ANDY DEVINE: KINGMAN'S FAVORITE NATIVE SON

Amy's husband, Tom, served as Mohave County Treasurer for many years and was a successful and respected businessman in this community. He was involved with the Good Roads Association, a group who were successful in having the National Old Trails Highway take the northern route through Arizona. This highway became the famous Route 66.

Amy Devine, Andy’s mother, was probably a greater influence in his life than his father. It was Amy who patiently helped Andy recover his speech after the accident that damaged his throat and who strove to curb the exceptional energy that got him into many scrapes and accidents as a child.

The stories about mischievous young boy abound. The Mohave Miner reported that “Andrew, the three year old child of Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Devine, fell from the rear porch of the Beale Hotel to the ground, a distance of about 13 feet, sustaining a fracture of the left arm and sundry cuts and bruises.

There is one favorite Andy Devine “mischievous boy” story. Andy and his brother Tom both worked in the Beale Hotel for their father. Among the clientele were many salesman, or drummers, as they were called in those days. They used to pack their satchels, park them near the front door and then play pool in the pool room while waiting for the train. One time Andy took hammer and nails, nailed the satchels to the floor and then shouted, “Train’s a leavin”, into the pool room. The drummers made a mad dash for the door, grabbed their satchels, but left the bottoms plus contents on the floor when they hurriedly jerked up on the handles.

Hollywood, a place where divorce was the name of the game, Andy and Dorothy were happily married for over forty years. They raised their boys on a ranch away from the false glitter of the movie industry and kept their life separate from the movie colony. Andy told his boys that he would try to live his life not to embarrass them, if they would do the same for him. After appearing with Andy in Canyon Passage, in 1946, the boys decided movie acting wasn’t for them. Tad and Dennis both graduated from college.

Although Andy Devine’s acting career started out as an accidental happening–he was standing on a street corner in Hollywood when “discovered”–he had to struggle to make his career successful. His voice, which was high, squeaky and had a timorous catch to it almost cost him his career but eventually became the key to Andy’s success and popularity in films, stage, radio and television. Once heard, those raspy, squeaky tones are never forgotten. That voice, plus his bulky frame led to the comedic roles for which he is well known.

It was not only the voice that made Andy “an original”, he had a fine sense of comic relief so important to the western morality play. He played Cookie Bullfincher in nine movies and continued throughout his career playing the comic relief roles in musicals, westerns, and even a couple of gangster pictures.

His first Class A movie, Stagecoach (1939) in which he played the stage driver, was a tremendous boost to his career. The making of the movie also brought him friendship with John Wayne that lasted until Andy’s death. Devine was a very successful television star, with the role of Jingles in Wild Bill Hickok being the most famous, and he went on to a successful stage career.