Ray "Crash" Corrigan

Ray "Crash" Corrigan (14 February 1902 - 10 August 1976), born Raymond Benard, was an American actor most famous for appearing in B-Western movies.

His career in Hollywood began as a physical fitness instructor and physical culture trainer to the stars. In the early 1930s he did stunts and bit-parts. Many of his early roles were in ape costumes - for example, as a Gorilla in Tarzan and His Mate (1934) and an "Orangopoid" in the original Flash Gordon serial. In 1936 he got his break with roles in two Republic serials, The Vigilantes Are Coming and Undersea Kingdom (in the main starring part).

According to Corrigan himself, his stage name of "Crash" Corrigan came from his role in the Undersea Kingdom (it was produced to rival Universal's Flash Gordon - the same one in which he played the Orangopoid - and the name was designed to be similar). Other stories go that it was due to his size or because he kept falling off his horse on set. There is no firm proof for any of this but it is verifiable that this serial was the first time he used the name professionally.

On the basis of this, Republic signed him to a Term Player Contract, running from 25 May 1936 to 24 May 1938. He was cast as one the trio in the Three Mesquiteers series of films and starred in 24 in all. He left Republic in 1938 in a dispute over pay.

At Monogram Pictures, he began a new series of films - The Range Busters (a cheap copy of the Three Mesquiteers) - with a character of his own name. Ray starred in 20 of the 24 films in this series between 1940 and 1943.

Following this, his on screen work largely returned to appearing in ape costumes - for example, one of the title roles in Nabonga (1944) and 1952's Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. In 1948 he sold his gorilla suit and provided training to Steve Calvert a Ciro's bartender and admirer of Corrigan. Calvert stepped in Corrigan's pawprints with the two teaming up in Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla^[1]

In 1950 Corrigan had a television show called Crash Corrigan's Ranch and was planning a television series with his old associate Max Terhune called Buckskin Rangers.^[2]

Corrigan's last film was playing the title role of It! The Terror from Beyond Space.

Corriganville

In 1937, Corrigan was on a hunting trip with Clark Gable had the idea to purchase the land in Simi Valley, California as his own Western ranch similar to Iverson Movie Ranch. He paid $1,000 down payment, then a thousand dollars a month until the #11,354 price was paid.^[3]He developed this into Corriganville, a location used for many Western movies and TV shows. The location featured many different types of terrain for producers such as lakes, mountains, and caves.^[4] As opposed to merely set fronts, Corriganville contained actual buildings where film crews could live^[5] and store their equipment to save time and expense wasted in daily travelling from studios to an outdoor location.

Corrigan made a lot of money from renting out this location and from paying visitors - it was opened to the public for Western-themed shows in 1949.

Examples of movies and shows filmed at Corriganville:

• Drums of Fu Manchu (1939)
• Fort Apache (1948)
• The Lone Ranger (1949-1957)
• The Cisco Kid (1950-1956)
• The Adventures of Kit Carson (1951-1955)
• Advetures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-1959)
• Have Gun - Will Travel (1957-1963)
• Casey Jones (1957)

Corriganville was eventually sold to Bob Hope in 1966, at which point it became Hopetown.

See also

• Movie Ranch

Trivia

• Corrigan had an Ape suit fitted to his own measurements with fur made of human hair.
• Corrigan wore his ape suit on multiple television shows and wore it at childrens birthday parties. The kids were scared of him.

References

External links

• Ray Corrigan at the Internet Movie Database
• Ray "Crash" Corrigan at B-Westerns
• List of productions filmed at Corriganville at the Internet Movie Database
• Corriganville site