LeRoy Mason

LeRoy Mason

The quintessential "Big Boss" heavy in B-Westerns, with or without a mustache, LeRoy Mason entered films in the mid-'20s as Roy Mason, playing mostly juveniles. After the advent of talkies, he was usually on the wrong side of the law, appearing opposite nearly every Western star on the Hollywood prairie, a career that included quite a few action serials as well. By the 1940s, he had become one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood, switching from 20th Century Fox to Republic and back again with seemingly little time to recuperate. In 1943, he signed a "term player" contract with Republic and became busier than ever. The hectic schedule took an awful toll, however, when he suffered a fatal heart attack on the set of the 1947 Monte Hale Western California Firebrand. Mason was married to Rita Carewe, who briefly billed herself Rita Mason, a former actress and the daughter of silent screen director Edwin Carewe. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide