If there was a stage that needed to be driven, a wagon that needed to
be rolled, or a posse scene that needed riders Jimmie Booth got a call.
Born on a farm Jimmie learned how to ride a horse at a young age and
after serving two years in the Army Air Corp he traveled with a Wild
West Circus Show for two years. Meanwhile Jimmie became acquainted with
many of the cowboys and horsemen in the Newhall area who worked in the
motion picture industry. Through these connections he was able to
become a member of the Screen Extras Guild.
By the late 1950s the television western flourished and he found lots
of work in posse scenes, bar scenes, and driving stages all the way
through the 1980s working in pretty much any television western and
most western movies you can think of.
But like most actors, these jobs only paid part of the bills but there
were other jobs that required his skill set. In the 1950's, when the
Santa Anita and Hollywood Park horse-racing tracks used draft horses to
pull the starting gate, Jimmie drove that team of four Belgians. He
also drove the fancy carriage pulled by the team of four high stepping
Hackney's which transported the judges to and from their posts.
In 1955 Jimmie was hired at Disneyland to drive the horse-drawn
vehicles on Main Street. On Disneyland's opening day he drove the first
horse-drawn street car down Main Street to "open the show."
When he retired from the movies he wasn't done yet, because of his
unique skill set he was able to drive stagecoaches in parades for Wells
Fargo for the next 13 years.
