Bill Elliott

Also Known As: Wild Bill Elliott, Gordon Nance, Gordon Eliott, 'Wild' Bill Elliot, Gordon Elliott, William 'Wild Bill' Elliott, William 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.

Department: Acting

Place of Birth: Pattonsburg, Missouri, USA

Adult: No

Birthday: October 16, 1904

Age: 120 years old

Gender: Male

Deathday: November 26, 1965

Popularity:

2.04%

Known For:

Jewel Robbery
The Arizona Wildcat
Boots and Saddles
Five and Ten
Chain of Evidence
Calling Homicide
Footsteps in the Night
One Hour with You
Midnight Mary
Night After Night
Sudden Danger
The Showdown
The Murder of Dr. Harrigan
Michael O'Halloran
Letter of Introduction
Wonder Bar
The Return of Daniel Boone
The Goose and the Gander
The Case of the Velvet Claws
The Savage Horde
Marshal of Reno
Sheriff of Redwood Valley
San Antonio Kid
Tucson Raiders
The Girl from 10th Avenue
Broadway Scandals
The Fabulous Texan
The Gallant Legion
Melody for Two
The Marshall of Trail City
The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
The Drop Kick
A Lost Lady
Dr. Socrates
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
The Plainsman and the Lady
Swing It Professor
Roll Along, Cowboy
Boy of the Streets
Love Takes Flight
Polo Joe
Overland with Kit Carson
The Man from Tumbleweeds
The Private Life of Helen of Troy
Phantom of the Plains
The Valley of Vanishing Men
Dial Red O
The Greeks Had a Word for Them
Bachelor's Affairs
The Lady in the Morgue
The Shamrock Handicap
The Girl Said No
The Homesteaders
The Forty-Niners
Murder by an Aristocrat
Lone Texas Ranger
Lord Byron of Broadway
The Boy Friend
Restless Youth
The Return of Wild Bill
Fargo
Part Time Wife
Hellfire
God's Gift to Women
Let's Do Things
Registered Nurse
Broadminded
You Can't Have Everything
Traveling Husbands
Broadway Gondolier
Death Valley Manhunt
Hands Across the Rockies
Bordertown Gun Fighters
The Right to Live
Broadway Hostess
Sweepstakes
The Great Divide
Fugitive in the Sky
Desirable
Sunny
Going Wild
The Case of the Black Cat
Dangerous
Personal Maid's Secret
Hidden Valley Outlaws
Stage Mother
Stars Over Broadway
The Big Noise
Guns of the Pecos
The Public Defender
Night Parade
Born to Love
Vigilantes of Dodge City
The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
King of Hockey
The Son of Davy Crockett
The Roaring Twenties
Across the Sierras
Sheriff of Las Vegas
While the Patient Slept
Lady with a Past
Prairie Gunsmoke
Frontiers of '49
Midnight Court
The Devil's Trail
The Mummy
Pioneers of the Frontier
Traveling Saleslady
Man of Iron
The Wildcat of Tucson
Wagon Tracks West
Prairie Schooners
Trailin' West
The Secret Bride
The Woman in Red
Handlebars
Calling Wild Bill Elliott
Moonlight on the Prairie
The Payoff
Down the Stretch
In Old Sacramento
The Little Giant
Gold Diggers of 1933
Waco
Kansas Territory
The Maverick
Wife, Doctor and Nurse
Delicious
A Night at the Ritz
Beyond the Sacramento
Bright Lights
The Truth About Youth
Children of Divorce
Vengeance of the West
The Longhorn
Marshal of Laredo
Cheyenne Wildcat
Great Stagecoach Robbery
Colorado Pioneers
Wagon Wheels Westward
California Gold Rush
Sun Valley Cyclone
Conquest of Cheyenne
The Man from Thunder River
North of the Rockies
North from the Lone Star
Roaring Frontiers
The Lone Star Vigilantes
She Who Gets Slapped
Bullets for Bandits
Overland Mail Robbery
King of Dodge City
Mojave Firebrand
Bells of Rosarita
The Road to Reno
Wyoming
Old Los Angeles
The Last Bandit
Rebel City
Topeka
Vigilante Terror
Bitter Creek
Tank Patrol
Vanity Fair
Left Over Ladies
Working Girls
Party Husband
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
What Men Want
Murder in the Clouds
The Plastic Age
Only Yesterday
It's Showtime
The Case of the Howling Dog
'G' Men
Page Miss Glory
The Rich Are Always with Us
The Keyhole
Blonde Crazy
Scarface
Bullets or Ballots
Two Against the World
China Clipper
The Merry Frinks
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Go Into Your Dance
Merrily We Go to Hell
A Successful Calamity
The Taming of the West
Smarty
Private Detective 62
Napoleon, Jr.
She Couldn't Say No
Platinum Blonde
Cocktail Hour
Made on Broadway
In Early Arizona
The Law Comes to Texas
Born Reckless
Double Cross Roads
Romance in the Air
West of Broadway