ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MESA, ARIZ.
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
Ben Johnson, a champion rodeo performer who appeared in numerous Westerns and won a best supporting actor Oscar for ``The Last Picture Show'' in 1971, died Monday of an apparent heart attack.
Johnson, 77, collapsed while visiting his mother at Leisure World in Mesa, the suburban Phoenix retirement community where they both lived.
Johnson won his Academy Award for his supporting role as Sam the Lion, the owner of the pool hall and the movie theater in ``The Last Picture Show,'' Larry McMurtry's study of life in a small Texas town during the 1950s.
Johnson was born in Foraker, Okla., and grew up a cowboy on the Chapman-Bernard Ranch. He won a World Champion Cowboy title in 1953. In 1985, he started the Ben Johnson Celebrity Rodeo at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Okla. Since then, more than $2 million has been raised to benefit Children's Medical Research Inc.
He also established a $1 million Ben Johnson Research Chair in Pediatric Cancer Research at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
Funeral arrangements were pending.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 32 linesby CNB