Bill Elliott

Acting · 0.9 popularity

Age

121

Movies

207

Born: October 16, 1904 – November 26, 1965
From: Pattonsburg, Missouri, USA

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.

Works

207 films

The Mummy

19326.7

Scarface

19327.4

Blonde Crazy

19317.0

The Roaring Twenties

19397.5

A Lost Lady

19345.8

Working Girls

19317.1

'G' Men

19356.6

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

19257.3

Vanity Fair

19324.7

Gold Diggers of 1933

19337.2

The Walking Dead

19366.3

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

19756.3

Party Husband

19316.5

It's Showtime

19767.5

You Can't Have Everything

19376.5

Merrily We Go to Hell

19326.5

Wonder Bar

19346.0

Bullets or Ballots

19366.6

Sweepstakes

19315.7

Lord Byron of Broadway

19304.7

Roaring Frontiers

19418.0

Only Yesterday

19337.1

Stars Over Broadway

19355.6

Five and Ten

19316.1

Lady with a Past

19326.3

Traveling Saleslady

19356.1

The Savage Horde

19506.2

Old Los Angeles

19486.0

Private Detective 62

19336.2

The Woman in Red

19356.0

Michael O'Halloran

19379.0

Stage Mother

19336.3

The Case of the Howling Dog

19346.3

Letter of Introduction

19386.0

Platinum Blonde

19316.7

China Clipper

19365.9

The Keyhole

19335.0

Boots and Saddles

19376.5

One Hour with You

19326.5

The Plainsman and the Lady

19466.0

Dangerous

19356.6

Love Takes Flight

19375.0

Midnight Mary

19336.8

Moonlight on the Prairie

19356.8

Born Reckless

19305.8

Jewel Robbery

19326.5

The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu

19305.3

Desirable

19347.2

Night After Night

19326.3

Night Parade

19295.2

The Rich Are Always with Us

19325.3

The Case of the Velvet Claws

19367.2

Speed to Spare

19377.0

The Son of Davy Crockett

194110.0

Cheyenne Wildcat

19446.0

The Merry Frinks

19344.8

King of Hockey

19365.4

Broadway Gondolier

19356.0

The Boy Friend

19285.6

Children of Divorce

19275.9

In Old Sacramento

19466.8

Cocktail Hour

19335.3

Dr. Socrates

19356.6

The Greeks Had a Word for Them

19325.6

Beyond London Lights

19288.0

Hands Across the Rockies

19417.2

Lone Texas Ranger

19456.7

The Man from Tumbleweeds

19405.0

Page Miss Glory

19356.7

The Plastic Age

19256.2

While the Patient Slept

19356.7

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

19768.5

Guns of the Pecos

19366.9

Polo Joe

19367.0

Trailin' West

19368.0

Beyond the Sacramento

19409.0

The Little Giant

19337.0

Tucson Raiders

19448.0

Marshal of Reno

19448.0

The Murder of Dr. Harrigan

19365.8

The Girl from 10th Avenue

19356.8

Hellfire

19496.4

The Last Bandit

19497.0

The Right to Live

19354.9

Overland Mail Robbery

19439.0

Go Into Your Dance

19357.2

Rebel City

19536.0

Midnight Court

19375.1

Personal Maid's Secret

19356.4

The Girl Said No

19305.8

The Gallant Legion

19487.2

A Successful Calamity

19325.6

Topeka

19536.0

The Fabulous Texan

19476.5

Let's Do Things

19318.0

Wagon Tracks West

19439.0

Bright Lights

19355.1

Melody for Two

19377.0

The Longhorn

19516.0

Fugitive in the Sky

19366.3

Sunny

19306.3

Two Against the World

19366.2

Made on Broadway

19337.0

Broadway Hostess

19356.0

The Showdown

19506.0

In Early Arizona

19389.0

Wife, Doctor and Nurse

19377.0

Calling Wild Bill Elliott

19436.3

Man of Iron

19357.0

Pioneers of the Frontier

19409.0

Sheriff of Redwood Valley

19466.5

Boy of the Streets

19386.0

Lone Star Pioneers

19399.0

Footsteps in the Night

19575.6

Handlebars

19336.0

Upperworld

19346.1

Dial Red O

19555.2

The Goose and the Gander

19354.7

Wyoming

19476.4

The Case of the Black Cat

19367.0

The Truth About Youth

19306.2

Born to Love

19315.3

Waco

19528.0

Sun Valley Cyclone

19467.0

Going Wild

19307.0

The Forty-Niners

19546.0

Bells of Rosarita

19456.2

The Lone Star Vigilantes

19428.0

The Lady in the Morgue

19387.0

A Night at the Ritz

19356.5

West of Broadway

19316.8

Vigilantes of Dodge City

19448.0

Vigilante Terror

19535.0

The Public Defender

19316.4

Prairie Gunsmoke

19428.0

What Men Want

19303.3

Bachelor's Affairs

19323.3

The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok

19389.0

Great Stagecoach Robbery

19457.0

The Man from Thunder River

19437.5

Traveling Husbands

19316.0

The Valley of Vanishing Men

19429.0

The Devil's Trail

19427.0

California Gold Rush

19467.5

Calling Homicide

19566.1

The Return of Wild Bill

19407.0

Fargo

19526.6

Broadway Scandals

19296.5

Prairie Schooners

19408.0

The Return of Daniel Boone

19416.0

The Shamrock Handicap

19265.4

Bordertown Gun Fighters

19439.0

Broadminded

19314.1

Sudden Danger

19555.5

The Big Noise

19367.5

Across the Sierras

19414.5

Murder by an Aristocrat

19365.0

The Road to Reno

19314.0

Bullets for Bandits

19427.0

Death Valley Manhunt

19437.5

Down the Stretch

19366.0

The Drop Kick

19275.3

The Maverick

19529.0

Romance in the Air

193610.0

Murder in the Clouds

19345.1

The Payoff

19355.5

Taming of the West

193910.0

Sheriff of Las Vegas

19445.5

The Private Life of Helen of Troy

19274.4

Double Cross Roads

19309.0

The Homesteaders

19538.0

God's Gift to Women

19314.8

Kansas Territory

19528.0

Roll Along, Cowboy

19376.3

Registered Nurse

19344.8

The Law Comes to Texas

19399.0

Colorado Pioneers

19457.0

The Wildcat of Tucson

194010.0

She Who Gets Slapped

19308.0

Wagon Wheels Westward

19457.5

Mojave Firebrand

19444.7

Overland with Kit Carson

19395.3

Chain of Evidence

19574.9

She Couldn't Say No

193010.0

North from the Lone Star

19418.0

The Secret Bride

19346.2

Hidden Valley Outlaws

19448.0

Conquest of Cheyenne

19467.0

San Antonio Kid

19448.0

Napoleon, Jr.

19269.0

The Arizona Wildcat

19279.0

King of Dodge City

19419.0

Part Time Wife

19308.0

Phantom of the Plains

19457.0

Bitter Creek

19546.5

Smarty

19344.6

Restless Youth

19288.0

Left Over Ladies

19317.0

Vengeance of the West

19427.0

Frontiers of '49

19399.0

Delicious

19316.5

The Marshall of Trail City

19506.0

North of the Rockies

19429.0

Tank Patrol

1941

Marshal of Laredo

19458.0

Swing It Professor

19378.0

The Great Divide

19295.3