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Barbra Fuller, who starred as the daughter Claudia on the long-running radio soap opera One Man’s Family, all while appearing in films for Republic Pictures and such TV shows as Adventures of Superman, has died. She was 102.

Fuller, who lived in the Los Angeles area, died Wednesday, her godson J.P. Sloane announced.

On the San Francisco-set One Man’s Family, created by Carlton E. Morse, Fuller played one of the Barbour family’s five kids from 1945 until the NBC Radio drama completed its 27-year run in 1959. Her character, a twin with kids of her own, was gone from the program for a couple of years before she came aboard.

“It was a fun part. Claudia was a good girl with interesting qualities,” she said in Michael G. Fitzgerald and Boyd Magers’ 2006 book, Ladies of the Western.

In 1949, Fuller signed with Republic and was under contract with the B-picture studio for a year,...

B-movie Westerns were popular in the mid-20th century and featured talented actors who made a name for themselves in the genre. Some B-movie stars, like Lash Larue, had impressive real-life skills as cowboys, while others started as stuntmen before becoming stars. Fred MacMurray, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy were among the best B-movie Western actors, with notable roles in both Westerns and other genres.

Throughout the heyday of the B-movie Western, several stand-out stars made a name for themselves playing cowboys, gunslingers, and outlaws. While the popularity of the Western may have declined since the mid-20th century, the B-movies that were produced during that period stood as some of the most enjoyable, action-packed, fun-loving films ever screened. Without the major stars and actors who led them, they would not be nearly as acclaimed, and its important to shine on the best actors of this genre.

There are some B-movie Western stars,...

The Encyclopedia Of Weird Westerns by Paul Green (McFarland, tpb, 265 pp, $39.95) If any genre seems a mismatch with the supernatural or science fiction, it has to be the Western. Sure, there was the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire, where that cowboy hero journeyed beneath the Earth to the lost city of Murania, and the strange double-bill of Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’S Daughter and Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula. But Green, a former Marvel Comics artist, has come up with The Encyclopedia Of Weird Westerns, an international compendium of books, movies, comics, TV shows and games that deals with the extensive and bizarre cross-pollination. This unique volume covers ground that has generally eluded researchers.

Green’s introduction is a brief history of the various art forms covered in the pages that follow. He stretches it a bit, though, when he starts talking about the Sumerians and Homer—who predated the West itself.

The Encyclopedia Of Weird Westerns by Paul Green (McFarland, tpb, 265 pp, $39.95) If any genre seems a mismatch with the supernatural or science fiction, it has to be the Western. Sure, there was the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire, where that cowboy hero journeyed beneath the Earth to the lost city of Murania, and the strange double-bill of Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’S Daughter and Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula. But Green, a former Marvel Comics artist, has come up with The Encyclopedia Of Weird Westerns, an international compendium of books, movies, comics, TV shows and games that deals with the extensive and bizarre cross-pollination. This unique volume covers ground that has generally eluded researchers.

Green’s introduction is a brief history of the various art forms covered in the pages that follow. He stretches it a bit, though, when he starts talking about the Sumerians and Homer—who predated the West itself.

When April with its sweet showers brought flowers to the lawns of May and birds filled the air with melodies, Dan-Dan the Yo-Yo Man made his annual pilgrimage to our playground at St. Mary's School. He drove up in a dark maroon 1950 Hudson we all recognized on sight: It had the Step-Down Ride that allowed it to out-corner Fords and Chevys at the stock car races out at the fairgrounds. To own a car like that was to be a Duncan Yo-Yo professional.

Dan-Dan dismounted on the far side of the big Hudson, and when he walked into view there were already two Yo-Yos spinning in the air before him, making a whirl of red and yellow. He walked smiling toward home plate, let the yo-yos bounce off it, and snapped them on the fly into his pockets. He took out one, and rocked the baby, walked the dog, skinned the cat,...