Biography

We had lots of fun on those pictures. It wasn't like work or making movies, it was like playing, like make-believe. It was wonderful!

Universal was going to write in a part for me in Destry Rides Again (1939), but I had a pony at stables run by Victor McLaglen. I fell off the pony and got a case of poison ivy. That kept me out of 'Destry'.

[on starting riding at a young age] I started on a mule at the San Francisco zoo. My father put me on it all the time - I could ride very early, even before I could walk! We moved to the peninsula so I could have a pony, and my father could have a horse. His horse was 17½ hands - and I rode that horse, too. I rode my pony Chiquita in horse shows at age 4 to 5, doing exhibitions, tricks. I put Chiquita through her paces. Taught her lots of tricks.

I am a natural born ham, so I never had any acting lessons - I had performed since I was a small kid, so it all came naturally to me.

I was raised on the peninsula, thirty miles south of San Francisco. It wasn't really rural, but there were open spaces, and horses. In those days, I even rode my pony to school.