BUZZ BARTON

Buzz Barton was born William Lamoreaux, but at the age of 12, he played a small role in a B-western, billed as "Billy Lamar". Over the next two years, he appeared in a total of nine B-westerns, being billed under various names. Apparently, he was quite a horseman, and in 1927, he starred in "The Boy Rider" as a youthful western hero, and he was billed as "Buzz Barton". This proved to be a very popular movie, and over the next two years, he appeared in around a dozen similar movies, as the "World's Greatest Juvenile Western Star", always playing David "Red" Hepner (because of Barton's red hair). Over the next few years, he continued making B-westerns, playing various characters, but becoming an adult hurt his career, and he was reduced to playing uncredited parts in scores of B-westerns in the late 1930s. He left the movies in 1942, when he enlisted in the Navy (even though he only grew to 5'2" as an adult). Barton passed away in 1980 at the age of 67.