Veteran actor showed pride in Kansas roots during making of ‘Home on the Range’ movie

Rance Howard may not have been born in Kansas but much of his childhood was spent growing up on a farm near Dexter.

That’s one reason why he wanted to participate in a movie about the Kansas state song, “Home on the Range.” The movie debuted Jan. 13th at the Orpheum.

“I went to a little country school near Dexter called Glendale,” Mr. Howard said earlier this year. “I grew up listening to this song. This is a true story and part of our heritage.”

Mr. Howard, a veteran actor and father of actor-director Ron Howard and actor Clint Howard, died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 89.

Harold Rance Beckenholdt was born Nov. 17, 1928 in Duncan, Oklahoma. He grew up during the Great Depression as his family eked out a living by farming on the Kansas/Oklahoma border.

In January, he told the Eagle how he grew up listening to WIBW radio and hearing cowboy singer Roy Faulkner sing “Home on the Range.” The movie is the story of how “Home on the Range” sprang up on the Kansas prairie and quickly made its way along cattle trails to cowtowns, gaining national popularity with the advent of radio. The story also includes some angst in how it was nearly stolen from Kansas, was prohibited from being played and how it took an NBC attorney from New York to track down its true history.

It features various recordings of the famous song, from the rock group Kansas to cowboy singer Michael Martin Murphey.

“I think anybody with a little country in their veins and who knows a little about the West will be interested in the birth of this song and how a doctor standing on the banks of Beaver Creek wrote the words,” Howard said. “I hope people will embrace it and love it as much as I do.”

Ron Howard tweeted on Saturday about his father and said “his passion for acting changed the course of our family history. We love & miss U Dad.”

Ken Spurgeon, the “Home on the Range” movie director, said Mr. Howard connected with him early on in the film’s making. He said Mr. Howard still has relatives living in Kansas and Oklahoma.

In the “Home on the Range” movie, Mr. Howard portrayed an 86-year-old Cal Harlan, a Smith County Kansan who sang the song from memory just as frontier doctor Brewster Higley had originally written it in 1873.

Spurgeon said on Sunday that one of the stories Mr. Howard shared with him during the making of the movie is how he first decided he wanted to be an actor.

“He was in a school play in this little one-room schoolhouse,” Spurgeon said. “He was the lead actor at the age of 10 or 12 years old. He walked out on stage and noticed, ‘Everyone is looking at me. I was controlling the responses of everyone in the room. I still do it to this day. All I want to do is act.’

“The acting bug bit him and he trained his children to be great actors — and they are. That’s what ignited him and his face lit up as he told that story.”

Mr. Howard studied at the University of Oklahoma in Norman where he met his first wife, Jean Speegle. His first major professional acting role was in “Mr. Roberts” with Henry Fonda. He later became known for his character roles in a variety of television shows, including “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Seinfeld,” “Gentle Ben,” “Gunsmoke” and “The Waltons.”

Mr. Howard was also in notable movies such as “Cool Hand Luke,” “Chinatown,” “Splash,” Ed Wood,” “Apollo 13,” “Independence Day,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Cinderella Man” and “Nebraska.”

His wife, Jean, died in 2000. They were married 51 years. He married Judy O’Sullivan in 2001.

Around the time the “Home on the Range” movie debuted in Wichita in January, Mr. Howard’s second wife, Judy, passed away.

“I know after Judy died, he was incredibly lonely,” Spurgeon said.

Spurgeon said the cast and crew from the Kansas-made movie were saddened to learn of Mr. Howard’s death.

“He was so humble and his talent just radiated from him,” Spurgeon said. “He was a gracious man and saw this movie as a bit of a homecoming. His ancestors shared many of the same values that many of us Kansans have. He connected to that story.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2017 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Veteran actor showed pride in Kansas roots during making of ‘Home on the Range’ movie."