Bill Elliott

Acting

Born Oct 16, 1904

From Pattonsburg, Missouri, USA

Died Nov 26, 1965

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Wild Bill Elliott (October 16, 1904 – November 26, 1965) was an American film actor. He specialized in playing the rugged heroes of B Westerns, particularly the Red Ryder series of films. By 1925, he was getting occasional extra work in films. He took classes at the Pasadena Playhouse and appeared in a few stage roles there. By 1927, he had made his first Western, The Arizona Wildcat, playing his first featured role. Several co-starring roles followed, and he renamed himself Gordon Elliott. But as the studios made the transition to sound films, he slipped back into roles as an extra and bit parts, as in Broadway Scandals, in 1929. For the next eight years, he appeared in over a hundred films for various studios, but almost always in unbilled parts as an extra. Elliott began to be noticed in some minor B Westerns, enough so that Columbia Pictures offered him the title role in a serial, The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938). The serial was so successful, and Elliott so personable, that Columbia promoted him to starring in his own series of Western features, replacing Columbia's number-two cowboy star Robert "Tex" Allen. Henceforth Gordon Elliott would be known as Bill Elliott. Within two years, he was among the Motion Picture Herald's Top Ten Western Stars, where he would remain for the next 15 years. In 1943, Elliott signed with Republic Pictures, which cast him in a series of Westerns alongside George "Gabby" Hayes. The first of these, Calling Wild Bill Elliott, gave Elliott the name by which he would be best known and by which he would be billed almost exclusively for the rest of his career. Following several films in which both actor and character shared the name Wild Bill Elliott, he took the role for which he would be best remembered, that of Red Ryder in a series of sixteen movies about the famous comic strip cowboy and his young Indian companion, Little Beaver (played in Elliott's films by Bobby Blake). Elliott played the role for only two years but would forever be associated with it. Elliott's trademark was a pair of six guns worn butt-forward in their holsters. Elliott's career thrived during and after the Red Ryder films, and he continued making B Westerns into the early 1950s. He also had his own radio show during the late 1940s. His final contract as a Western star was with Monogram Pictures, where budgets declined as the B Western lost its audience to television. When Monogram became Allied Artists Pictures Corporation in 1953, it phased out its Western productions, and Elliott finished out his contract playing a homicide detective in a series of five modern police dramas, his first non-Westerns since 1938. Elliott retired from films (except for a couple of TV Western pilots which were not picked up). He worked for a time as a spokesman for Viceroy cigarettes and hosted a local TV program in Las Vegas, Nevada, which featured many of his Western films.

Bill Elliott

Known For

Scarface

The Roaring Twenties

The Mummy

Dangerous

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

'G' Men

Gold Diggers of 1933

Hellfire

Midnight Mary

China Clipper

Filmography — Acting

Scarface

The Roaring Twenties

The Mummy

Dangerous

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

'G' Men

Gold Diggers of 1933

Hellfire

Midnight Mary

China Clipper

Blonde Crazy

The Plastic Age

The Rich Are Always with Us

Merrily We Go to Hell

Platinum Blonde

One Hour with You

Page Miss Glory

Bullets or Ballots

Jewel Robbery

Upperworld

Lady with a Past

Wonder Bar

Five and Ten

Dr. Socrates

Personal Maid's Secret

The Showdown

The Case of the Howling Dog

The Gallant Legion

Stage Mother

Dial Red O

Born Reckless

West of Broadway

A Successful Calamity

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

The Little Giant

You Can't Have Everything

Desirable

The Savage Horde

Only Yesterday

Broadway Gondolier

Bitter Creek

Topeka

While the Patient Slept

The Murder of Dr. Harrigan

Murder in the Clouds

The Big Noise

Born to Love

Children of Divorce

The Goose and the Gander

Private Detective 62

Working Girls

Footsteps in the Night

Made on Broadway

The Son of Davy Crockett

Sunny

Calling Homicide

The Case of the Black Cat

The Secret Bride

The Return of Wild Bill

The Girl from 10th Avenue

Murder by an Aristocrat

The Road to Reno

Marshal of Laredo

Broadway Scandals

Beyond the Sacramento

It's Showtime

Polo Joe