Ray "Crash" Corrigan (14 February 1902 - 10 August 1976) born Raymond Benard was an American actor most famous for appearing in B-Western movies.
His career in Hollywood began as a physical fitness instructor. In the early 1930s he did stunts and bit-parts. Many of his early roles were in ape costumes - for example, as a Gorilla in Tarzan and His Mate (1934) and an "Orangopoid" in the original Flash Gordon serial. In 1936 he got his break with roles in two Republic serials, The Vigilantes Are Coming and Undersea Kingdom (in the main starring part).
According to Ray himself, his stagename of "Crash" Corrigan came from his role in the Undersea Kingdom (it was produced to rival Universal's Flash Gordon - the same one in which he played the Orangopoid - and the name was designed to be similar). Other stories go that it was due to his size or because he kept falling off his horse on set. There is no firm proof for any of this but it is verifiable that this serial was the first time he used the name professionally.
On the basis of this, Republic signed him to a Term Player Contract, running from 25 May 1936 to 24 May 1938. He was cast as one the trio in the Three Mesquiteers series of films and starred in 24 in all. He left Republic in 1938 in a dispute over pay.
At Monogram Pictures, he began a new series of films - The Range Busters (a cheap copy of the Three Mesquiteers) - with a character of his own name. Ray starred in 20 of the 24 films in this series between 1940 and 1943.
Following this, his on screen work largely returned to appearing in Ape costume - for example, one of the title roles in 1952's Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.
In 1937 Ray Corrigan had purchased some land in Simi Valley, California. He developed this into Corriganville, a general location used for many Western movies and TV shows. Ray made a lot of money from renting out this location and from paying visitors - it was opened to the public for Western-themed shows in 1949.
Examples of movies and shows filmed at Corriganville:
Corriganville was eventually sold to Bob Hope in 1966, at which point it became Hopetown.
