Louis Burton Lindley Jr., better known by his stage name Slim Pickens, was an American actor and rodeo performer. Starting off in the rodeo, Pickens took up acting, and appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows. For much of his career, Pickens played cowboy roles. He is perhaps best remembered today for his comic roles in Dr. Strangelove, Blazing Saddles, 1941, and his villainous turn in One-Eyed Jacks with Marlon Brando.
Wake Island is a 1942 American action drama war film directed by John Farrow, written by W. R. Burnett and Frank Butler, and starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, Macdonald Carey, Albert Dekker, Barbara Britton, and William Bendix. The film tells the story of the United States military garrison on Wake Island and the onslaught by the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Rio Grande is a 1950 American romantic Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. It is the third installment of Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", following two RKO Pictures releases: Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). Wayne plays the lead in all three films, as Captain Kirby York in Fort Apache, then as Captain Nathan Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and finally as a promoted Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke in Rio Grande. Rio Grande's supporting cast features Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman Jr., Harry Carey Jr., Chill Wills, J. Carrol Naish, Victor McLaglen, Grant Withers, the Western singing group the Sons of the Pioneers and Stan Jones.
Forrest Meredith Tucker was an American actor in both movies and television who appeared in nearly a hundred films. Tucker worked as a vaudeville straight man at the age of fifteen. A mentor provided funds and contacts for a trip to California, where party hostess Cobina Wright persuaded guest Wesley Ruggles to give Tucker a screen test because of Tucker's photogenic good looks, thick wavy hair and height of six feet, five inches.
Waldo Brian Donlevy was an American actor, who was noted for playing dangerous and tough characters. Usually appearing in supporting roles, among his best-known films are Beau Geste (1939), The Great McGinty (1940) and Wake Island (1942). For his role as the sadistic Sergeant Markoff in Beau Geste, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
The Westerner is a 1940 American Western film directed by William Wyler and starring Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan and Doris Davenport. Written by Niven Busch and Jo Swerling, the film concerns a self-appointed hanging judge in Vinegaroon, Texas, who befriends a saddle tramp who opposes the judge's policy against homesteaders. The film is remembered for Walter Brennan's performance as Judge Roy Bean, for which he won his record-setting third Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. James Basevi and Stuart N. Lake also received Academy Award nominations for Best Art Direction, Black and White and Best Story, respectively. The supporting cast features Dana Andrews, Chill Wills and Forrest Tucker.
Theodore Childress "Chill" Wills was an American actor and a singer in the Avalon Boys quartet.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 American revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah, written by Rudy Wurlitzer, and starring James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Richard Jaeckel, Katy Jurado, Chill Wills, Barry Sullivan, Jason Robards, Slim Pickens and Bob Dylan. The film is about an aging Pat Garrett (Coburn), hired as a lawman by a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid (Kristofferson).
Claude Aubrey Akins was a character actor with a long career on stage, screen, and television. He was best known as Sheriff Lobo on the 1979–1981 television series B. J. and the Bear, and later The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spin-off series.
Trackdown is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired on CBS between 1957 and 1959. The series was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio. Trackdown was a spin-off of Powell's anthology series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.
Billy the Kid is a 1930 American pre-Code Western film directed in widescreen by King Vidor about the relationship between frontier outlaw Billy the Kid and lawman Pat Garrett. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.
Western Union is a 1941 American western film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Robert Young, Randolph Scott, and Dean Jagger. Filmed in Technicolor on location in Arizona and Utah. In Western Union, Scott plays a reformed outlaw who tries to make good by joining the team building a telegraph line across the Great Plains in 1861. Conflicts arise between the man and his former gang, as well as between the team stringing the wires and the Native Americans through whose land the new lines must run. In this regard, the film is not historically accurate; Edward Creighton was known for his honest and humane treatment of the tribes along the right of way and this was rewarded on the part of the Indians by their trust and cooperation with Creighton and his workers. The installation of telegraph wires was met with protest from no one.
Alfred Morton Bridge was an American character actor who played mostly small roles in over 270 films between 1931 and 1954. Bridge's persona was an unpleasant, gravel-voiced man with an untidy moustache. Sometimes credited as Alan Bridge, and frequently not credited onscreen at all, he appeared in many Westerns, especially in the Hopalong Cassidy series, where he played crooked sheriffs and henchmen.
Stanley Martin Andrews was an American actor perhaps best known as the voice of Daddy Warbucks on the radio program Little Orphan Annie and later as "The Old Ranger", the first host of the syndicated western anthology television series, Death Valley Days.
Loaded Pistols is a 1948 American Western film directed by John English and starring Gene Autry, Barbara Britton, and Chill Wills. Written by Dwight Cummins and Dorothy Yost, the film is about a cowboy who protects a young man wrongly accused of murder, while trying to find the real badguys.
Gunfighters is a 1947 American Western film directed by George Waggner and starring Randolph Scott and Barbara Britton. Based on the novel Twin Sombreros by Zane Grey and with a screenplay by The Searchers author Alan Le May, the film is about a gunfighter who lays down his guns after being forced to shoot his best friend, and decides to become a cowhand on a ranch. The film was released in the United Kingdom as The Assassin.
James Harlee Bell was an American film and stage actor who appeared in about 150 films and television shows through 1964.
The Plunderers is a 1948 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and written by Gerald Geraghty and Gerald Drayson Adams. The film stars Rod Cameron, Ilona Massey, Lorna Gray, Forrest Tucker, George Cleveland and Grant Withers. The film was released on October 31, 1948, by Republic Pictures.
Oh! Susanna is a 1951 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and written by Charles Marquis Warren. The film stars Rod Cameron, Lorna Gray, Forrest Tucker, Chill Wills, William Ching, Jim Davis, and Wally Cassell. The film was released on March 3, 1951, by Republic Pictures.
Luther Palmer was an American film and television actor. Born in Xenia, Ohio. He appeared in over 300 films and television programs between 1929 and 1962. Palmer died in March 1982 of an illness, at the age of 77. He was buried in Eternal Valley Memorial Park.
