Don Kay “Little Brown Jug” Reynolds

This past Wednesday, I lost my oldest friend. I call him my oldest friend because we met when I was only 4 years old and Jug and his family moved in next door to Glenn Randall, Trigger’s trainer.

Dad met Jug before I did. He saw Jug doing stunts on horseback in 1943 at Madison Square Gardens. I think Jug was only about 5 or 6 at the time. Dad told Fess, Jug’s father, that he ought to bring Jug to Hollywood, where Dad thought he would be a big hit in films. A year or so later, Fess moved his family out to the San Fernando Valley, on Longridge Ave., right next door to Glenn Randall.

Since we grew up together, I have a hard time calling him Don (even though I know that he preferred that name). He was always Jug to us kids that grew up around the horses and barns. Jug’s father was an outstanding animal trainer and he worked with a lot of critters, not just horses. Jug inherited that ability.

He started out riding horses in rodeos and horse shows, then graduated to training horses himself. He did stunts as an 8-year old (like jumping out of a buckboard wagon going at full speed down a dirt road into Dad’s arms) that most adults wouldn’t consider doing! When he got to Hollywood, he worked in a couple of Dad’s films but he also appeared in a lot of other Western films as well. He finally became the last of the movie Little Beaver’s to actor Jim Bannon’s Red Ryder.

Jug was absolutely fearless. He would do the craziest things on horses, at least I thought they were crazy. He started Roman riding (standing on 2 horses, side-by-side at the same time) at about 9. He said it was how he could exercise two horses at the same time. He had no fear walking into the corral with his dad’s Brahma bulls.

Dad owned a miniature red stagecoach that was pulled by a team of dapple grey ponies (Nip and Tuck). Jug would drive us kids around Longridge on the coach and we even did a funny home movie where a whole bunch of us neighborhood kids went out one door of the coach and came around the coach to exit again (just like clowns did in the circus). We thought that was hilarious. It was a great neighborhood to be in. Not only were there the Reynolds and the Randall’s, but the Eppers lived on the cul de sac at the end to the road. Most the the Eppers kids, Jug and his brothers, and Junior Randall all became stunt people!!!

Jug later became a trainer. In fact, he was the trainer of that beautiful white horse in the Lord of the Rings movies, Shadowfax! He told me that he loved working with that horse.

A few years back, Jug retired from Hollywood and moved back to a little town in Texas named Bowie. I introduced him to some friends of mine, Bob and Johnie Terry. Bob is my partner in my websites and he has some wonderful websites of his own, including Westerns of the Web. Bob gave Jug and I the opportunity to work together on a couple of interviews for that website and we had a great time!

Jug was one of the kindest, gentlest men I have ever known. He was a wonderful friend and a great person. All of us who have known him, will never forget how privileged we have been.