies, mostly in uncredited roles, in films starring Ken Maynard, Bob Custer, Tom Tyler, Hoot Gibson and Gene Autry. He was uncredited in four John Ford talkies, Judge Priest (1934), Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), Stagecoach (1939) and My Darling Clementine (1946), Lee's final film.

J. Farrell MacDonald

After his graduation from Yale University in 1903, J. Farrell MacDonald started his acting career on the stage and came to films after extensive theatrical experience. MacDonald was heavy set and plain featured, with a round face and nearly bald head. Despite a stern demeanor, his film characters were usually sociable and fatherly. Talkies revealed a gravely voice that lent itself to roles as policemen and clergymen.

In 1910, MacDonald started at Biograph and was an actor and director at a variety of early film studios, including Imp, Triangle, Sennett, and Pathe. He was in seven of the Ford/Carey features. He acted for Ford at Fox Studios and had prominent roles in The Iron Horse (1924) and Three Bad Men(1926), Ford's most important silent westerns. After 1929, MacDonald made many westerns but also was frequently cast, in contemporary settings, as an Irish policeman. MacDonald's was in six Ford talkies, including My Darling Clementine (1946) and When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950).

Molly Malone

Molly Malone's relatively short screen career, 1916-1929, was confined to silent films. An older actress she was nearly 29 when she appeared in her first Ford/Carey film, The Soul Herder (1917). She acted in the first eight Ford/Carey features. She was Carey's love interest in Straight Shooting. After leaving Universal, Malone was with several small film companies, including Nester and Selznick. By 1921, she was mostly down the cast list, playing character roles.

Vester Pegg

Vester Pegg was thin and somewhat sharp featured with a small dark mustache. His looks enhanced his frequent roles as devious, sulking villains. Pegg's film career began in 1912, and he had small roles in Griffith's The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. He appeared with Carey in several shorts including the two directed by Ford, Soul Herder and Cheyenne's Pal. He appears in many Carey/Ford features, including a prominent role in Straight Shooting where he and Carey stalk each other through the streets of a western town. In the twenties Pegg had small parts with many western stars including Jack Mower, Franklyn Farnum, Hal Taliaferro, Buck Jones and Jack Holt. By 1928 he was in uncredited roles, usually playing henchmen. He continued into talkies playing uncredited henchmen in films with stars such as Buck Jones and George O'Brien. He was in Ford's 1930's films Steamboat Round the Bend, Prisoner of Shark Island, and plays one of the Plummer boys who have a shootout with John Wayne in Stagecoach In the early forties he is in Roy Rogers westerns. His final film was an uncredited role in the Columbia Pictures production Best Man Wins (1948).

William Steele (William Gettinger)

From the start of his film career in 1912 until his final film in 1956, William Steele appeared almost exclusively in westerns. Tall, well built, and good looking, Steele filled the background of a scene where he looked good, but was not required to act. His birth name was William Gittinger. Early in his career he used several variations on Gittenger. In his six roles in Ford/Carey westerns he is named in the cast list as William Gettinger. He assumed the screen name William Steele in 1921. During the twenties, Steele appeared with cowboy stars such as Jack Hoxie, Buck Jones, and Hoot Gibson. During the thirties, Steele appeared uncredited in many programer westerns, frequently with Buck Jones. From the late thirties, Steele began to appear, uncredited, in high budget westerns such as Destry Rides Again (1939), San Antonio (1945), and Calamity Jane (1953). He had roles in two John Ford talkies, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Searchers (1956). In The Searchers, Steele's final film. his named character, Nesby, is a member of a posse led by Ward Bond.

Benjamin F. Reynolds

Ben Reynolds was shooting newsreels for Universal Animated Weekly and was an assistant cameraman on low budget dramatic productions at the time he was assigned to shoot Ford's first film, The Scrapper. Ford took Reynolds to shoot Soul Herder and then Straight Shooting. His skills made him a valuable member of the Ford/Carey troupe. He filmed 12 Ford/Carey features. Reynolds remained with Universal after the departures of Ford and Carey. In 1919, he photographed Erich von Stroheim's first feature Blind Husbands and subsequently became von Stroheim's chief cinematographer, filming all of his major productions, including Foolish Wives (1922) and Greed (1924). During the 1930's, at Paramount, Reynolds photographed several of the studio's Zane Gray adaptations starring Randolph Scott, directed by Henry Hathaway. He also was cameraman on two WC Fields films, Tillie and Gus (1933), and The Old Fashioned Way (1934). Ill health forced his retirement in 1935.

John W. Brown

John W Brown, who also went by Jack Brown, accumulated 71 credits during his short, 1915 to 1926, career as a cinematographer. He worked with Ben Reynolds on six of the early Ford/Carey films and was the principle cameraman on most of the films made in 1919. None of the Ford/Carey films he photographed are known to survive.