Everything about Buster Crabbe totally explained
» For the British diver of the same name see Lionel Crabb
Buster Crabbe (
February 7,
1908 –
April 23,
1983) was an American athlete turned actor, who starred in a number of popular
serials in the 1930s and 1940s.
Birth
He was born as
Clarence Linden Crabbe II to Lucy Agnes McNamara (1885-1959) and Edward Clinton Simmons Crabbe I (1882-?) in
Oakland,
California,
USA. His father was born in Nevada and his paternal grandfather, Clarence Linden Crabbe I (1861-1941), was born in Hawaii. Buster had a brother, Edward Clinton Simmons Crabbe II (1909-1972), who was known as "Buddy". In 1910 the family was living in a boarding house in Oakland and Edward senior was working as a real estate broker. Like many Hollywood stars there's a conflict between the birthdate given in his official documents, and the one used in his Hollywood publicity biographies. His birth certificate and his Social Security application both use the birthdate of "February 7, 1908" and that will be used here. The
Encyclopædia Britannica uses an incorrect birthdate based on his Hollywood publicity biography.
Hawaii and Olympics
Raised in
Hawaii, he graduated from
Punahou School in Honolulu. He excelled as a swimmer and participated in two
Olympic Games:
1928, where he won the bronze medal for the 1,500 meter freestyle, and
1932, where he won the gold medal for the 400 meter freestyle.
He attended the
University of Southern California, where he was the school's first
All-American swimmer (1931) and a 1931 NCAA freestyle titlist. He also became a member of the
Sigma Chi Fraternity before graduating from USC in 1931. In 1933 he married his college sweetheart Adah Virginia Held, and gave himself one year to either make it as an actor or start law school at USC. Buster and Virginia remained together until Buster's death in 1983. They had two daughters, Sande and Susan and a son, Cullen. Sande died of
anorexia.
Time magazine wrote on April 11, 1932:
"Clarence (Buster) Crabbe, 22, of Los Angeles, ablest distance swimmer in the United States: the 1,500-metre race in the A.A.U. championships, at New Haven, lowering his own American record by 20.9 seconds to 19:45.6. Later he won two other championships: the 300 yard medley and 500 yard free style. Los Angeles won the team championship with 45 points to New York's 37."
Crabbe also starred at the
Billy Rose Aquacade at the
New York World's Fair in its second year of 1940, replacing
Johnny Weismuller.
Hollywood
Crabbe's role in the 1933
Tarzan serial
Tarzan the Fearless (also issued as a full length movie) launched a successful career in which he starred in over one hundred movies. It would be the only movie in which Crabbe starred as Tarzan. (The serial was re-edited into a made-for-TV feature in 1964.) In the 1933's
King of the Jungle, 1941's
Jungle Man, and the 1952 serial
King of the Congo he played generic "jungle man" roles in the Tarzan mode. He also starred in the first international film
Search for Beauty (1934), and his next major role was in 1936 as
Flash Gordon in the popular
Flash Gordon serial, which he reprised in two sequels, released by Universal in 1938 and 1940). The three serials were later shown extensively on American television during the 1950s, then edited for release on home video. Other characters he portrayed included Western hero
Billy the Kid,
Buck Rogers, and a brother of his real-life fraternity in the movie musical
The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi. In some of his movies he's credited as
Larry Crabbe. His
sidekick in most of his
westerns was the actor
Al St. John.
Crabbe is the only actor who played Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers — the top three comic strip heroes of the 1930s.
Television
Crabbe starred in the television series,
Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (1955 to 1957) as Captain Michael Gallant; the adventure series aired on NBC. His real-life son, Cullen Crabbe, appeared in this show as the character "Cuffy Sanders".
Crabbe made regular television appearances, including one on an episode of the
1979 series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, where he played a retired fighter pilot named "Brigadier Gordon" in honor of Flash Gordon. When Rogers (
Gil Gerard) praises his flying, Gordon replies "I've been doing that sort of thing since before you were born." Rogers (who was born over 500 years earlier) responds "You think so?" to which Gordon replies "Young man, I know so!" Crabbe had, in fact, been playing "Buck Rogers" since long before Gerard was born. And as he said that, he looked straight into the camera and winked at the audience.
Later years
Crabbe's
Hollywood career waned somewhat in the
1950s and
1960s. The ever-industrious Crabbe became a
stockbroker and businessman during this period. According to David Ragan's "Movie Stars of the 30's", Crabbe even owned a
Southern California swimming pool building company in later years.
In the mid-1950s, Crabbe purchased the campus of a small defunct prep school near the hamlet of Onchiota, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. Renamed Buster Crabbe's Meenahga Lodge the camp advertised itself as swim camp for youngsters age 8-14, with at least one swim instructor from Hawaii. Using the school's auditorium, along with professionally made costuming and scenery, a couple of musical plays were staged by the campers during the summer under the guidance of several counselors with drama training. Although scheduled to make at least one appearance at the camp each summer, while filming
Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, he supposedly needed an emergency appendectomy which prevented him attending.
During this period of his life, Buster joined the swimming pool company Cascade Industries Inc of Talmagde Road, Edison NJ. In his capacity as Sales VP, promoter and spokesman for Cascade - the world's first "package pool" company - he attended Mall openings and Fairgrounds combining promotion of his swim camps and Cascade vinyl liner in-ground pools. A pool range was named after him, and pools were sold by "Buster Crabbe Dealers" throughout the eastern seaboard and southern states from 1952 until 1990. By the late 1960's Buster Crabbe "Cascade" pools were available in more than 28 countries world-wide. Buster remained a spokesman for Cascade until his death. The "Cascade Pools" name is still in operation in the US, UK and New Zealand and one US pool company in Missouri is called "Buster Crabbe Pools" while an above-ground pool supplier "Aqua Sports" markets the Buster Crabbe range, so Buster's name lives on in the world of recreational swimming.
Though he followed other pursuits, he never stopped acting. From the 1950s forward he appeared in numerous lower budget films. In fact, he appear in the
1982 feature film,
The Comeback Trail one year before his death.
Despite his numerous film and television appearances, he's best remembered today as one of the original action heroes of 1930s and 1940s cinema.
Death
He died on
April 23,
1983, aged 75, from a heart attack in
Scottsdale,
Arizona and was buried in the
Green Acres Memorial Gardens Cemetery.
Timeline
Trivia
Crabbe worked with six year old American actor David Holt in Holt's capacity as the uncredited human double for Cheeta's chimpanzee predecessor in Tarzan the Fearless, the 1933 film staring Crabbe.
Crabbe is the grandfather of Nick Holt, defensive coordinator of the University of Southern California Trojans football team and former head coach of the University of Idaho.Further Information
Get more info on 'Buster Crabbe'.
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