Giddy up! The Wild West was a place for a handful of bold actresses from the 1930’s though the 1990’s. These 10 ladies had no trouble saddling up for iconic, rough-and-tumble Western roles.
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Joan Crawford
With 1954’s Johnny Guitar, Joan’s fight as a saloonkeeper in an Arizona frontier town could’ve paralleled her time in Hollywood. Said Joan: “You have to be self-reliant and strong to survive in this town.”
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Doris Day
“I loved portraying a rambunctious, pistol-packing prairie girl,” said Doris of 1953’s Calamity Jane, a part she was “a little partial to” when naming a favorite role. “I was such a tomboy growing up, and she was such fun to play.”
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Barbara Stanwyck
“I’ve always loved the western. It’s pure drama, tried and honest. Many actresses look down on them, but I never have,” declared Barbara, who saddled up for roles from 1935’s Annie Oakley to TV’s The Big Valley — where she liked playing “a real frontier woman, not one of those crinoline-covered things you see in most westerns.”
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Dale Evans
In film or on TV, the Queen of the West had many happy trails costarring alongside husband Roy Rogers. Then again, Dale always “loved cowboys. I used to say that when I grew up, I was going to marry Tom Mix! He was my hero.”
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Jean Arthur
She’d become a star via such films as 1940’s Arizona. But, Jean confessed, “First I played ingenues and western heroines; then I played western heroines and ingenues. [It] became as monotonous as a diet of spinach.”
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Marlene Dietrich
Before 1939’s Destry Rides Again, Marlene and the pic’s producer, Joe Pasternak, were enthralled by books about the Wild West as kids in Europe. “I wanted to take the first boat over here and be a cowboy,” admitted Joe. “So did I,” agreed Marlene. “And now I am in a western, at last!”
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Maureen O’Hara
She enjoyed making westerns with Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda. But starting with 1950’s Rio Grande, John Wayne would be Maureen’s “number one” cowboy. “I could stand toe to toe with Duke and fight it out.”
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Sharon Stone
“I like that the woman plays what is classically the man’s role,” said Sharon about the draw of her gunslinger in 1995’s The Quick and the Dead. “[During it, I was] learning that that’s what I’m best at. Not that I play it like a man. I think it’s woman revealed in a new way.”
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Jane Russell
Playing Billy the Kid’s busty moll, Jane had her film debut in 1943’s The Outlaw, which made her a star. Yet she wasn’t as rootin’ tootin’ in real life. “People were confused with me singing spirituals and reading the Bible,” she remembered. “I just merrily went on my way doing what I liked and let the confusion lie where Jesus flung it.”
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Betty Hutton
“I wanted that picture so badly, and I had the worst experience,” shared Betty, who offered some straight shootin’ about 1950’s Annie Get Your Gun — on which she replaced Judy Garland as Annie Oakley. “The cast were awful to me,” she said. “They wanted Judy in the part. I don’t blame them. [But] that broke my heart.”
