"Feliz heritage"

Second only to Yakima Canut, his name was Art Felix. He's listed in IMDB. My dad used to tell me stories of "company" that would come to visit Grandpa in North Hollywood when he was growing up. They'd come over, hang out, play cards, drink, eat 'hot peanuts' (jalapeno peppers), and talk about their days on the set. Dad would often get to sit on someone's lap. Grandpa was a stuntmen, so that made the company very interesting: William 'Hopalong Cassidy' Boyd, John Wayne, Tom Mix, or any other cowboys of the day Grandpa might've been working with.

Grandpa became known as that guy who saved the damsel in distress, jumping on the back of the runaway horse-drawn stagecoach, climbing underneath so as not to get caught, and climbing up the side of the front seat to get the 'bad guy'. Yay. Grandpa saves the day. At least till they yell 'Cut'.

Grandpa also was a lasso guru. He'd lasso me every time I went to visit, lasso me at the front door and pull me towards him for a kiss. Oh yeah. You know you're alive if you've been lasso'd by a real cowboy.

So I can thank Grandpa for sending me down the acting gene.

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As my dad explained it, apparently in the days of cowboys and stuntmen, back in the '20s, as long as you got paid you didn't ask any questions. For a long time I guess my grandpa'd been paid under the name "Art Feliz", his given birth name, and for years he got paid under the correct name.

Then one day, for some unknown reason, somebody slipped up in the Payroll Office and misspelled my grandpa's last name, writing his check to Art "Felix", rather than "Feliz".

Not wanting to rock any boats or cause any major confusion, Grandpa accepted the check graciously and cashed it. And never told anybody they'd made a mistake. From then on for the rest of his career (possibly 20 yrs) he worked under the name "Art Felix", so he'd get paid, and he's listed as such in IMDB.

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In the 1920s my grandfather was a young boy, maybe 14, 15, 16, and he worked with HIS father on Rancho Los Feliz, at the site of now Griffith Park, schlepping oxen, doing hardcore ranch work every day. One of his jobs was to drive oxen - for farming, tilling and whatever else they'd have been used for. One situation he used the oxen would change him for the rest of his life.

Douglas Fairbanks (Sr or Jr I am not sure of), had apparently gotten stuck in the wash someplace with his own stagecoach, on the property of the Rancho Los Feliz land. He may have been doing a movie, I am not sure. In the course of doing his daily chores, Grandpa stumbled upon Mr. Fairbanks' stuck stagecoach deep in the mud. Mr. Fairbanks told my grandpa, "Son, if you can help me get my stagecoach out of the mud and me on my way, I will give you a job working with me." Knowing my grandpa, and my family in general, I'd venture a guess to say before the last word left Mr. Fairbanks' lips Grandpa's oxen were probably nearly prepared to do the job.

With his cowboy-steadying hand, Grandpa smacked the oxen to pull the Fairbanks stagecoach free and that day began Grandpa's 30 yr career as a top western stuntman. His favorite star to work with, according to my uncle, was William 'Hopalong Cassidy' Boyd. Grandpa worked on many of his movies.

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The land that Griffith Park and surrounding Los Feliz area sits on today used to be owned by my family hundreds of years ago. It covers roughly 30,000 acres. "Land rich but cash poor," Antonio Feliz was forced eventually to sell the land to Griffith Park in order for survival. "Los Feliz" was Rancho Feliz, dad used to tell us, 'Your great great great grandpa used to own that land."... Every year the Los Pabladores annual walk downtown each Labor Day, members of the Feliz family lead the walk that the original Pabladores took into Los Angeles when they discovered the city and were the original pioneers of Los Angeles.

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