Ben "Son" Johnson, Jr. was an American motion picture

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 actor who was mainly cast in Westerns

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

. He was also a rodeo

Rodeo

Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...

 cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

, stuntman

Stunt performer

A stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...

, and rancher.
Johnson was born in Foraker

Foraker, Oklahoma

Foraker is a town in Osage County, Oklahoma, United States. It was named for Ohio Senator James B. Foraker. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is southeast of town. The official population peaked at 415 in 1910 and has declined steadily since 1930...

, Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

, on the Osage Indian Reservation

Osage Nation

The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...

, of Irish

Irish American

Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...

 and Cherokee

Cherokee

The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...

 ancestry, to Ben Sr. and Ollie Susan (Workmon) Johnson. His father was a rancher in Osage County

Osage County, Oklahoma

Osage County is a county in the northern part of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Coterminous with the Osage Indian Reservation, it is the home of the federally recognized Osage Nation. As of the 2010 census, the population was 47,472 a 6.8 percent increase from 2000, when the population was 44,437...

 and also a rodeo champion. As a young man, Johnson was a ranch hand and travelled with his father on the rodeo circuit. He was a star in rodeo before becoming involved in the movies.