photo:
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Biography
Lash La Rue (June 14, 1917–May 21, 1996) was an actor noted for his roles in low-budget Westerns.
Lash La Rue
Born Alfred LaRue in Gretna, Louisiana, USA of Cajun ancestry, he was raised in various towns throughout Louisiana but in his teens the family moved to Los Angeles, California where he attended St. John's Military Academy.
He began acting in films in 1944 as Al LaRue, appearing in two musicals and a serial before being given a role in a Western film that would result in him being cast in a cowboy persona for virtually the rest of his career. He was given the name "Lash" because of the 15 foot long bullwhip he used to help bring down the bad guys. The popularity of his first role as the "Cheyenne Kid," a sidekick of singing cowboy hero Eddie Dean, not just brandishing a whip but using it expertly to disarm villains, paved the way for La Rue to be featured in his own series of Western films. After appearing in all three of the Eddie Dean Cinecolor singing Westerns in 1945 - 6, he starred in quirky B-Westerns from 1947 to 1951, at first for Poverty Row studio PRC, later for producer Ron Ormond. La Rue developed his image as a cowboy hero dressed all in black and inherited from Buster Crabbe a comic sidekick in the form of "Fuzzy Q. Jones" played by the great Al St. John.
La Rue was very different from the usual cowboy hero of the era--- dressed in black, he spoke with a "city tough-guy" accent, somewhat like that of Humphrey Bogart, whom he also somewhat resembled. His use of a bullwhip was what really set him apart from bigger stars such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. His influence was felt throughout the dying medium of B-Westerns; for example, he had an imitator, Whip Wilson, who starred in his own brief series, and even Roy Rogers started picking up and using a bullwhip in a couple of his Republic Studios Westerns made in the same period. LaRue also made frequent personal appearances at small-town movie theaters showing his films, during his film heyday of 1948 - 1951, with the result that he was the only cowboy star most children of the time ever got to see and meet in person. His skillful displays of stunts with his whip live on movie theater stages also convinced young Western fans that there was at least one cowboy hero who could do in real life the same things he did on screen.
"Lash LaRue Western" comic books were published first by Fawcett Comics and later by Charlton Comics, between 1949 and 1961. They were among the most popular Western-themed comics of the era, running for more than 100 (usually monthly) issues.
In the later 1950s he appeared in featured roles in a number of episodes of the television series 26 Men and Judge Roy Bean as well as appearing in a continuing role as Sheriff Johnny Behan on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, but after many decades of popularity, interest in Westerns faded quickly and LaRue made a living from appearances at Western film buff conventions and sometimes as an evangelist on the rodeo and country music circuit. Late in his career he appeared as the villain in a soft-porn Western, Hard on the Trail, and in two low-budget horror films shot in the South, Alien Outlaw and The Dark Power. In the last of these films, he plays a park ranger who makes extensive use of the bullwhip to battle wild dogs and attacking zombies.
La Rue was also noted for instructing Harrison Ford in how to use the bullwhip for the Indiana Jones movies.
La Rue died in Burbank, California and is believed to be interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
References:
Lash LaRue, the King of the Bullwhip, by Chuck Thornton and David Rothel (Empire Publishing, NC, 1988). ISBN 0-944019-06-4.
The King of the Bullwhip: Lash La Rue, the Man, not the Legend, by Charles M. Sharpe (Sharpeco, NC, 1996). ASIN B0006QS5T6.
Quotes
(Winning a fight handily, pauses) "You sure you don't want to try something else?"
