Johnny Crawford Net Worth

Johnny Crawford's Quotes

• [about a concert given by his band] There were only about 50 people there, and they were all enjoying the band, and almost all were dancing. One fellow was standing off to the side watching for the longest time; it was Dustin Hoffman. He loved it. He said it reminded him of when he was a little boy and his parents took him to see Ted Lewis. Martin Short was a riot. He said, "I wanna sing with Johnny Crawford!".
• [on his orchestrated band] It's a unique, romantic sound, and people love to hear it. It takes people back to an older America and a simpler, more elegant time. It's a sound I really love, and I find that once people get a chance to hear it live, in all its glory, that they love it, too.
• [why he thinks his Mark McCain character on The Rifleman (1958) became popular with audiences] What boy wouldn't love dressing up as a cowboy and getting paid for it! It was hard work, and I took it very seriously as an actor, but I was living in a dream.
• I always say that life is not easy for anybody. People hear about the young actors who have a rough life, but there are plenty of other kids who aren't actors who have a rough time, too, and I don't know if the ratio is any different.
• [comparing his character on The Rifleman (1958) to his real-life role as a bandleader] The way I look at it, Mark McCain could have grown up to lead dance bands in the 1920s and '30s. As a young man who sang and played the guitar in two episodes, he might have made his way to Los Angeles, where there was lots of work for musicians in the early 1900s. By 1931, when he would have been the same age that I am now, he might have been leading his own band. I like to think he would have.

Interesting Facts about Johnny Crawford

1. Was one of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers in 1955.
2. Brother of Robert Crawford Jr., son of Elizabeth and Robert Crawford.
3. With five Top 40 hits in the 1960s, his recording of "Cindy's Birthday" peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 in 1962.
4. Continued performing in theater and nightclubs after his early TV and pop-music heydays.
5. Had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson of Saturday Night Live (1975) fame. In 1980 she was a college student in Birmingham, AL, earning credit doing flip-flops as a member of the chorus, in a summer stock production of "Meet Me in St. Louis", featuring Crawford. He presented her with a one-way plane ticket and encouraged her to pursue a career in Hollywood. This led to her 22 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live (1975).
6. His maternal grandfather, Belgian violinist Alfred Megerlin (1880-1941), was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic (1918-22), the Minneapolis Symphony (1923-26) and The Los Angeles Philharmonic (1927-29).
7. His paternal grandfather, Robert "Bobby" Crawford (1889-1941), was a horse jockey from Chicago who changed his occupation to song "plugger" and became a very successful music publisher as the founder of De Sylva, Brown & Henderson and Crawford Music Corp. Robert was born Samuel Faden to Russian Jewish parents, Isaac Faden and Rose Isserman.
8. A former member of the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) and the AJRA (American Junior Rodeo Association), he competed frequently at rodeos throughout the country during the 1960s and early 1970s.
9. He was of Russian Jewish (his paternal grandfather), English, German, Belgian Flemish, Scottish, and Swiss-German descent.
10. He has been a competitive trick-roper ever since Montie Montana got him spinning a "flat loop" in the early seasons of The Rifleman (1958), and horse wrangler Buster Trow taught him the "butterfly." After wrapping "The Rifleman", Johnny was coached by Gene McLaughlin for many years.
11. He was a guest at the 2012 Memphis Film Festival's "A Gathering of Guns 4: A TV Western Reunion" at the Whispering Woods Hotel and Conference Center in Olive Branch, MS.
12. Released August 5, Sweepin' the Clouds Away is the first album offered by Johnny Crawford And His Orchestra. It features fifteen authentic dance band orchestrations from the 1920s and 1930s, recorded during live performances at the L.A. County Museum of Art and in the historic Gold Room of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. Vocals by Crawford. Music by Jerome Kern, 'Richard Rodgers', 'Harry Warren', Nacio Herb Brown, Duke Ellington and other music icons of that dance band era. [August 2008]
13. In 2006 he directed a live orchestra using authentic period orchestrations for the premiere screening of the newly restored silent version of Chicago (1927) at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Los Angeles.
14. While serving in the Army in the late 1960s, he appeared in a number of period training films remembered by veterans of the times.
15. He credits his "Rifleman" co-star Chuck Connors with being a surrogate parent, acting mentor, and close confidante. When Connors passed away in 1992, Crawford served as one of his TV-father's pallbearers.
16. Profiled in the 2016 book "X Child Stars: Where Are They Now?" by Kathy Garver and Fred Ascher.
17. Announced that he's suffering from Alzheimer's disease. [23 February 2019].
18. Has highly praised Chuck Connors for his stardom in acting.
19. His acting mentor is the late Chuck Connors.
20. Former baseball player/movie actor Chuck Connors took him under Connors's wing, since he was 12, their friendship lasted almost 35 years, until Connors's own death in 1992.