Round up Hopalong fans

Gracie Boyd, a longtime supporter of South Coast Medical Center, a fashion plate at 95 and widow of movie cowboy Hopalong Cassidy, will meet next week with his fans.

Members of the Hopalong Cassidy Fan Club, based in Ohio, are coming to California because ill health has prevented Boyd from attending the annual Hopalong Festival in Cambridge.

Cassidy, whose real name was William Boyd, was born in Ohio. His character, Hopalong Cassidy, was a fixture on television and in the movies and predated many other Western television shows, including “Gunsmoke.”

He died in 1972 at South Coast Hospital, which evolved into South Coast Medical Center, where his widow has volunteered for years, teaching tai chi.

She has written that her hospital activities helped lift her despondency caused by her husband’s death.

Grace Bradley, born in 1913 in Brooklyn, went to Hollywood in 1933. She appeared in several movies, including the musical, “Anything Goes,” before she married the cowboy star in 1937.

She recently co-authored a book about Boyd, “Hopalong Cassidy, an American Legend,” released last fall.

The club’s California trip will include luncheon Thursday at Aliso Creek Inn. The Boyds, who lived in Laguna Beach before they moved to the Strand in Dana Point, were friends of the original owner, Ben Brown.

Fans also have planned visits to Boyd’s grave, the burial site of his horse, Topper, and the ranch the Boyds owned in Malibu.

For information about the Hopalong Cassidy Fan Club, visit www.hopalong.com

BARBARA DIAMOND can be reached at (949) 494-4321 or [email protected].