Appearances

Title	Role	Year	Approx. Age
Rupert Patterson Wants to be a Super Hero	Art/Gus	1997	51
Crossbow	Crown Prince Ignatius	1990	44
Indian Paint	Nishko	1965	19
Village of the Giants	Horsey	1965	19
The Rifleman Season One / Disc 1 and 2	Mark McCain	1958	12
The Courage of Black Beauty	Bobby Adams	1957	11
About Killer Boys and Other Vintage TV	Billy Brandon	1955	9

Johnny Crawford was born on March 26, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, USA as John Ernest Crawford. He is an actor, known for The Rifleman (1958), El Dorado (1967) and The Thirteenth Floor (1999). He has been married to Charlotte Samco since February 14, 1995.

Johnny Crawford was one of the original 24 Disney Mouseketeers but was cut from the club after the first year when the membership was reduced to 12 year olds. He next starred in a live NBC broadcast of Little Boy Lost (1956), followed by a role on The Lone Ranger (1956), The Space Children (1958) and many others. Crawford was 12 when he landed The Rifleman role.

The Lucas McCain?s character on The Rifleman proved to be a groundbreaking parent on American television. He was the first widowed parent to be portrayed raising a child alone. Connors credited Sam Peckinpah with writing strong, robust scripts that made the father-son relationship depicted on the show realistic and appealing. And other television series soon caught on.

The actor took the path that many young TV stars of the 1950s chose: He became a teen idol and started a singing career. It was a better choice for Crawford than many of his peers of that era. Crawford sang five Top 40 hits in the 1960s, the biggest of which was ?Cindy?s Birthday,? which reached No. 8 on Billboard?s Hot 100 in 1962.

In 1965 he went into production with his father (producer) and older brother Robert (also an actor) in the Indian drama Indian Paint. It also starred Lone Ranger actor Jay Silverheels.

Following his singing career, Johnny Crawford switched gears in 1965 and enlisted in the United States Army. During the two years he spent in the Army, Crawford offered his knowledge and experience in film to help produce the Army?s training videos. He reached the rank of sergeant by the time he was honorably discharged at the conclusion of 1967. Months later he portrayed a soldier in an episode of the TV series Hawai?i Five-O.

Although Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford had a close working relationship on The Rifleman, they did not maintain a father-son dynamic off-screen. In an interview with AMC, Crawford was asked whether he saw Connors as a father figure. He replied, ?Not really. I had great respect for him and I loved working with him but he was very different off-screen. He was incorrigible; a practical joker. It was fun all the time but he wasn?t a good influence on me aside from his acting. He used a lot of four-letter words and he was very imposing. He loved intimidating people. I got a kick out of him.?

Although life was already pretty crazy for the successful 13-year-old with The Rifleman, The Mouseketeers, The Lone Ranger, The Loretta Young Show and many more opportunities under his belt, he managed to make the Top 40 list five different times. With hits like ?Cindy?s Birthday,? ?Rumors,? ?Your Nose Is Gonna Grow,? and ?Proud? all reached the heights of the music industry due to his talent on and off screen in 1962 and 1963.

On top of his many early accomplishments within the industry, Johnny Crawford was nominated for an Emmy Award by a 13-years-old for his role of Mark McCain on The Rifleman! Unfortunately, beat out by Gunsmoke?s Dennis Weaver, Crawford lost the chance to grab the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor (Continuing Character) In A Dramatic Series, but just to be nominated at that young of an age is a major accomplishment in itself!

Surprisingly after its long and wild ride, the television show The Rifleman was almost remade in 2011. Director Chris Columbus was set to be the executive producer and Willie Nelson and child actor Jacob Tremblay were in talks to star. However, just a few months after they announced the show?s rebirth, it was canceled before the pilot was even created.

One of Johnny Crawford?s favorite episodes is when his character had to decide whether to stay with his mother in heaven or live with his father on earth. The episode was titled ?The Vision.? The actor explained in an interview that it took nine days to shoot (instead of the usual three) because he was very sick with a high fever. He revealed: ?I really haven?t seen it for many years, but at the time I remember thinking that it was very imaginative and unusual. Also at that time, one of my favorite shows was The Twilight Zone, so that was where my tastes were.?

Crawford added, ?I knew that if the lady who taught me on the set, who was also a welfare worker ? it was her responsibility to see that if I was ill, I was removed from the set until I was in proper health. I didn?t want to hold up production and all that, so I tried to keep it a secret from her, but I guess it became somewhat obvious. The particular scene that we were doing when she discovered or decided that I was really ill, was when they?re supposed to be packing me in ice. I have a very high fever and they?re trying to bring it down and I think that was the first scene we actually photographed for that episode.?

Johnny is 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. Also: Johnny was a bandleader: "Johnny Crawford And His Orchestra" featured a fifteen-member authentic dance band that played original orchestrations from the 1920s and 1930s,

Johnny passed away on April 29, 2021 of pneumonia after contracting COVID-19. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and was in a memory care residence.