Melody Ranch

Melody Ranch

Dad’s Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma Kelly lived on a western movie studio located in Placerita Canyon north of Los Angeles.   Monogram Studios was eventually bought by Gene Autry in 1952 and became the Melody Ranch (after a Gene Autry movie title).  

Grandpa (along with his white german shepherd) was the night watchman and lived in the main house.  I remember my uncles filling the air with smoke from packs of unfiltered Pall Malls, playing poker, and listening to the Son’s of the Pioneers on the radio in the main house.

I lived there when I was three and four years old.  We didn’t have television yet.  We were saving money up to buy a home which we eventually did buy in the San Fernando Valley which was where my father worked for the Southern California Gas Company.  We visited the ranch almost every week-end after that and I continued to vacation on the film ranch every summer until it burned down when I was 16.

During the 30’s and 40’s there were hundreds of movies and TV westerns shot on the movie lot including thirty-five John Wayne movies.  (My maternal grandfather, who lived on the other side of town, is supposed to have trained John Wayne in how to tame a horse.)

Melody ranch was twelve acres large with many streets that had 74 storefronts (fake-front buildings).  There were saloons, a huge adobe church, hotels, a jailhouse, a bank, a theater, a hardware store, and a gun shop. It also had a train and a train track that was not quite full size.  It was about half-size and was used in filming.  It is in a train museum now.  

Really, I did not have a clue that most children did not have their own train to run around in.  In fact I had the whole place to myself on the week-ends.  Nothing was locked and I wandered along the boardwalks while popping in and out of the stages.

I remember being given toys to be quiet in a back bedroom (which was also used for filming and was filled with antiques) while the living room was turned into a hotel lobby or a barroom.  Bad guys fought good guys like Gary Cooper in "High Noon" and Indians crawled all over the roof. 

Many actors worked on the lot.  Some of them were John Wayne, Preston Foster, The Cisco Kid, James Arness,  Bob Steele, Rex Rossi and Dennis Weaver of Gunsmoke.   Former President Ronald Reagan has worked there.  Also Anthony Quinn starred in “Man from Del Rio”. 

Television came along and The Lone Ranger, Wyatt Earp, Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock and Annie Oakley were also filmed there.  Yes, I met a lot of the actors.

One of my favorite memories is on the Fourth of July.  I would ride with my brother in a small covered wagon as "Miss Melody Ranch" in the small town parade.  Every January the men in town would start growing their beards and come the 4th there would be a contest to see who had the longest beard.  The next day all the beards would be shaved . . . until next January 1st.

After the parade we would go back to the movie ranch to a huge BBQ in which all the actors and families arrived decked out in their Nudies costumes.  There would be a Mariachi band and real BBQ.

I was resting on the swing couch in the back of the house when I saw smoke and saw that a pine tree was on fire and went to get help.  That year I was the big hero!

For many, many years as an adult, cowboy shows were on the television and I could see my trees and mountains that I climbed and ran down as a child.

There was a fire that destroyed much of the studio in 1962.  Elvis Presley was on location shooting “Kissin’ Cousin” and helped fight the fire.  No, I didn’t get to meet him.

Gene Autry suffered great loses from the fire.  Champion, Gene’s horse was kept on the property but what remained of his large collection of western memorabilia was sent to his new Gene Autry Museum.  He had an enormous collection of musical albums that did not survive the fire.

The movie ranch has been now been restored and I might like to visit it again someday!

This is my Dad, me and two of my brothers in the back yard of the main house at Melody Ranch.