Clarence E. Mulford

Biography

The man who created the famous Western character Hopalong Cassidy, Clarence Mulford was born in Streator, IL, in 1883 to a distinguished family that could trace its lineage in this country back to 1643, and in fact more than 20 Mulfords fought in the American Revolution. After graduating college he took a job with the "Municipal Journal and Engineer" newspaper in New York and began to write stories on the side. His first story was published in "Metropolitan" magazine, and then "Outing" magazine began publishing a string of his "Bar 20" short stories, with the iconic Hopalong Cassidy character. He has said that his first Western books ere written using data about the American West, but that his later books were written using information he gathered from his extensive traveling throughout the American West. He kept a card file of data about the West that contained more than 17,000 cards, covering everything from fur trapping and cattle drives to the Pony Express and the freight-wagon industry. For many years Mulford was very unhappy with the way his character of Hopalong Cassidy was portrayed in the films made from his books. In the novels Cassidy is a grubby, irritable, foul-mouthed, crusty old coot; in the films he was turned into a clean-cut, articulate, courtly, distinguished-looking gentleman, as played by William Boyd. Eventually he came to terms with the disparity, and even finally decided to meet with Boyd, which he had steadfastly refused to do, and the two actually hit it off. Mulford died in Portland, Maine, on May 10, 1956. He had suffered smoke damage to his lungs in a fire in 1947, died from complications after surgery to repair that damage.