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A Rock Springs man’s film career

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6 youngsters sit sideways on a beam facing the camera. Rock Springs native Mickey Daniels, sits second from left, with other Our Gang cast members from the original silent film series.A grumpy man in a hat stares at a younger man holding a bottle pointed at the angry man. A couple looks on from the background with a confused expression. The scene depicts Mickey Daniels, the young man with the bottle, in 1932's Too Many Women.A movie poster for the 1935 film Roaring Roads, with Mickey Daniels receiving prominent billing. Text reads: 'Roaring motors and racy romance! William Berke presents: Roaring Roads. With David Sharpe, Gertrude Messinger, Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman. Directed by C. Edward Roberts and Raymond Nazarao. Distributed by Ajax Pictures Corporation.' The top drawing depicts Mickey Daniels with a young women in a hat with her arm around him making a kissing face. The bottom image depicts a man with racing googles as an older women leans over him.The city of Rock Springs is pictured with a prominent image of the Rock Springs coal sign in the top left. The Rialto Theater, circled at right, circa 1930, as evidenced by the featured film Up the River, starring Spencer Tracy and Claire Luce. Now long gone, the Rialto was located on South Main Street in Rock Springs just west of South Main’s intersection with C Street.

Photo #1 - Rock Springs native Mickey Daniels, second from left, and other Our Gang cast members from the original silent film series

 

Photo #2 - Mickey Daniels, second from left, in 1932's Too Many Women

 

Photo #3 - Daniels received prominent billing for Roaring Roads (1935)

 

Photo #4 - The Rialto Theater, circled at right, circa 1930, as evidenced by the featured film Up the River, starring Spencer Tracy and Claire Luce. Now long gone, the Rialto was located on South Main Street in Rock Springs just west of South Main’s intersection with C Street.

 

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - April 9, 2022)     One of the hardworking volunteers at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River recently came across a portrait of a young man named Mickey Daniels and inquired about who he was. Daniels, from Rock Springs, was a prolific film actor in the 1920s and 1930s

In 2019 museum staff prepared an article about Daniels and his career, which was the subject of a special updated release on Saturday.

Rock Springs native broke into the movies in 1922

At least one Rock Springs native was able to break into the movies, and he did it after appearing at the Rialto Theater in the early 1920s.

Mickey Daniels, born Richard Daniels, Jr. in Rock Springs on October 11, 1914, was the son of Richard Daniels, himself an actor born in Wales, and his wife Hannah. Mickey started performing young, and he was spotted by a talent agent during a performance at the Rialto Theater on South Main Street in 1921. (Like many theaters of the time, the Rialto offered live entertainment as well as films.)

By the next year he’d been signed by producer Hal Roach for the groundbreaking Our Gang series, whose stars were a group of loveable, ragtag kids.

Daniels appeared in over 100 short and feature films between 1922 and 1941. Film buffs in particular remember him as Mickey the Truant Officer in 1933's Fish Hooky, one episode of the Our Gang series later syndicated on television.

Daniels left acting in the 1940s and died in San Diego, California, in 1970.

A YouTube video about Daniels and his film career can be found at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECSRz-9UOko .