Jack Elam
(Deceased)
Jack Elam, actor, was born on Nov. 13, 1916 in Miami, AZ. His mother died when he was just one year old, and he was farmed out to any relative that would look after him.
At the age of 12, young Jack Elam got into a fight with another kid. The kid jabbed a pencil into his left eye, and he lost the sight in that eye. And through most of his life he had to contend with the fact that the left eye was not coordinated in movement with the right eye.
That accident, of course, resulted in the shifty-eyed look that became Jack Elam's trademark as an actor. He turned a lemon into lemonade and made enough money out of it to buy several lemon orchards if he had a mind to do so.
Before that, though, he graduated from high school in Phoenix, Ariz. He studied accounting in college and worked for several companies. He moved to Los Angeles and worked for an oil company. Then when World War II ended, he became the comptroller for William Boyd's production company (Boyd was "Hopalong Cassidy," of course). And although he enjoyed the accounting profession, his right eye was stressed by the close and tedious work. His physician advised him to find another profession which did not tax his remaining eye.
What to do? Somewere accountant Jack Elam got the idea that he could act. He had absolutely no experience, but that didn't stop him. He told another employee of Boyd's production company that if they would hire him to act, he would find financing for the films from his former accounting contacts in the banking industry. It worked and he became a fine actor.
Jack Elam's Western movie credits include Rawhide, Rancho Notorious, Cattle Queen of Montana, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Rio Lobo, High Noon, The Commancheros, Cat Ballou, Support Your Local Sheriff!, Support Your Local Gunfighter, Bonanza: The Return (TV), Bonanza: Under Attack (TV), Gunfighter (1950), The Man From Laramie (1955), The Far Country (1955), Night Passage (1957), Once Upon a Time in the West (1969), The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970), The Rare Breed (1966), and Firecreek (1968).
His Western TV credits include appearances on Sugarfoot, Temple Houston, Bronco, and The Dakotas, Bonanza, Daniel Boone, Death Valley Days, High Chaparral, Kung Fu, The Lone Ranger, Zorro, Zane Grey Theater, Wanted: Dead Or Alive, Yancy Derringer, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, Cheyenne, and The Rifleman.
Jack Elam was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall Of Fame in Oklahoma City in 1994.
During the last years of his life, the actor was retired and lived in Ashland, Oregon. Elam kept busy with his favorite hobbies: "Drinking, playing cards and telling dirty stories."
Jack Elam died on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at his home in Ashland, Oregon.
On the Thursday after Elam's death, a producer with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.), called me and asked if they could do a live radio interview with me about the life of Jack Elam. Turns out they had learned of his death and set out to do a segment of him, and in their research they found this web site. So I had my seven minutes of fame on BBC's worldwide radio broadcast.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Jack Elam.
Hank Elling
Hank Elling, cowboy singer and musician, was born in Lawton, Oklahoma in 1948. He has lived in the Cache, Oklahoma area for much of his life.
Elling holds a Bachelor of Science degree (1972) in Agricultural Engineering from Oklahoma State University.
His mother and father bought him a guitar for his 17th birthday. He has found pleasure performing many styles of music over the years, but he now concentrates on Western music. He has a CD available titled, "My Favorite Cowboy Songs". He performed at the 2nd annual Western Oklahoma Cowboy Poetry Gathering at Red Rock Canyon State Park (near Hinton, Oklahoma) in 2003.
Hank Elling is a writer, as well. He wrote "Longhorn Roundup In The Wichita Mountains " in the Western Horseman magazine. Another piece entitled "Old Red And The Weekend Cowboys"
was published in Cowboy Magazine. He has also participated in local theatrical productions.
Since 1986 he has worked as a Water Resources Engineer for the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. His duties have included National Flood Insurance Program, stream water rights, ground water rights, safety of dams, water well inspections, pollution investigations and water quality permitting. He has served several terms as Regional Representative on the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma Floodplain Managers Association.
He and his wife, Verna, also raise cattle and horses on their spread near Cache, Oklahoma.
CLICK HERE to go to Hank Elling's own web site.
Wild Bill Elliott
(Deceased)
Wild Bill Elliott was born as Gordon Nance on Oct. 16, 1904 in Pattonsburg, MO.
Gordon Nance broke into the movies as Gordon Elliott. He found his nitch in Western movies, though he couldn't sign a note or play an instrument. Still, he was regarded as an excellent horseman.
Soon, though, he was tagged with the stage name of "Wild Bill Elliott" and it stuck. Bill Elliott appeared in 170 movies from 1925 to 1957. His early Western films included "The Arizona Wildcat" (1927), "The Great Divide" (1929), "Moonlight on the Prairie" (1935), "Romance of the West" (1935), "Trailing West" (1936), "Guns of the Pecos" (1937), "Roll Along Cowboy" (1937), and "Boots and Saddles" (1937).
In 1938 he starred in "Wild Bill Hickok" and the knickname "Wild Bill" stuck with him. He played "Wild Bill Saunders" in "The Taming of the West" (1939), "The Wildcat of Tucson" (1940) and "Pioneers of the West" (1940). Then he was Wild Bill Hickok, again, in "King of Dodge City" (1941), "North from Lone Star" (1941), "Beyond the Sacramento" (1941), "Across the Sierras" (1941) and "The Lone Star Vigilantes" (1942).
However, he became "Wild Bill Elliott" in the 1943 film, "Bordertown Gun Fighters". And he used that on-screen name from then on, except for his role as "Red Ryder" in several films from 1944 to 1946.
This 1949 Western, "The Last Bandit," featured (l to r)
Bill Elliott, Adrian Booth, Jack Holt (father of Tim Holt),
Hank Bell, and Andy Devine.
Wild Bill Elliott died of cancer on Nov. 26, 1965 in Las Vegas, NV.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Bill Elliott, aka "William Elliott," "Gordon Elliott," and "Wild Bill Elliott".
Sam Elliott
Sam Elliott, actor, was born on Aug. 9, 1944 in Sacramento, CA.
His first movie role was in a little Western movie called, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)". That was not a bad way to start his film career. And although he only had a small part in the film, he developed a big role in the life of the female lead-- Katherine Ross --and made her his wife. They often appear together on screen. His next venture into Westerns was with a co-starring role made-for-TV movies with Tom Selleck, "The Sacketts (1979) and "The Shadow Riders (1982). He then appeared in the short-lived Western TV series, "The Yellow Rose (1983). In 1991, he wrote the screenplay, and worked with wife Katherine Ross in "Conagher" (1991). Then he played the part of Wild Bill Hickok in "Buffalo Girls (1995)".
He played Oklahoma's famous territorial U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman in the film, "You Know My Name".
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Sam Elliott.
Allan Vaughn Elston
(Deceased)
Allan Vaughn Elston was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He spent his summers on the family cattle ranch, the Bar L A, at Barela, Colo. He graduated from the University of Missouri in 1909 with a degree in engineering, and spent a couple of years on railroad construction in the Chilean Andes before returning to the States to run the Bar L A. He was a veteran of World War I, having served in France.
Elston's first sale was an article in the June, 1919 issue of Munsey's Magazine. That was something of a fluke, as the "article" was a letter that he had sent home from France to his sister and she submitted it to the magazine. But he still cashed the check, with no thought of writing another word for publication.
When he left the army, he returned to operating the family ranch in southern Colorado. Times grew harder and harder, so he decided to submit something to a magazine. He tried fiction this time, and he sold it. And another and another. He went on to sell numerous novelettes, short stories and scores of novels. He wrote foreign adventure, murder mysteries and Westerns.
One of his best-known novels was The Marked Men, concerning Wyoming's famous Johnson County Cattle War. He sold the movie rights to at least 12 of his books, and he wrote scripts for TV as well. Even after he retired sometime before 1956, he continued writing two Westerns per year. He was a member of WWA, the California Writers Guild and the Methodist Church. (See his photo and bio in the February, 1956 issue of The Roundup.)
Allen Vaughn Elston died in 1976 at the age of 89.
Chris Emmett
(Deceased)
Chris Emmett was born at Energy, Texas, in 1886 and was reared in Hamilton, Texas. He held the B.A. and LL.B. degrees from the University of Texas. He was a soldier in World War I, and was an honorary member and the official historian of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders' Association.
Chris Emmett was instrumental in getting the government to designate old Fort Union (near Las Vegas, N.M.) as a national monument, and he was one of the main speakers when it was dedicated in July, 1959. He was a past president of the San Antonio (Texas) Historical Society. And he was an active member of WWA, helping to judge the Spur Award competition in the nonfiction book category in 1959.
Chris Emmett's books included Texas Camel Tales, Texas As It Was Then, The General and the Poet, Give Way to the Right, and In the Path of Events with Colonel Martin Lalor Crimmins. (See his photo and his bio in the May, 1960 issue of The Roundup.)
Fern Emmett
Fern Emmett, actress, played in such Western films as The Forty-Niners (1932), Riders of the Whistling Skull (1937), and Dead Man's Eyes (1944).
H.L. "Red" Engle
Red Engle was born in March of 1936 at Tolt, Washington. Over the years he has worked as a gas station attendent, farm laborer, member of the U.S. Army, highway construction worker, railroad hand, sawmill laborer and for the Carnation Research Farm.
H.L. Engle's articles have appeared in Unknowns Magazine, National Tombstone Epitaph, Whispering Wind and Facet. He received an honorable mention in a recent National Writers Club short story contest.
This listing is far from complete and may contain errors. Therefore, all Western entertainers and/or their agents are requested to submit recommended changes by contacting Stan Paregien.
If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents,
forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day,
and seven times comes back to you and says, "I repent,"
forgive him.
--- Jesus the Christ (Bible: Luke 17:3-4)
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
