McCoy, Timothy S.

Cowboy, homesteader, actor, and adjutant general of Wyoming; b. 1891; d. 1978.

Tim McCoy (1891-1978) was an actor in over 80 feature films, most of them Westerns. He was born in Saginaw, Michigan, but moved to the Thermopolis, Wyoming, area as a young man where he worked as a ranch hand and learned Indian sign language and ceremonies. He served in the cavalry in World War I and became adjutant general of Wyoming after the war, serving until 1922, when he was hired as an Indian consultant and traslator for the film "The Covered Wagon." McCoy's first feature role was in "War Paint," (1926). He made a successful transition to talking pictures and finally to television, starring in the weekly "Tim McCoy Show" in the early 1950s. For three years in the late 1930s he appeared with the Ringling Brothers Circus and later formed his own unsuccessful Wild West show, "Col. Tim McCoy's Wild West and Rough Riders of the World."

McCoy also wrote short articles, stories and poetry, chiefly on Indians, cowboys, and the West. His autobiography, "Tim McCoy Remembers the West," coauthored by his son Ronald McCoy, was published in 1977.