Little noted at the time, a 1948 Winchester wedding is now a local ‘claim to fame’

After this sto­ry was pub­lished, local ama­teur his­to­ri­an and researcher Roberta Newell pro­vid­ed some addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about this wed­ding from her news­pa­per research. I have revised the sto­ry in include Roberta’s data.

On October 5, 1948, Rance Howard and Jean Speegle were mar­ried in the lob­by of the Brown Procter Hotel in down­town Winchester, Kentucky. This infor­ma­tion would seem pro­sa­ic enough, of lit­tle inter­est to any­one besides the bride and groom, their fam­i­lies, and the friends who attend­ed their mod­est and hasti­ly arranged ceremony.

Indeed, Rance and Jean were per­haps minor celebri­ties, being thes­pi­ans engaged in a tour across the coun­try, per­form­ing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the­aters with a children’s troupe. But it’s doubt­ful that many folks in these parts had ever heard of them. So why am I writ­ing about this mar­riage three-quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry later?

(Rance Howard was a stage name; his legal name was Harold Beckenholdt.)

Perhaps it is because of the fas­ci­nat­ing cir­cum­stances that led to the Howard-Speegle vows being spo­ken in our fair city on that October day. Or maybe it’s some­thing else entirely.

Rance had want­ed to mar­ry Jean for some time. The cou­ple was already liv­ing togeth­er, and while nei­ther had a prob­lem with that arrange­ment, mores in mid-twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry America were such that word of their liv­ing sit­u­a­tion becom­ing pub­lic could sig­nif­i­cant­ly dam­age their aspir­ing act­ing careers.

A few days shy of this 20^th birth­day, Rance felt a sense of urgency to mar­ry his betrothed as soon as pos­si­ble, for he feared that she might accept a pro­pos­al from a rival. (She had done so more than once — before break­ing those engage­ments off.)

At 21, Jean was a bit more mature and world­ly, but she was ready to wed. Despite being devot­ed to her career, she was also eager to start a fam­i­ly. In a few short years, they would do so and raise their two boys under the the­ater and tele­vi­sion lights.

It was ear­li­er in that the­ater tour, in the sum­mer of ’48, when the couple’s desire to mar­ry turned seri­ous. They decid­ed to pro­ceed as soon as pos­si­ble. But the real­i­ties of life on the road would pro­long their wait. Rance and Jean soon dis­cov­ered that most US states required engaged cou­ples to obtain blood tests and endure a three-day wait­ing peri­od before being grant­ed a mar­riage license.

That was a prob­lem for Rance and Jean, as their tour­ing com­pa­ny rarely remained in the same town for more than a day or two. Luckily, by October, the cou­ple caught a break. While din­ing in Ohio, a wait­er over­heard the cou­ple dis­cussing their predica­ment and offered a help­ful suggestion.

“I hap­pen to know,” the wait­er informed them, “that in near­by Kentucky, no wait­ing peri­od is required. You can get mar­ried in one day.”

(By the way, this is still true today in our fair Commonwealth.)

Fortune had indeed smiled upon the young cou­ple: upon check­ing their sched­ule for upcom­ing the­ater engage­ments, they learned that their very next show would occur in the town of Winchester, Kentucky. They could get mar­ried right away!

A con­tem­po­rary news­pa­per account report­ed that the show, held in the audi­to­ri­um of Winchester High School and fea­tur­ing “real dwarfs,” drew over 600 local atten­dees. The sto­ry not­ed that “chil­dren and adult audi­ences all over the coun­try have been delight­ed with their hilar­i­ous com­e­dy antics, per­son­al charm, and skill­ful acrobatics.” 

Rance and Jean checked into the Brown Proctor on October 4, and once again, they got a for­tu­itous break. While din­ing at the hotel, they met a Methodist min­is­ter who agreed to mar­ry them.

So, the next day, October 5, 1948, the cou­ple gath­ered in the hotel lob­by with the rest of the wed­ding par­ty. Besides the local min­is­ter, they were accom­pa­nied by the grooms­men, six lit­tle-per­son actors who were part of the troupe. The grooms­men opened the cer­e­mo­ny with an impro­vised tap rou­tine per­formed to Wagner’s “Wedding March.” Most folks know it as “Here Comes the Bride.”

The bride wore a Cinderella ball gown, one of her cos­tumes from the show. A local bak­ery quick­ly impro­vised a wed­ding cake, stack­ing three cakes and re-frost­ing them. A juke­box in the hotel lob­by pro­vid­ed music for danc­ing, and drinks flowed freely through­out the after­noon and evening. It sounds like a fan­tas­tic event to have been thrown togeth­er so hastily!

But it almost didn’t hap­pen. The man­ag­er of the the­atre com­pa­ny, Mrs. Lawton, near­ly put a halt to it. Thinking the couple—who were bare­ly adults—might be act­ing impul­sive­ly, she tried to talk Jean out of the wed­ding. But the bride-to-be so effec­tive­ly con­vinced Mrs. Lawton that they were indeed ready to wed that the old­er woman not only pro­cured the wed­ding cake but also gave away the bride.

By now, some read­ers may have either worked out these folks’ future claim to fame, or you already know the sto­ry. The Howards con­tin­ued their careers in act­ing and start­ed their fam­i­ly with the birth of their first son in 1954 and their sec­ond one five years lat­er. Both Howard sons joined their par­ents in the act­ing pro­fes­sion, even­tu­al­ly achiev­ing much more star­dom than their parents.

(The Howards had anoth­er son before the birth of Ron. Baby Mark Allan Howard, born in January 1953, died soon after birth.)

The younger son, Clint, appeared on tele­vi­sion at age two, mak­ing sev­er­al appear­ances on The Andy Griffith Show. He went on to appear in many TV shows and movies and was one of the stars of the CBS series Gentle Ben, in which his father, Rance, also appeared and wrote sev­er­al episodes.

It was Clint’s old­er broth­er who has had arguably the most suc­cess­ful career in show busi­ness. Like his younger broth­er, he was a child actor who went on to play oth­er mem­o­rable roles, both on tele­vi­sion and in film. His act­ing career most­ly end­ed while he was still a young man when he decid­ed he pre­ferred work­ing behind the camera.

As a film direc­tor, pro­duc­er, and writer, the elder Howard broth­er worked on such suc­cess­ful movies as Night Shift, Splash, Cocoon, Willow, Backdraft, and The Paper. He won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Film for his work on the acclaimed film A Beautiful Mind. These are just a few of the many Hollywood projects he has played a role in get­ting to the big screen.

By now, I expect near­ly every­one read­ing this knows that Clint Howard’s big broth­er is Ron Howard. He start­ed his career as Ronnie Howard, known to gen­er­a­tions of fans as Opie Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show and lat­er as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days, as well as Steve Bolander in the George Lucas clas­sic movie American Graffiti.  

And lit­tle broth­er Clint? Remember that he, too, got his start on Andy Griffith. If you’re a fan, you prob­a­bly remem­ber sev­er­al episodes in which a very young boy was seen wan­der­ing about Mayberry in a cow­boy out­fit, often hold­ing a sand­wich and offer­ing bites to passers­by on the street. The boy was referred to as “Leon.” That was young Clint Howard.

So, the wed­ding of Jean and Rance Howard at the Brown Proctor Hotel in October 1948 can be thought of as a small piece of Winchester’s “claim to fame” and an enter­tain­ing part of our history. 

Most of the infor­ma­tion for this sto­ry was obtained from the very enter­tain­ing book, The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, by Ron and Clint Howard. I high­ly rec­om­mend the book. Additional data was found on Wikipedia and from Winchester res­i­dent Roberta Newell.