You Can Hear The Call From The Portals of Heaven in Walter Brennan’s “Suppertime”

In 1960, three-time Oscar winner and country musician Walter Brennan released “Suppertime” as the last track of his first album Dutchman’s Gold. 

Though it did not chart like his most popular hit, “Old Rivers,” “Suppertime” is still a tear-jerker to anyone who would listen to it. Of course, Walter Brennan – being legendary that he is – bring out the right emotions needed in his acts. He truly lived up to his award-winning actor legacy.

A Call To Come Home

Written by Ira Stanphill, “Suppertime” tells the tale of a man who ponders some of the fondest memories of his childhood that have mostly happened during supper time. He reminisced about the days when the sun sets, and his mother would call him from the back steps of their old homeplace in time for supper. The man in the song longs to hear that once more.

But he realized that there’s something more thrilling than that, and that’s when “the call come up from the portals of glory to come home, for it’s supper time.”

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“When all of God’s children shall gather around the table of the Lord himself, and the greatest supper time of them all. Come home, come home, it’s supper time. The shadows lengthen fast. Come home, come home, it’s supper time. We’re going home at last,” the song goes.

Walter Brennan’s Luckiest Break In The World

Walter Brennan, who started taking parts as an extra in films at Universal Studios in 1925, had what he later described as “the luckiest break in the world.” It happened while he was taking part in a fight scene when one actor kicked him in the face, and all his teeth were knocked out. Brennan had to put in false teeth. “I looked all right off the set,” he said. “But when necessary, I could take ’em out – and suddenly look about 40 years older.” And the rest was history.

In 1957, after resisting proposals to star in a regular TV series, Brennan gave in for The Real McCoys, a sitcom about a poor West Virginia family that moved to a farm in Southern California. It was a big hit that ran for five years. His success with The Real McCoys led to him making a few recordings.

The actor and singer spent his last years mostly in retirement at his ranch in Moorpark in Ventura. Brennan died of emphysema at the age of 80 in Oxnard, California. 

Tune in below for Walter Brennan’s riveting performance of “Suppertime.”