Wild Bill Elliott
| Wild Bill Elliott | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Gordon A. Nance October 16, 1904 Pattonsburg, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | November 26, 1965 (aged 61) Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. |
| Other names | Gordon Elliott, William Elliott, Bill Elliott |
| Occupation | actor |
| Years active | 1925–1957 |
| Spouse(s) | Helen Josephine Meyer (1927–1961) Dolly Moore (1961–1965) |
| Parent(s) | Leroy W. Nance Maude M. Auldridge |
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.
Elliott was born Gordon A. Nance in Pattonsburg, Missouri, the son of Leroy "Roy" Whitfield Nance, a cattle broker, and his wife, the former Maude Myrtle Auldridge.
The young Nance grew up within twenty miles of his birthplace; he spent most of his youth on a ranch near King City, Missouri. His father was a cattle rancher and commissioner buyer for the Kansas City stockyards. Riding and roping were part of Nance's upbringing. He won first place in a rodeo event in the 1920 American Royal livestock show. He briefly attended Rockhurst College, a Jesuit school in Kansas City, but soon left for California with hopes of becoming an actor.
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.
...
Wikipedia