Alfred "Lash" LaRue was born in Louisiana, although some records indicate Michigan. His father was a traveling salesman, and young Alfred spent his formative years moving across the country. His family finally settled in Los Angeles where he attended St. John's Military Academy and began college at College of the Pacific, intending to study law. However, he took an acting class to overcome a speech impediment and eventually dropped out to pursue a career in acting.
Before becoming an actor, LaRue worked as a real estate agent and hairdresser. He was discovered by veteran producer/director Robert Emmett Tansey, who was looking for a bullwhip-cracking anti-hero to co-star in a production at Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). LaRue's remarkable resemblance to Humphrey Bogart and his claim that he had worked with a bullwhip since childhood led to him being cast in the role.
Despite having never handled a bullwhip before, LaRue spent several days trying to learn how to use it, but ended up beating himself senseless and bloody. Impressed by LaRue's sincerity, Tansey arranged for personalized bullwhip instruction, a lavish expense for a low-budget studio like PRC.
LaRue's PRC debut, Song of Old Wyoming (1945),starred singing cowboy Eddie Dean and co-starred Jennifer Holt, veteran actor Jack Holt's daughter. This picture was also unique as being PRC's first western to be shot in color, albeit in Cinecolor, a cheaper process than Technicolor.
Although LaRue wasn't the star, he received a significant amount of fan mail, and the studio paired him with Dean two more times before splitting them off into their own pictures. LaRue quickly adopted an all-black wardrobe and rode a jet black horse to accentuate his image as a bad guy/good guy, sort of an early western anti-hero. He was assigned a sidekick, the hard-drinking, middle-aged Al St. John, beginning with Law of the Lash (1947),and the two became good friends.
LaRue remained with PRC until it merged with Eagle-Lion in 1948, usually playing a character named Cheyenne Davis, before adopting the "Lash" moniker. In private life, LaRue loved booze, women, and flashy clothes. He was married multiple times, with most sources agreeing that the number ranged from 10 to 12, including actresses Reno Browne and Barbra Fuller.
Aside from his penchant for marrying and his alcohol problem, LaRue also acquired a reputation for performing his own stunts, mainly because PRC was unwilling to spend money on professional stunt men. He took pride in this fact and made sure that he "conveniently" lost his hat during action scenes to prove that it was actually him in the fray.
It's interesting to note that LaRue was never a top-ranked cowboy star during his heyday, but he did rate his own comic book series that lasted until 1960. After riding out a rough period in the 1960s, he began appearing at Hollywood memorabilia and western shows, where he cheerfully greeted fans, happily signed autographs, and gained a reputation for being pleasantly accessible. He died in 1996.
