Burt Kennedy
Burt Kennedy (1922–2001) was an American screenwriter and director whose career was built almost entirely around the Western. Born in Muskegon, Michigan, into a vaudeville family that gave him the stage as a small child, he served as a First Lieutenant with the 1st Cavalry Division in the Philippines during the Second World War and was decorated with the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart. He wrote some of the finest Westerns of the 1950s — Seven Men from Now, The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, and Comanche Station — for Budd Boetticher, who called him "the best Western writer ever." As a director, his greatest success was the comedy-Western Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) with James Garner, followed by Support Your Local Gunfighter, Hannie Caulder with Raquel Welch, and The Train Robbers with John Wayne. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.