Bill Elliott
Biography
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.
Personal info
Gender
Male
Birthday
1904-10-16
Place of birth
Pattonsburg, Missouri, USA
Images
Cast
Jewel Robbery
1932
6.45
The Arizona Wildcat
1927
0.00
Boots and Saddles
1937
4.00
Five and Ten
1931
6.20
Chain of Evidence
1957
4.80
Calling Homicide
1956
5.70
Footsteps in the Night
1957
5.25
One Hour with You
1932
6.50
Midnight Mary
1933
6.90
Night After Night
1932
6.20
Sudden Danger
1955
5.30
The Showdown
1950
5.20
The Murder of Dr. Harrigan
1936
5.60
Michael O'Halloran
1937
0.00
Letter of Introduction
1938
5.90
Wonder Bar
1934
6.10
The Return of Daniel Boone
1941
4.50
The Goose and the Gander
1935
4.60
The Case of the Velvet Claws
1936
6.80
The Savage Horde
1950
5.80
Marshal of Reno
1944
7.00
Sheriff of Redwood Valley
1946
4.00
San Antonio Kid
1944
0.00
Tucson Raiders
1944
0.00
The Girl from 10th Avenue
1935
6.50
Broadway Scandals
1929
6.00
The Fabulous Texan
1947
4.00
The Gallant Legion
1948
7.00
Melody for Two
1937
0.00
The Marshall of Trail City
1950
5.00
The Drop Kick
1927
5.00
A Lost Lady
1934
6.10
Dr. Socrates
1935
6.40
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
1976
9.00
The Plainsman and the Lady
1946
3.00
Swing It Professor
1937
0.00
Roll Along, Cowboy
1937
5.00
Boy of the Streets
1938
5.00
Love Takes Flight
1937
3.00
Polo Joe
1936
0.00
Overland with Kit Carson
1939
0.50
The Man from Tumbleweeds
1940
3.00
Phantom of the Plains
1945
0.00
The Valley of Vanishing Men
1942
0.00
Dial Red O
1955
5.21
The Greeks Had a Word for Them
1932
4.80
Bachelor's Affairs
1932
1.00
The Lady in the Morgue
1938
6.25
The Shamrock Handicap
1926
5.10
The Girl Said No
1930
5.50
The Homesteaders
1953
7.00
The Forty-Niners
1954
5.20
Murder by an Aristocrat
1936
3.00
Lone Texas Ranger
1945
6.00
Lord Byron of Broadway
1930
4.70
The Boy Friend
1928
5.30
Restless Youth
1928
0.00
The Return of Wild Bill
1940
0.00
Fargo
1952
6.50
Part Time Wife
1930
0.00
Hellfire
1949
5.80
God's Gift to Women
1931
5.00
Let's Do Things
1931
0.00
Registered Nurse
1934
4.60
Broadminded
1931
3.70
You Can't Have Everything
1937
5.70
Traveling Husbands
1931
4.00
Broadway Gondolier
1935
5.40
Death Valley Manhunt
1943
5.00
Hands Across the Rockies
1941
7.20
Bordertown Gun Fighters
1943
0.00
The Right to Live
1935
5.10
Broadway Hostess
1935
5.20
Sweepstakes
1931
4.50
The Great Divide
1929
4.80
Fugitive in the Sky
1936
6.00
Desirable
1934
7.30
Sunny
1930
6.50
Going Wild
1930
6.00
The Case of the Black Cat
1936
6.60
Dangerous
1935
6.70
Personal Maid's Secret
1935
5.50
Hidden Valley Outlaws
1944
0.00
Stage Mother
1933
5.00
Stars Over Broadway
1935
5.20
The Big Noise
1936
5.00
Guns of the Pecos
1936
6.20
The Public Defender
1931
6.00
Night Parade
1929
3.50
Born to Love
1931
5.00
Vigilantes of Dodge City
1944
0.00
The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
1930
5.00
King of Hockey
1936
5.00
The Son of Davy Crockett
1941
0.00
The Roaring Twenties
1939
7.50
Across the Sierras
1941
2.20
Sheriff of Las Vegas
1944
4.50
While the Patient Slept
1935
6.40
Lady with a Past
1932
5.80
Prairie Gunsmoke
1942
0.00
Frontiers of '49
1939
0.00
Midnight Court
1937
4.80
The Devil's Trail
1942
5.00
The Mummy
1932
6.74
Pioneers of the Frontier
1940
0.00
Traveling Saleslady
1935
5.90
Man of Iron
1935
6.00
The Wildcat of Tucson
1940
0.00
Wagon Tracks West
1943
0.00
Prairie Schooners
1940
6.00
Trailin' West
1936
0.00
The Secret Bride
1934
6.30
The Woman in Red
1935
6.10
Handlebars
1933
5.50
Calling Wild Bill Elliott
1943
6.00
Moonlight on the Prairie
1935
5.50
The Payoff
1935
4.90
Down the Stretch
1936
5.50
In Old Sacramento
1946
6.00
The Little Giant
1933
6.80
Gold Diggers of 1933
1933
7.16
Waco
1952
0.00
Kansas Territory
1952
0.00
The Maverick
1952
0.00
Wife, Doctor and Nurse
1937
6.00
Delicious
1931
6.20
A Night at the Ritz
1935
3.00
Beyond the Sacramento
1940
0.00
Bright Lights
1935
4.50
The Truth About Youth
1930
5.70
Children of Divorce
1927
5.90
Vengeance of the West
1942
0.00
The Longhorn
1951
5.70
Marshal of Laredo
1945
0.00
Cheyenne Wildcat
1944
4.00
Great Stagecoach Robbery
1945
0.00
Colorado Pioneers
1945
0.00
Wagon Wheels Westward
1945
6.00
California Gold Rush
1946
6.00
Sun Valley Cyclone
1946
5.00
Conquest of Cheyenne
1946
0.00
The Man from Thunder River
1943
5.00
North of the Rockies
1942
0.00
North from the Lone Star
1941
0.00
Roaring Frontiers
1941
0.00
The Lone Star Vigilantes
1942
0.00
She Who Gets Slapped
1930
8.00
Bullets for Bandits
1942
0.00
Overland Mail Robbery
1943
0.00
King of Dodge City
1941
0.00
Mojave Firebrand
1944
3.00
Bells of Rosarita
1945
5.50
The Road to Reno
1931
4.00
Wyoming
1947
6.00
Old Los Angeles
1948
5.50
The Last Bandit
1949
6.00
Rebel City
1953
5.00
Topeka
1953
5.00
Vigilante Terror
1953
5.00
Bitter Creek
1954
6.30
Tank Patrol
1941
0.00
Vanity Fair
1932
5.50
Left Over Ladies
1931
0.00
Working Girls
1931
6.80
Party Husband
1931
5.00
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1975
5.70
What Men Want
1930
1.00
Murder in the Clouds
1934
4.70
The Plastic Age
1925
5.90
Only Yesterday
1933
6.80
It's Showtime
1976
7.00
The Case of the Howling Dog
1934
6.50
'G' Men
1935
6.50
Page Miss Glory
1935
6.30
The Rich Are Always with Us
1932
5.20
The Keyhole
1933
4.90
Blonde Crazy
1931
7.00
Scarface
1932
7.40
Bullets or Ballots
1936
6.60
Two Against the World
1936
5.80
China Clipper
1936
5.60
The Merry Frinks
1934
3.70
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
1925
7.30
Go Into Your Dance
1935
7.00
Merrily We Go to Hell
1932
6.44
A Successful Calamity
1932
5.20
The Taming of the West
1939
0.00
Smarty
1934
4.00
Private Detective 62
1933
6.00
Napoleon, Jr.
1926
0.00
She Couldn't Say No
1930
0.00
Platinum Blonde
1931
6.70
Cocktail Hour
1933
5.29
Made on Broadway
1933
6.50
In Early Arizona
1938
0.00
The Law Comes to Texas
1939
0.00