Charles Worden Bethel was born January 23, 1899 in Denver, Colorado, to William Decatur Bethell and Helen Worden, and was raised in Southern California. He married Cleo Ballard, a Redlands girl, in 1925, at which time he had a home/art studio at 5161 Sunset Blvd., LA. Bethel spent seven years designing sets for live theater including such plays as Hit the Deck, Broadway, and The Swan.’… During his stay in Hollywood he designed all the settings for Mr. [Edward Everett] Horton while he was on the legitimate stage. Other stars with whom Mr. Bethell worked were Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Franklin Pangborn and Marjorie Rambeau. Outstanding of the sets designed by Mr. Bethell was for John Steven McGroarty’s Mission Play. After he completed the scenery, Mr. Bethell built miniatures of the 21 missions of California, constructing his buildings from the originals of the missions. The miniatures were placed in the outside patio of the Mission playhouse at San Gabriel” (per SBCS, i.e., San Bernardino County Sun, June 12, 1937, p. 13). His off-and-on stage commissions allowed him the freedom, about every three months, to take off on sketching jaunts. About 1930 Bethel left stage work (In 1937 he briefly returned to stage design for “TheBlonde Donna.”) to concentrate on landscape art. The artist had been creating and exhibiting his easel works since at least 1925. Bethel worked from nature, sketching sites in the western U.S. (including California, Arizona and New Mexico) and even places in Mexico, focusing on a variety of themes, particularly deserts. Sometimes he was accompanied by his wife and at other times by fellow artists. By 1933 he seems to have settled in Redlands where his parents lived, but he apparently also had a studio in Snow Creek. He associated with local art groups such as the Redlands Art Guild (some of whose members he schooled in art on one of their outings in 1933) and the San Bernardino County Art Association. Over the years, he was honored with many one-man shows including at Hatfield (1925), Barker Brothers, LA (1928), Stendahl, LA (1930), Contemporary Club,Redlands (1930), Little Studio Art Gallery, Alhambra (1930), a traveling exhibit through Southern California (1933), Arrowhead Hot Springs (1933), San Bernardino County Art Association (1934), Whittier Art Association (1934), California Palace of theLegion of Honor and Courvoisier Gallery, both in San Francisco (1935), Desert Inn, Palm Springs (1947) and at the Laguna Beach Art Association and various state fairs. Bethel died Nov. 29, 1951 in Redlands. (Facts gleaned from citations in PSCA, vol. 13).