Fess Elisha Parker Jr. (born F. E. Parker Jr.; August 16, 1924 â March 18, 2010), was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of the titular characters in, respectively, the Walt Disney television miniseries Davy Crockett (1954â55; ABC) and the long-running television series Daniel Boone (1964-70; NBC). He was also a winemaker and resort owner-operator.
He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II on board the USS Clay (APA-39) and participated in mopping-up operations in the Philippines aboard the USS YMS-334.
Parker’s height prevented him from entering Navy flight school. Then he tried for aviation radio gunners school in the Navy. “They threw me out because I was too big. They said, “You’ll never get inside the cockpit.” But because he had gotten Morse code training, he was shipped off to the Marines in Oceanside, Calif., where he trained for beach landings carrying a 50-pound field radio. “We were all just a bunch of kids, Happy Jacks,” he remembered. One day, command called the group together and split them into two groups. The other group went to Iwo Jima. “They lost 5,000 people just getting off the beach,” he remembers. “I assume someone had said, “That guy’s too big.” I was fortunate all the way through.”
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