Fess Parker dies at 85
Friday, March 19, 2010
posted by Jim Cornelius
For at least two generations of young Americans — and plenty of boys around the world — Fess Parker lit the flames of heroic dreams.
As Davy Crockett in the 1950s Disney series and as Daniel Boone on network TV in the 1960s, Parker defined the American frontiersman — rough-hewn but principled; brave, good-humored, with moccasins ever on the path of the setting sun. Only the raccoons whose tails made iconic “coonskin caps” failed to catch “frontier fever.”
The tall Texan, actor, developer and vintner, died yesterday, March 18, at the age of 85.
Raise the mead cup — or perhaps a glass from one of Parker’s California vinyards — to the pioneers of dreams.
