A quote from Fess: "My name is Fess Parker. I am an actor and a son of Texas. There have been several turning points in my life, but the most important one came the day I stepped before the cameras as Davy Crockett. The way I look at things, a man's life story isn't his alone, but it belongs to a lot of people who have influenced him and done things for him that he can never repay."

But we're getting way ahead of ourselves. Let's start at the beginning. Fess was born on August 16, 1924 in Ft. Worth, Texas. Against the wishes of his father, Fess' mother named him Fess E. Parker, Jr. The initial "E" stood for nothing but Fess adopted "Elisha". When he was a kid, he learned somewhere that "Fess" was a common word meaning "proud" way back in the English language. When he got into show business, an agent suggested that he change his name to a more romantic type. Fess replied, "I was born Fess and I'm gonna die Fess".

Every summer from the age of 4 to 14, Fess spent on the farms and ranches belonging to his grandparents near DeLeon, Texas, and Dublin, Texas. He learned to plow, milk cows and all kinds of usual farm chores. He also learned quite a bit about cattle raising. At the age of twelve he was handy with a lariat.

Fess was slow to anger, but once he was riled, look out! This peaceful quality about Fess was puzzling to his high school football coach. To get the best out of Fess, who played end, the coach had to invent a way to get the big boy angry. Just before an important football game, the coach used to call for scrimmage and he'd assign a couple of battle loving linemen to rough Fess up. They'd prod him, butt him, kick him and anything they could think of to get Fess really sore. The only problem then was to keep him that way for game time.

Fess was a better than average student, but his teachers had trouble getting him to focus on his studies. He loved to study, but he wanted to study whatever pleased his imagination and fancy. Everyone knew though that whatever Fess really wanted, he would go after and get. When World War II came, Fess and a couple of his friends decided to get into the Air Corps. Both the Air Corps and the Navy turned down Fess' offer of services. At the time they weren't taking boys that tall.

A few months later, the Navy changed its mind and drafted him. Fess landed on the ship YMS 334, a 132-foot, shallow-draft sweeper whose job was to explode Japanese mines around the Philippines. In those ten months Fess saw no direct action on the mine sweep, and kept busy only in the performance of the craft's duties. Somewhere during this training period he got a glimpse of Hollywood. He had a friend who knew a friend who knew the son of the Fibber McGee and Molly people, so that he got the chance to see the inside of a movie studio while on leave from base in San Francisco.The most luck was hitching a ride back up north one Easter weekend with actor Walter Huston and his wife. Before he got a chance to look into the acting business he was shipped out for a good many months.

After the war, Fess (who is six foot six) returned to Hardin-Simmons University to finish up as a speech major. There he had the opportunity to play a part in Midsummer Night's Dream. Fess continued acting when he went on to the University of Texas. Not long before his graduation with a Bachelor of Arts degree, he was introduced to visiting actor Adolphe Menjou. By this time, Fess was one of the chief characters on campus, having been elected Sweetheart of Alpha Chi Omega and playing Mars in a production called Time Staggers On. Menjou had a fine time on the campus with Fess as his guide. Thereafter, they exchanged several letters, one of which promised to help him if he ever came to Hollywood to try his luck.

When he got to Hollywood, he introduced Fess to his agent and he read for several heads of studio talent departments and soon discovered that there was a complete lack of demand for his talents. The stubborness came out in him. He decided that while he was waiting around for some minds to change, he went after his master's degree in history of the theatre, attending University of Southern California. Fess had a brainstorm that proved to be a big turning point in his life. He applied for and was accepted as a $32 week extra with the touring company of Mister Roberts, starring Henry Fonda. He didn't have one word to say on the stage, but he'd always had great admiration for Fonda as an actor. He toured with the play and absorbed a new understanding of show business. He decided to go to Hollywood to become a moviestar.

He really believed that nothing could stop him now. Because of his work in the Henry Fonda play, he could look a casting director straight in the face and tell him that he did have very good experience in summer theatre. They didn't have to know that he didn't speak a word. After he found an agent, things began to happen fast. When he read for a part in a Doris Day movie, which went to Ronald Reagan, he had rehearsed one of the scenes and used it for a test at Universal, where he got his first motion picture role in Untamed Frontier with Joseph Cotten and Shelley Winters.

In all, Fess appeared in some thirty television shows and pictures and has appeared in the movies Them and Battle Cry to name a few.

"I guess you'd call me plain. I don't go in for show. There isn't anything I want too much, except to be a good actor."