Watson Family, Take 2: In Part 1 of the multi-part “Watson Chronicles” series, the focus was the news that fourth-generation photojournalist Dan Watson decided to retire in June 2024, after logging nearly 20 years as an award-winning photographer for The Signal newspaper in Southern California’s Santa Clarita Valley.

The Watson Family’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6674 Hollywood Boulevard, was dedicated on April 22, 1999.

Now, in Part 2, we flash back even earlier to profile Watson’s famous forebears, renowned as “Hollywood’s First Family,” and the first family to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Their colorful story, as briefly noted in Part 1, stretches back to the 1880s — four generations of movie actors, horse wranglers, stuntmen, special effects producers, film studio innovators and inventors, news and commercial photographers, photojournalists, and newsreel-TV cameramen.

Starting in silents and transitioning to talkies, various Watsons appeared in and/or worked on more than 1,000 movies during Hollywood’s Golden Age (1915-1963), though they were not always credited.

Later, as adults, working behind the cameras as photographers and photojournalists, they became visual storytellers – archetypal hard-boiled newshounds – who documented many of the 20th Century’s most significant events.

Let’s get to know the Watson Family better, generation by generation, starting with the first to land in America in the late 19^th Century.

Generation 1: James Watson (1863-1925)

James Watson in his Salvation Army uniform, late 1800s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

James Watson, Dan Watson’s great-grandfather, became the first in the dynasty of 10 Watson Family photographers almost a century and a half ago.

A Salvation Army ensign who became a captain, James and his wife Amy Kate Ball Watson left their native England in 1885 on a mission to set up Salvation Army encampments in North America.

The fast-growing family moved from Canada to Colorado and along the way, James took up photography as a hobby.

“He got a Civil War book on how to do photography, and that’s how he started,” Dan said, at first using the old wet-plate process. “You had to paint the emulsion on a piece of glass, take it in the dark. It had to be developed while it was tacky. The big (breakthrough) for him was when Kodak came out with the dry plate (invented in 1871 by Dr. Richard L. Maddox) in 1880.”

James Watson made his first 5”x7” dry-plate negatives in the mid-1880s.

“The best first image we have of his was from 1888, a picture of an ice-skating rink, and photographically very interesting,” Dan said. “It wasn’t like somebody just made a snapshot. He climbed up high, shot down, waited for the people to get into position. He knew what he was doing. Very creative.”

Ice skaters pack a pond in Colorado circa 1888. Such shots from elevated angles would become a hallmark of the Watson Family’s photographic style, passed down through their four generations. Photo: James Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

By 1901, James and Amy and their family had landed in Los Angeles, where he shot tall-masted wooden ships in San Pedro and beachgoers in Santa Monica.

Beachgoers enjoy the California sun at Santa Monica, north of the pier, in this image looking south. Photo: James Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

One of James’ most famous images captures William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his touring Wild West Show as they enter Downtown Los Angeles in 1903, parading down Broadway with 11-year-old George R. Watson in the frame, tagging along behind Cody’s carriage.

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his touring Wild West Show ride into Downtown Los Angeles in 1903. Photo: James Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

In 1910, James shot the bombed-out Los Angeles Times building, pointing his camera down from a perch higher up in a building across the street.

James and Amy Kate had nine children. Three of these Generation 2 Watsons – James Caughey (aka “Coy”), William H. (Bill), and George R. – carried on their father’s passion for the fast-developing field of visual media, working in early silent movies and still photography for newspapers.

The James Watson Family in the early 1900s (from left): Top row: Bill and Vic. Center row: George (nicknamed “Rally”), Coy, James, and Herb. Front row: Ethel and James’ wife Amy Kate, holding their daughter Amy. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Of them all, Dan said, “George Watson, who would be a great-uncle of mine, was the one most interested in photography.”

Generation 2: James Caughey “Coy” Watson (1890-1968)

Dan’s grandfather and grandmother, James Caughey (“Coy”) Watson and his wife Golda, fell into the nascent silent movie business in the 1910s. They bought a piece of property a stone’s throw from the Mack Sennett Studios in Edendale, an enclave of movie production studios near Alvarado Street and Glendale Boulevard just northwest of Downtown Los Angeles (an area now called Echo Park).

A view of the Mack Sennett Studios in the teens of the 20th century. Photo: Coy Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Also a journeyman plasterer, Coy (as he became known) as early as 1911 was breaking horses and providing steeds for silent cowboy movie stars like Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, and Tom Mix, and performing stunts on horseback on-camera.

“He always used to say, ‘We’d rent the horses for $3 a day. And if I was an actor or rode the horse, I got $2 a day for a stunt or whatever,’ Dan said. “In the morning, they would dress up as Indians and ride the horses across the field. Then in the afternoon after lunch, they’d dress up as the cavalry and chase themselves in the scene on the same horses [laughs]. That’s how he started.”

Coy Watson, pictured circa 1911, turned a love of horses and making movies into a family enterprise in Los Angeles. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Coy was soon acting as well as performing stunts; he was an original Keystone Cop for Mack Sennett, who launched the series of wacky film comedies in 1912.

Coy and Golda’s proximity to the studios also proved quite convenient as the couple’s family grew. Starting in 1913, they also raised nine children (Generation 3) – boys Coy Jr., Billy, Harry, Delmar, Garry (Dan’s father), and Bobs, and girls Vivian, Gloria, and Louise.

An ad promoted the first eight of Coy and Golda Watson’s kids to filmmakers, circa 1929, pre-Bobby aka Bobs. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“It was a natural for (Coy Sr.),” Dan said. Starting with “Keystone Kid” Coy Jr., “He got all the kids involved in the movies, and most of them had the personality and the temperament for it.”

When casting directors needed a youngster for a movie part, the versatile Watson brood was just a shout away, Dan said. Invariably, there was a Watson kid just the right size who could hit a mark, and “laugh, cry, and deliver dialog on cue” as Bob Pool noted in The Los Angeles Times on April 23, 1999.

“They’d say, ‘Coy, we need a blonde-haired kid for this, and we need him about this tall.’ ‘Okay, take whichever one you want.’ He used to leave their hair long because they were making a lot of films set in Prince Valiant’s days. ‘Do you want their hair long? Or you can cut it.’ Simple things like that. He was a very advanced, very sharp guy.”

Meanwhile, Golda took in wardrobe washing and ironing for the Sennett actors (Gloria Swanson, among them), and wrangled the Watsons’ growing stable of kid actors. Coy eventually became their agent and business manager, but directors knew they could also just “Call Golda!”

Coy Watson (with pipe) holds a wired piece of rope that was part of the special effects he and his crew invented to make the magic carpet “fly” in 1924’s “The Thief of Bagdad.” Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Coy segued from actor to assistant director at the Sennett studios in 1915. He later was a special effects pioneer in the movies; he’s renowned for creating the trick wiring effects to make the magic carpet in the Douglas Fairbanks classic “The Thief of Bagdad” (1924) appear to “fly.”

Coy is also credited with special effects for Fairbanks’ “The Black Pirate” (1926) and the documentary “Around the World in 80 Minutes” (1931).

Actor Douglas Fairbanks and movie special effects pioneer Coy Watson collaborated on several films from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

The Watsons’ “First Family of Hollywood” tag was no hype, and it certainly worked well to promote the nine kids’ acting careers during that Golden Age of celluloid escapism, as World War I, the Roaring ’20s, the Great Depression, and early World War II also backdropped their life in Los Angeles.

The versatile, camera-savvy youngsters could play solo roles, or instant big families, as when seven Watsons (Billy, Delmar, Harry, Garry, Bobs, Gloria, and Louise) co-starred with Will Rogers in “Life Begins at 40” (1935) and four of the boys (Billy, Delmar, Harry, and Garry) appeared with James Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939).

Golda Watson (far right) is pictured with her nine showbiz kids (from left) Bobs, Garry, Delmar, Billy, Harry, Louise, Gloria, Vivian, and Coy Jr. in the mid-1930s. Photo: Coy Watson Sr., courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“They weren’t all major films,” Bobs told the Los Angeles Times in an undated interview. “But we always had at least bit parts with some lines.”

While the boys became well-known to casting directors as “The 6 Brothers” or the “Watson Brothers,” Coy and Golda wisely discouraged Louise, Gloria, Vivian from staying in the business beyond their early teens.

“The casting couch was a big problem back then,” Dan said. “My grandfather didn’t want his daughters involved in that.”

Coy Watson Sr. and still camera, early 1940s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Coy’s brother William H., or Bill, also worked on silents behind the scenes, serving as a director and film editor for many of the early comedy shorts produced by Sennett, the Christie brothers, and other nearby studios.

But it was Coy and Bill’s brother George who picked up their father’s passion for still photography. That, combined with his familiarity with film, led George to a historic breakthrough: He would soon invent a revolutionary new way to use movie film to shoot archival stills, and open doors for the next generation of Watson photographers.

George R. Watson (1892-1977)

When James Watson gave his 8-year-old son George a camera in 1900, the boy promptly fashioned a makeshift darkroom out of a discarded shipping crate.

George R. Watson, the “Dean of Los Angeles News Photographers,” strikes a familiar pose with his powder flash and 4″ x 5″ Graflex camera for a shot by an unknown fellow staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times in 1919. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

In his early teens, George took a still photography job at the Grants Pass Courier in Oregon. While there, in 1913, just 21, he invented and co-patented a machine and a process that used movie film to shoot and permanently archive bank statements. It was much easier and more efficient than photographing statements using the large-format glass-plate photos then in use.

George R. Watson shows how he uses the viewfinder on his Graflex camera, 1919. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Unfortunately, the microfilm machine idea gained no traction and made no money. George bought out his partner and eventually sold the patent for $250. (George McCarthy, a New York City banker, is credited with developing the first practical use of commercial microfilm in the 1920s.)

After returning to Los Angeles, George’s fortunes improved when The Los Angeles Times hired him as its second full-time staff photographer in 1919. He shot the first known aerial news photos of downtown L.A. the same year. By 1925 he was head of the paper’s photo department.

George Watson shot the first aerial news photos over Los Angeles for The Los Angeles Times on May 17, 1919, this one of Pershing Square.  World Wat I Lafayette Escadrille pilot Capt. W.S. Kenyan was at the controls. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“(George) was ahead of his time,” Dan said of his great-uncle in “Capturing History One Frame at a Time,” a feature by Michele Buttelman published in The Signal newspaper on August 17, 2008. “But if he’d been successful (with microfilm), he wouldn’t have gotten the job at the L.A. Times, and (four generations of family photographic history) might never have happened.”

George Watson inspects one of his early aerial cameras in this undated photo. He started with a Speed Graphic body and added special features and controls. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

At The Times, George Watson shot historic images of presidents, criminals, movie stars, and scientists, among them Albert Einstein, the 1921 Nobel Prize honoree in Physics for his groundbreaking Theory of Special Relativity and the Light Quanta Hypothesis.

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Albert Einstein, born in Germany, inspected a cactus while visiting Los Angeles in 1928. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party took over power in Germany, Einstein, again visiting the U.S., opted to stay, and became a U.S. citizen in 1940. Photo: George Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

George also documented natural catastrophes like the 1925 earthquake in Santa Barbara and, of special interest to the Santa Clarita Valley, the St. Francis Dam disaster in 1928.

The dam burst shortly before midnight on Monday, March 12, and the ensuing flood down San Francisquito Canyon and the Santa Clara River from Saugus to the Pacific Ocean killed more than 400 people.

“I remember (George) telling the story,” Dan said. “He had shot the dam from the ground with it leaking just days before the break. They knew something was wrong and (George had tipped off his editors), ‘Send an aerial photographer.’”

In the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday, March 13, Dan said, “(George) got the call that there was a huge disaster” up in the Santa Clarita Valley.

After dawn, George accompanied William Mulholland, the dam’s chief engineer and the “Father of the L.A. Water System,” and Mulholland’s assistant H. A. Van Norman to the dam site.

“They drove up from L.A. to Santa Clarita,” Dan said. “I seem to recall the story was they rode in a pickup truck. In those days, just getting there was something else.

“George had a huge Graflex Speed Graphic SLR camera that you looked down on (through the viewfinder),” Dan said. “The camera used film and had a special magazine with 12 pictures, so he probably just carried this one pack, which was like having a motor-drive in those days [laughs]. (He) made six or eight pictures, and that was it.

William Mulholland and his assistant H. A. Van Norman survey what’s left of the St. Francis Dam the afternoon after the dam burst just before midnight on March 12, 1928. Photo: George Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“He told the story about climbing up the hill to look down. Number one photo rule, get a high angle,” he said. “When the two of them walked up the hill above what was left of the dam, George got up above them, and shot back so they were in the foreground and the dam was behind them. As he was shooting, Mulholland slipped, and George has a picture of that. Just planning, getting up ahead of Mulholland, showing the broken dam behind.

William Mulholland and his assistant H. A. Van Norman navigated a narrow footpath to view the St. Francis Dam remnants on March 13, 1928. Photo: George Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Referring to what he called George’s “tombstone” shot, “People afterward were climbing up this thing and taking pictures, and some kids fell off,” Dan said. “So, they dynamited it so people couldn’t climb up there anymore.”

Downstream that Tuesday, George also photographed flood survivors retrieving victims’ bodies from the washed-out riverbed, and a makeshift morgue as L.A. County Coroner’s officials counted and identified victims’ bodies covered by sheets.

The St. Francis Dam “tombstone,” rescue workers downstream, and coroner’s officials photographed by George Watson for The Los Angeles Times on March 13, 1928, as seen in the 1975 book “Quick, Watson, The Camera” by Delmar Watson, one of George’s nephews. Photo spread courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Another Times photographer had shot the aerial photo of the dam before its collapse that appeared on the paper’s front page on March 14, 1928, because Watson’s post-collapse photos didn’t make it back to Downtown L.A. before Sunday’s edition had to go to print.

Also the Los Angeles Press Photographer Association’s founder and first president, George earned renown for shooting many other firsts in L.A. in the Roaring ’20s: the first polygraph test; the arrival of the first airmail; cops’ first use of planes for eye-in-the-sky surveillance; the first around-the-world flight; and construction of Downtown L.A.’s first skyscraper, the 13-story City Hall building completed in 1928.

Los Angeles City Hall was still under construction when George Watson shot this photo in 1928. Courtesy Watson Family Photographic Archive.

George invented other camera technology and methodology that made his work easier, and/or more competitive. One example is the miniature camera he devised so he could surreptitiously take photos in courtrooms where bulky news cameras with flash attachments were not allowed. Unethical, yes, but competition among news photographers to get “the shot” was often cutthroat in that era.

Among the pioneers of transferring images over phone lines, George went on to head the L.A. office of Pacific + Atlantic News Photos, which became ACME Newspictures in 1929, and was bought out in 1951 by UPI (United Press International).

“George was a real newsman. He gave all six boys in the third generation their start in the news photography business in Los Angeles,” Dan said of his great-uncle, uncles, and father.

Generation 3: The 6 Watson Brothers (And 3 Sisters)

As the sons of Coy and Golda Watson, the six famous Watson Brothers in the family’s third generation – Coy Jr., Harry, Billy, Delmar, Garry (Dan’s father), and Bobby aka Bobs – all started out as showbiz kids in the 1920s and 1930s.

“They were all very different people,” Dan said. “Bobs, Delmar, and Billy were probably the best and most famous actors. And they all became celebrated news photographers. Coy Jr. and Harry later went into TV.”

With entry-level jobs and encouragement from their family, the Watson brothers and their cameras were soon ubiquitous on the streets of L.A. shooting breaking news, celebrities, politicians, disasters, murders, sporting events – you name it.

As Helen R. Wiener wrote in her foreword to Delmar’s 1975 book “Quick, Watson, The Camera: 75 Years of News Photography”: “During the 1940s and ’50s, there was a Watson on four of the five Los Angeles metropolitan daily newspapers (including The Los Angeles Times, the old Daily News of Los Angeles, the Mirror-News, the Post-Record, and the L.A. Record). And during the ’50s and ’60s, several of them recorded the city’s foibles from behind television cameras.”

George Watson (far left) and the third generation of Watson photographers (from left):  Coy Jr., Harry, Billy, Delmar, Garry, and Bobs, circa 1950. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Wiener also noted that no newspaper or TV station would hire more than one Watson at the same time: “They were too unpredictable with their love of the put-down and elaborately planned joke, their dislike of the pretentious, the phony, the humdrum, and routine.

“What else could you expect of never-quite-grown-up kids who were raised across the street from the Mack Sennett Studios and who acted from the cradle up in more than 1,000 motion pictures ranging through silents, talkies, and television with most of the screen giants of their day?”

The Watson brothers revisited the silent movie era for a 1968 L.A. Press Club promotion for the movie “Pretty Poison.” “They arrived in the scoop of a trash truck and hit each other with cream pies,” nephew Dan Watson said. “It made the news. Ever the promoter, my uncle Coy lived in Vista at the time and had them all wear stickers to promote the city before the main event.” Standing, from left: Coy Jr., Delmar, Garry, and Bobs. Foreground: Billy and Harry. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

James Caughey (“Coy”) Watson Jr. (November 16, 1913-March 14, 2009)

Coy Watson Jr., Coy and Golda Watson’s first-born, was also Hollywood’s first child actor. He made his movie debut (and his first $5) in “The Price of Silence” for the Selig Studios in 1913, at age 9 months.

Golda Watson and her 9-month-old son Coy Jr. head to the Selig Studios set for his movie debut in “The Price of Silence,” Edendale, 1913. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Before he could walk or talk, Coy Jr. picked up the nickname “The Keystone Kid” acting with his dad in scores of Keystone Cops comedies.

Coy Watson Jr. was tagged “The Keystone Kid” after appearing in Keystone Cops movies. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“As I grew up, Sennett’s movie sets were my playground and his family of early moviemakers and stars were my friends and playmates,” Coy Jr. wrote in his 2001 memoir, “The Keystone Kid: Tales of Early Hollywood,” which recounts and illustrates his and the Watson family’s dual fascination with movies and photography.

Coy Jr. was also the first Watson kid to make the transition from silents to talkies, and by 1935, he had appeared in around 60 movies – among them “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” with Lon Chaney (1923), “Buttons” with Jackie Coogan (1927), “Show People” with Marion Davies (1928), “Puttin’ On the Ritz” with Joan Bennett (1930), and “I’m No Angel” with Mae West (1933).

Coy Watson Jr. (right) gets in Jackie Coogan’s face in this scene from the 1927 film “Buttons.” Movie still Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Among the first of his brothers to follow their Uncle George into the news business, Coy Jr. recalled being fascinated as a four-year-old watching his grandfather James develop black and white photographs in the family’s pantry.

A few years later, George offered Coy Jr. a job sweeping up at Pacific + Atlantic, where the boy also quickly learned the art, craft, and business of news photography. Coy Jr. was just 16 years old when Pacific + Atlantic published his first news photo.

He went on to shoot for the Post Record, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Los Angeles Times and covered many major stories during the ’30s, including the 1932 Olympic Games and New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt’s stop in L.A. during his first presidential campaign the same year.

One of George’s most famous images showed oil wells on La Cienega Boulevard near 3rd Street in 1930. Such wells once dotted the urban landscape on L.A.’s West Side but have long since removed.

Oil well rigs still stood on La Cienega Boulevard just south of 3rd Street in Los Angeles, as pictured in this 1936 photo George Watson shot from an elevated perch nearby, looking north toward the Hollywood Hills. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Coy Jr. also picked up the Watsons’ inventive streak.

“He invented a way to focus a camera in the dark (using a battery-powered light beam); someone copied his ideas and put it in the Graflex cameras of the 1940s,” Dan told Michele Buttelman in 2008 [link]. “He was also the first to synchronize flashbulbs with the camera lens open. We take it for granted to be able to walk around and take pictures, but before this invention, you had to set up a camera on a tripod.”

During World War II, Coy Jr. served with the Coast Guard and headed a photography unit. After the war, he went into commercial photography.

Coy Watson Jr. served as a Coast Guard photographer in World War II. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

When television was in its infancy, Hollywood studios viewed the upstart medium as a threat. Coy Jr. helped break the studios’ stranglehold on their contracted stars with his “Hollywood Reel” series of unscripted features, partnering with L.A. Daily News columnist Erskine Johnson (like this visit with Carmen Miranda).

“He was the first to do celebrity stuff on television in the late ’40s-early ’50s,” Dan said. “He went to StarKist and said, ‘I’ve got this idea: Celebrities at home.’ Television was competing with the movies, so the studios wouldn’t let any of their contracted movie stars act on television.”

Coy Watson Jr. (center, standing) and his five-man KABC-TV/Los Angeles news crew busted out all their gear for this shot in the early 1960s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“Coy Jr. started the news division for ABC-TV,” Dan told Carol Rock of The Signal in April 1999, when the Watsons received their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “He was given a budget and came up with putting a crew in a cruiser car and going to a scene. They were there during the heyday of news.”

Coy Watson Jr. and his multi-lens CBS-TV news camera are pictured in this undated photo. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

In his later years, Coy Jr. reported TV news for KTLA and CBS-TV in Los Angeles and KCRA in Sacramento before retiring in San Diego. He died on March 14, 2009, at age 96.

Harry R. Watson (August 31, 1921-June 8, 2001)

Harry R. Watson’s filmography includes more than 40 movies, among them “The Barber Shop” with W.C. Fields (1933, playing son Ronald); “Old Hutch” with Wallace Beery (1936); “A Damsel in Distress” with Fred Astaire and Joan Fontaine (1937); “Little Miss Broadway” with Shirley Temple (1938); and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” with Mickey Rooney (1939).

Harry Watson appears with Fred Astaire in “A Damsel in Distress,” 1937. Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Like his brothers, Harry picked up a camera as a youngster. And thanks to his Uncle George, he, too, broke into the news business early. Harry wasn’t quite 11 years old when he shot the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles for his uncle and ACME Newspictures.

In high school, Harry earned kudos for his yearbook sports photography, and during World War II, he followed his older brother Coy Jr. into the Coast Guard.

Harry Watson, Coast Guard photographer in World War II. Photo circa 1944, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

After assignments at the branch’s Washington D.C. photo lab and on subchasers in the Caribbean, Harry served in the Pacific Theater as a combat photographer.

A day in the life for an American GI in the South Pacific during World War II sometimes included a bath, whether needed or not. Photo: Harry Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

When U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur made his triumphant return to the Philippines on October 20, 1944, Harry captured the scene on Leyte, and his historic photos were seen around the world.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines on October 20, 1944, to resume the U.S. counteroffensive against Japanese occupiers. U.S. forces had evacuated on March 17, 1942, when he famously said, “I shall return.” Photo: Harry Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

After the war, Harry also went into commercial photography. In the early 1950s, he shot for the old Los Angeles Daily News, where he had a reputation as a prankster. According to his brother Delmar, when a cemetery banned the press from a memorial service, Harry bought a dead duck from a poultry stand and flung it over the wall just as an American Legion rifle squad was firing into the air.

Harry Watson, Los Angeles, 1972. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Harry was a pioneering news cameraman and later a news editor for L.A.’s KTTV Channel 11 in the early 1950s through the ’70s.

“I remember him talking about shooting movie film on 16mm cameras,” nephew Dan Watson said, describing another of his uncle’s favorite pranks. “You didn’t look through the lens, you had a viewfinder that sat beside the lens. If one photographer crossed another one, like got in front of his shot or was irritating or whatever, Harry said he used to take chewing gum and stick it on the guy’s lens. The guy would be looking through the side (viewfinder), so everything still looked all right. But he’d wind up with blank film.

“In those days, drinking was part of the job,” Dan said. “He’d go to the bar, he’d meet people. He was a newsman with a camera, but you wouldn’t call him a creative photographer. He knew how to get the picture and tell the story.”

Or create the picture, if needed.

“Funny story: Somebody had jumped off a building and killed themself,” Dan said, reflecting the hard-boiled newsman humor he heard growing up. “Harry got there late. They’d already taken the body away. So, he had the reporter lie down and they put a sheet over her. He took the picture and brought it back. This was before ethics and all that. The editor said, ‘Harry, that’s a great picture, but I see her shoes sticking out, and it was a man that jumped off the building.’ (My uncles) used to do that stuff all the time. Those are stories they would tell at Christmas and Fourth of July reunions.”

Harry was a pioneering news cameraman and later a news editor for L.A.’s KTTV Channel 11 in the early 1950s through the ’70s.

Watson brothers Coy Jr., Harry, and Billy joined the family’s Bicentennial 4th of July celebration in Los Angeles, 1976. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Harry was also very well-connected. “Once he flew to Nevada to cover a story about a train wreck near Las Vegas,” Delmar said in an undated quote from Harry’s obituary in the L.A. Times. “His plane crashed on the way back, killing the pilot and injuring Harry. (Doctors) wanted to amputate Harry’s leg, but Howard Hughes heard about the crash and flew in a doctor at 2 in the morning, saving Harry’s leg. Hughes’ only request was no publicity.”

After another solo run in commercial photography, Harry retired in the 1980s. He was a resident of Tujunga, California, when he died June 28, 2001, at 79.

Billy Watson (December 25, 1923-February 17, 2022)

Billy Watson was in his first movie in 1924 at six months old, “playing a baby in his mother’s arms on a train,” as he recalled in 2017.

Billy was four when he appeared in the silents “Taxi 13” and “Taking a Chance” (1928). His filmography also includes “Cannonball Express” (1932), as well as “Death on the Diamond” and “The Little Minister” (both 1934, the latter as Alan Hale’s son, with Katherine Hepburn starring).

Billy Watson appeared with Katherine Hepburn in the 1934 film “The Little Minister.” Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“Life on the set of a silent film was one of noise, laughter and horseplay,” Billy recalled. “The arrival of sound [1926-28] changed all that. There were signs everywhere telling us actors to be quiet. For that reason we Watsons didn’t like it when talkies arrived in Hollywood.”

After “Life Begins at 40” with Will Rogers (1935), Billy appeared with Hepburn again in “Mary, Queen of Scotland” (1936).

Though uncredited, Billy Watson was among the cast of “Stanley & Livingstone” with Walter Brennan and Spencer Tracy in 1939. Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

He worked with renowned director John Ford twice, in “The Plough and the Stars” (1936) and “Young Mr. Lincoln” with Henry Fonda (1939). Between those were “In Old Chicago” (1937), with Billy playing Don Ameche’s character as a boy for director Otto Preminger.

In a scene from “In Old Chicago” (1937), Billy Watson is pictured behind covered wagon driver J. Anthony Hughes, and Billy’s younger brother Bobs Watson is seen riding in Alice Brady’s lap. Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

After Billy appeared in “Kidnapped” for director Alfred L. Werker (1938), he joined brothers Delmar, Harry, and Garry as Gov. Hopper’s sons in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart in the lead role (1939).

Watson brothers Harry (left), Billy (center), Garry (blond hair), and Delmar (right) joined other kids in a scene from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” 1939. Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Billy’s last film credit was “I Take This Woman” (1940). He joined the Coast Guard during World War II as his brothers had before him and served as a photographer stationed at the Long Beach Naval Station.

Brothers in arms Delmar, Billy, Harry, and Coy Watson Jr., early 1945. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Post-war, he landed a job at the Los Angeles Daily News as an artist. Later, he teamed with his five brothers in the “6 Watson Bros. Photography Inc.” enterprise in the late 1950s and ’60s.

“The 6 Watson Bros. Photography Inc.” enterprise makes a move, 1958. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Bill worked solo through the 1970s and into the 1990s. He stayed active onstage as well, acting in local theater and playing the occasional character role in TV series including “Hill Street Blues” a recurring role as a mailman in the soap “General Hospital.”

After he retired, Bill lived in Washington State, and died on February 17, 2022, at age 98.

Delmar Watson (July 1, 1926-October 26, 2008)

Like his older brother Billy, David Delmar Watson made his big-screen debut at the advanced age of six months, in silent westerns starring Tom Mix and George O’Brien.

Along with the aforementioned movies made with his siblings, Delmar’s filmography includes “Our Gang” comedies for the Hal Roach studios, “Love, Live and Laugh” with George Jessel (1929), and two films with Shirley Temple: “To the Last Man” (her feature debut, with Randolph Scott, 1933); and “Heidi” (as Peter the Goat Boy, 1937).

Shirley Temple and Delmar Watson appeared in a film version of “Heidi” in 1937. Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Delmar played actor William Janney’s character as a boy in “Clipped Wings” (1937) and was the cheeky kid who shot the glass ball out of W.C. Fields’ hand in the comedy classic “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man” (1939).

Delmar Watson in a publicity still, circa mid-1930s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Thanks to his father and brothers, Delmar was handy with a camera, too. With encouragement from his Uncle George, he also learned about news photography working at ACME Newspictures.

Delmar became the fourth Watson to join the Coast Guard during World War II when he enlisted on his 18^th birthday in July 1944. By year’s end, he had joined brother Coy Jr.’s photo unit at the Long Beach Naval Station.

After the service, Delmar worked for two years at ACME, and in 1948 joined the staff of the Los Angeles Mirror-News. During his 10 years there, he won two Freedom Foundation medals, several Associated Press awards, and served as president of the Los Angeles Press Photographers Association.

In 1958, Delmar joined the family’s commercial photography business, “The 6 Watson Bros. Photography Inc.,” then opened his own independent studio in 1967.

Portrait of news photographer Delmar Watson and camera, 1950s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Of all the six Watson brothers, Delmar was the primary archivist and keeper of the Watson Family Photo Collection, though in an old-school fashion in his office on Hawthorne Avenue, just a block from Hollywood Boulevard.

The massive archive included millions of still photos and negatives and miles of newsreel footage shot by all the family members since Dan’s great-grandfather James Watson in the late 1880s.

“If somebody needed a picture for whatever purpose, they’d call my Uncle Delmar,” Dan said. “They knew he had drawers and drawers of negatives. He was not what you’d call an organized person, but he could go in like W.C. Fields and pull something out. He knew exactly where his stuff was.”

Delmar’s aforementioned “Quick, Watson, The Camera: 75 Years of News Photography” in 1975 and “Delmar Watson’s Goin’ Hollywood (1887-1987)” in 1987 featured many of the family’s most historic, most famous images.

In the early 2000s, Delmar initiated The Getty Museum’s purchase of historic photographs from the Watson collection, eventually 98 of them by Dan’s count. They’re now part of the Getty’s permanent collection of prints by great photographers of the 20^th century.

“Uncle Delmar would tell us stories about dealing with the Getty,” Dan said. “They’re not just interested in art, but also the print’s history: The photograph has to be printed within so many weeks of when it was shot. So, my uncle, a typical news photographer, would fight with them constantly.

“They said, ‘We want 100 images to look through.’ So, we picked out 100 images. ‘Oh, those are great. Can you show us some more? Give us 500 images.’ ‘Okay, fine.’

“Then they didn’t want him to do it because they didn’t like his (dusty) office,” Dan said. “That’s about my uncle [laughter]. So, he had to ship all this stuff down to Getty with white gloves. They went through these images with white gloves and said, ‘Well, we like this. Can we buy some of these?’

“My uncle wanted to have every photographer of the Watsons represented in the Getty, which he did,” he said.

Prints purchased by The Getty included a test shot by George Watson from 1920 of two men jumping in the air as he experimented with synchronizing flash powder ignition with the camera’s lens opening. His new technique revolutionized flash photography.

Bob Ray and Braven Dyer leap into history in a test of the first photographic plate made with synchronized flash powder, shot at the old Los Angeles Times building, 1920. The image is now in the Getty Collection. Photo: George Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Other Watson prints The Getty added to its permanent collection included a Coy Jr. photo of the body of American actress Thelma Todd (1935), one of Harry’s shots of MacArthur’s return to the Philippines (1944), and a photo by Garry of Steve McQueen in his driveway at home, fondling his Ferrari (1960).

Actor Steve McQueen loved his Ferrari, 1960. Photo: Garry Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Dan Watson is represented by a photo he took of the space shuttle landing at Edwards Air Force Base in 1986.

“It was the first night landing,” he told Buttelman in 2008. “So, a photo of mine is there in addition to at least one from each of my uncles and my great-grandfather. I think it’s pretty neat that our stuff is up there with the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci and the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.”

The first night landing of a Space Shuttle at Edwards Air Force Base in 1986 was caught by Dan Watson, and his image is included among dozens of Watson Family photos now in the Getty Collection in Los Angeles. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“(Delmar’s) only concern was that we all got paid,” Dan added in 2024. “So, whatever the Getty paid, he’d write a check to my dad, write a check to me. That’s the way he was. That was a huge job. I don’t know how he dealt with it.”

In 2007, Delmar’s wife Antoinette and Dan helped move the Watson Family Photo Collection from Delmar’s Hollywood office to a new location in Glendale and set out to reorganize and digitize it. (More on that effort in a later episode of the Watson Chronicles.)

After a long battle with cancer, Delmar died on October 26, 2008.

Garry A. Watson (Born September 27, 1928; Dan’s Father and Mentor)

Garry A. Watson joined his brothers in acting in films, but not always willingly.

“My dad was kind of a stubborn kid, and the only one of the brothers who really didn’t like acting in the movies,” Dan said.

Garry was a toddler when he, Delmar, and Billy were cast with Joan Bennett in “Wild Girl” (1932). Garry was also among the seven Watsons who appeared with humorist Will Rogers in “Life Begins at 40” (1935), and the four brothers in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” starring James Stewart (1939).

In a scene from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Gov. Hopper (Guy Kibbee) gets an earful from his four sons, played by Watson brothers Harry, Delmar, Billy, and Garry. The governor would appoint Mr. Smith to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“Garry had a fantastic singing voice, and pursued a singing career later,” Dan said. “But (as a child) he was self-conscious around his family. They used to say, ‘Garry, come and sing.’ They used to call him ‘the Donkey’ because he wouldn’t do anything they’d tell him.”

Fortunately, Garry also learned still photography from his father, uncles, and brothers during the 1930s. At Belmont High School in the mid-’40s, he earned his first cash as the official school photographer.

His first job in the news business started in 1947, operating the wire photo machine at ACME Newspictures. Among his initial assignments as a photographer was shooting Chuck Yeager after the pioneering test pilot broke the sound barrier on October 14 that year.

Test pilot Chuck Yeager inspects a paper airplane in 1947, the year he became the first pilot to break the sound barrier. Photo: Garry Watson, courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

From ACME, Garry moved to the Los Angeles Daily News, then in 1954 to the Los Angeles Times, shooting breaking news and features often hefting one of those bulky 16-pound Graflex Speed Graphic 4”x5” cameras.

Garry Watson in action, 1950s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Garry went pro as a singer in the mid-1950s, earning the nickname “The Singing Photographer,” and hosted his own radio show on KECA, broadcast nationally on ABC.

Garry Watson sings for the listeners on KECA, broadcast nationally by the ABC Radio Network, in the mid-1950s. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“He took lessons and did a lot of singing on his own,” Dan said. “He should have been famous as a singer. But once he started photography, he loved it right from the beginning. He was the most creative. Always very advanced, always bought the best technical gear.”

Dan was born on March 15, 1957, the same year his dad and five uncles established the 6 Watson Bros. photo studio, which remained active for the next decade.

Schoolkids dread getting their polio vaccine shots in this 1957 photo by Garry Watson. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Garry returned to the news business in 1977 when he joined the staff at the Valley News and Green Sheet in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, which became the latter-day Los Angeles Daily News. He retired in 1986 and now lives in Van Nuys.

Thirteen of Garry’s images are now part of the Getty Museum’s permanent collection.

Scratching the Big Itch: Garry Watson caught a maintenance worker using a long-handled broom to scrub a billboard in Los Angeles in 1958. The image appeared in Life magazine, and is among the Watson Family images now in the Getty Collection.

Bob (“Bobs”) Watson (November 16, 1931-June 27, 1999)

The Watsons tagged the youngest of the six Gen 3 boys with the name “Bobs” to differentiate him from another actor named Bob Watson who had played Adolf Hitler.

Bobs Watson was 6 months old when his father Coy placed him in the horseracing short “Riding to Fame” (1931). Bobs joined his six other siblings in “Life Begins at 40” with Will Rogers, though all were uncredited (1935).

Bobs’ first major feature was “In Old Chicago” (1937, with Billy). The same year, he played Walter Brennan’s character as a boy in “Kentucky” (also with Delmar).

Spencer Tracy and Bobs Watson in a scene from “Boys Town,” 1939. Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

As a child actor, Bobs also picked up the nickname “The Crybaby of Hollywood” playing roles like Pee Wee in “Boys Town” (1938) and the sequel “Men of Boys Town” (1941) with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney.

“One of the unique abilities I had as a child, and that has stayed with me throughout my lifetime, was the ability to empathize with the character I was playing,” Bobs was quoted as saying. “Tears would just come naturally. I never had to force them.”

Bobs Watson turned on the waterworks for this scene with Lionel Barrymore in 1939’s “On Borrowed Time.” Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Bobs appeared in a handful of box-office hits in 1939: as Harry Cole in “Dodge City” with Errol Flynn; as George Sanders in “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell” with Don Ameche and Henry Fonda in starring roles;  the son of Edward G. Robinson in “Blackmail”; and as Pud in “On Borrowed Time” with Lionel Barrymore.

Bobs co-starred in “Wyoming” (1940) as an orphan who latches onto a desperado played by Wallace Beery, who, like W.C. Fields, was famously not crazy about working in pictures with kids or animals – fearful of being upstaged.

Bobs Watson and Wallace Beery take aim in a promo still for “Wyoming,” 1940. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

“I had a photographic memory and knew everybody’s lines,” Bobs recalled in an interview. “At one stage, Beery started to improvise and then said, ‘OK, son, that’s your cue.’ I said, ‘No, Mr. Beery. You are supposed to say…’ and then I told him his line. He put me over his knee and pretended to spank me.”

After serving in the Army during the Korean War, Bobs appeared in the World War II movie “The Bold and the Brave” (1956, again with Mickey Rooney) and dozens of television series in the later 1950s and ’60s, among them “The Twilight Zone,” “Bonanza,” and “Green Acres.”

Between acting gigs, Bobs worked as one of the 6 Watson Bros. on various news and commercial photo assignments.

An early client was Burt Reynolds, a fast-rising young actor who in 1957 had asked Bobs to shoot photos of him performing stunts on horseback, driving cars, riding motorcycles, and otherwise being cool for his acting portfolio.

Aspiring actor Burt Reynolds, at home in his rented Laurel Canyon apartment in 1957, plots a day of activities for him and photographer friend Bobs Watson around Hollywood. Courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Bobs played a bit part as a classified ad clerk at a newspaper in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962). After co-starring in another war movie, “First to Fight” with Chad Everett (1967), Bobs answered a call to the Methodist ministry. He traversed Southern California and the Las Vegas area, tapping into his “Boys Town” movie experiences and acting skills to add drama and humor to his readings from the Bible.

But Bobs still occasionally took acting parts in the ’70s, with roles on TV series including “M*A*S*H” and “Lou Grant.” In 1977, he played a minister in “Grand Theft Auto” for director Ron Howard.

Bobs Watson presided over the wedding of characters played by Nancy Morgan and Ron Howard in 1977’s “Grand Theft Auto.” Movie still courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Bobs’ final screen appearance was in 1993, as a judge in the TV movie “A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Wicked Wives” starring Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale.

After retiring from the ministry, Bobs lived in Laguna Beach. He was fighting cancer and unable to join his siblings in person for the Watson Family’s star ceremony on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 22, 1999, and died just two months later, on June 27.

The six Watson boys as men, packing their Nikons in 1990 (clockwise, from 9 o’clock): Billy, Harry, Delmar, Garry, Bobs, and Coy Jr. Los Angeles Press Photographer Association photo courtesy Watson Family Photo Collection.

Afterword

The three aforementioned books authored by Dan’s uncles are must-reads for anyone interested in Hollywood and Los Angeles history:

• “Quick, Watson, The Camera: 75 Years of News Photography” by Delmar Watson with text by Helen R. Wiener (self-published by Delmar in 1975), packed with historic news photos;
• “Delmar Watson’s Goin’ Hollywood,” compiling 100 years of favorite celebrity photos, edited by Delmar and written by Paul Arnold (also self-published, 1987);
• “The Keystone Kid: Tales of Early Hollywood” by Coy Watson Jr. (Santa Monica Press, 2001), the memoir of Hollywood’s first child star, full of movie-related anecdotes and photos.

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has 98 images in its permanent collection of photographs and each of the 10 Watson cameramen is represented.

Still online is a traveling exhibit the Museum of Texas Tech curated in 2009 from a massive trove of Watson photographs spanning the entire 20^th century. Titled “One Family, Four Generations, Ten Men, and a Ton of Film” and displayed at MTT for two years, the exhibit included framed photos, vintage cameras, press passes, and historical memorabilia.

More historic Watson photographs are also on display at the Hollywood Heritage Museum in the Lasky DeMille barn on Highland Avenue (north of Hollywood Boulevard and across Highland from the Hollywood Bowl).

More of the Watson Chronicles:

Part 1: Photographer Dan Watson Retires from The Signal

Part 2: Tracing 4 Generations of ‘Hollywood’s First Family’ (you are here!)

To Come:

Part 3: Dan Watson: Last in the Dynasty of 10 Family Photographers

Part 4: Dan Watson: Triple Play at The Signal (1998-2024)

Part 5: Dan Watson Saluted by Santa Clarita City Council & SCV Press Club

Part 6: Epilog: Back to the Future: Dan Watson’s Old Habits Die Hard

Stephen K. Peeples, an award-winning Santa Clarita journalist and Grammy-nominated producer, was Online Editor and a colleague of Dan Watson at The Signal from 2009-2011. Special thanks to Leon Worden, Susan Shapiro, Michele Buttelman, Carol Rock, Bryan Kneiding, Richard Budman, Tim Whyte, and especially Dan Watson and the Watson Family Photo Collection for their assistance in producing this series.

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