By Chris Mac Kenzie
The Alpine Sun

     ALPINE — Coy Watson – How to describe him? Child movie star, Eagle Scout, news photographer, Coast Guard chief photographer, television pioneer, inventor, author and more. James Caughey “Coy” Watson, Jr., who died Saturday, March 14 in Alpine from stomach cancer, lived 96 very full years.
 

Coy Watson, pictured here as a young actor, and inset, Coy shows off his San Diego Emmy Award for the documentary, “San Diego Insider, Coy Watson, The Keystone Kid.”

     Born Nov. 18, 1912 to Golda and James Watson in Edendale. Calif., Coy appeared in his very first movie at the age of nine months, with Lon Chaney in “The Price of Silence.” In the next 21 years he appeared in 65 motion pictures and became known as The Keystone Kid, since his dad, Watson Sr., a special effects man, was an occasional actor with The Keystone Cops.
     Coy Jr. appeared in silent pictures and “talkies” in both feature roles and small parts with such greats as Mary Pickford, Mae West, Fattie Arbuckle, Buck Jones, Cary Grant, Joan Bennett and John Barrymore. He was in the opening scene of the first sound-on film picture, “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Somehow he found time to be an active Boy Scout and even earned his Eagle Scout rank and later became a Scout Master. He helped to establish the LA Camp for delinquent boys.
     By 1919, at age 17, he decided to move behind the camera and became a news photographer, working with various Los Angeles newspapers. He covered most of the big news stories of the period and was the official news photographer for the 1932 Olympic Games. His photos appeared in Life Magazine.
     He turned inventor in 1939, designing and manufacturing the Lite Beam Focuser, the first time a battery was ever placed in a camera, He filled orders from around the world for this device.
     During the World War II years Coy served his country as a chief photographer for the U.S. Coast Guard. One of his exciting moments occurred when he helped to arrange for Coast Guard personnel and movie stars to appear in the Hollywood Bowl at the show arranged to honor Madame Chiang Kai-shek of China. He took 16 mm motion pictures of the event and then loaned them to LA’s first television station to be run that same evening. It was the first filmed news story ever to be run in the area, boasting all of 40-sets in the whole city.
     By 1948 he had become a TV news film photographers “stringer” for WPIX and Television news services in New York City, covering stories like the little girl Kathy Fiscus who fell into the abandoned well. He photographed the story continuously for 52 hours.
     For the next few years, Coy made history by creating a lot of “firsts.” In 1949 he did Hollywood’s first TV commercial on film for Vermont Motors, a one hour film shot for $54.The same year he made the first TV documentary showing two WWII pilots using McMillan Oil to break the existing 729 hour world record for “staying in the air” by flying in a one engine plane for more than 1,000 hours, or 42 days. Coy recorded the story as “Operation Endurance;” an historic event.
     Still another “first” was his collaboration with columnist Erskine Johnson to make “Hollywood Reel,” the first film series for American television screens, some 52, 30-minute shows. It was while producing this series, that he married his secretary and production assistant, Imelda, known as “Willie.”

Coy spent several years working behind a CBS news camera.

     After taking some time off to run cattle on his ranch near Sacramento, he returned to Hollywood where he organized and contributed to the operations of CBS, ABC and KTLA, and originated yet another first, “The Man on the Street – Interview.” He covered stories like the A-Bomb tests in Yucca Flats and joined the White House press corps during President Eisenhower’s hospitalization.
     In 1965 he took his family to Australia to assist station TVW improve its film operation. By 1984 he was building miniature cameras for oil drilling operations. He and “Willie” moved to Rancho Bernardo to retire and eventually in 1990, to Alpine.
     The Watsons’ life came full circle in 1992 when his “Hollywood Reels” appeared again, this time on the small screen. Then in 1993 producer Peter Jones wanted to include Coy in a production about Hollywood pioneers. He asked Coy to return to Edendale where the first studios were built in the west. Coy had come home to where it all began 80 years before.
     The highlight of his later years occurred in April 1999 when his entire family, Coy Sr., Golda Watson and Coy Jr.’s five brothers and three sisters were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The family lived on the movie lot in Edendale, so the habit was, that whenever a baby or small child was needed for a film in the making the director would simply call Mrs. Watson and ask her to send over a child of the right age.
     The Watsons became known as the First Family of Hollywood. The kids were photographed with some of the biggest stars of the era, and appeared in more than 1,000 films. No other theatrical family could match their accomplishments, hence the Hollywood Star.
     In his “golden years “ Coy turned his skills to becoming an author. He wrote a book filled with historic events from his years in the industry and photos from his personal collection as well as the famous “Watson Family Archives,” four generations of Los Angeles photos. Entitled “The Keystone Kid: Tales of Early Hollywood,” it was published in 2001.”
     In 2004, it became a Cox documentary “San Diego Insider, Coy Watson, The Keystone Kid” which received a San Diego Emmy Award on his behalf, one of many awards he had earned, like the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles.
     Coy was known as a wonderful father, husband, brother and friend, He is survived by his wife, Imelda “Willie” Watson; daughter, Pattie Watson Price; granddaughter, Haley Christine Price, all of Alpine; his son, James Caughey “Jim” Watson III and wife Laura Lee; grandson, J. C. “Jim” Watson IV; granddaughter, Kimberly Cottrell; great grandson James Caughey “Jim” Watson V; and several more great grandchildren all of Perth Australia. His sister Louise Roberts and brothers Gary and Billy are the surviving members of the original nine Watson siblings.
     Memorial services will be held at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery at a date to be determined later.