Jack Elam Overview:

Character actor, Jack Elam, was born William Scott Elam on Nov 13, 1920 in Miami, Gila. Elam died at the age of 82 on Oct 20, 2003 in Ashland, OR .

MINI BIO:

American actor with sightless left eye who gained steady employment in the 1950s (after switching to acting from accountancy) as a mean hombre always ready to shoot the hero in the back. Mainly seen in westerns, Elam could also play sympathetic characters and comedy, but was later encouraged to play his own image rather too much.

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Film Character Actors: an Illustrated Directory).

HONORS and AWARDS:

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Elam was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum .

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Jack Elam Quotes:

Zimmerman: [referring to Vin] Keep away from her!
Tevis: Why, I ain't been cured of women. Ain't had your medicine, Jim.


Pete Harris: Okay wise guy, you found me. Now what?
Joe Rolfe: What's eatin' you?
Pete Harris: You been giving me the fisheye all night.


[last lines]
Jake: Now the way this story ends... is that they get married and he goes on to become governor of the state. Never gets to Australia, but he keeps readin' a lot of books about it. I get to be sheriff of this town... and then I go on to become one of the most beloved characters in Western folklore.


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Jack Elam Facts
Daughters: Jeri Elam and Jacqueline Elam.

After WWII, Elam worked as a bookkeeper for Samuel Goldwyn Studios and then as controller for William Boyd's Hopalong Cassidy production company. Staring at small figures on ledger sheets for hours on end strained his good eye and doctors told him he risked losing his sight if he continued his lucrative accounting business. When a movie director friend was having trouble getting financing for three western scripts, Elam told him he would arrange the financing in exchange for roles as a "heavy" in all three pictures. The first was The Sundowners (1950), starring Robert Preston, which helped launch his long career.

He once described the career of a character actor. It went like this: "Who's Jack Elam? Get me Jack Elam. Get me a Jack Elam type. Get me a young Jack Elam. Who's Jack Elam?"

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Cowboy Museum Hall of Fame

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