William Boyd

William Boyd

After buying the rights to all of his films, he secured the rights to the name "Hopalong Cassidy" and formed a company called "Hopalong Cassidy Productions".

Appears as Hopalong Cassidy, with Topper the Horse, on a 44¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Early TV Memories issue honoring "Hopalong Cassidy" (1952), issued 11 August 2009.

Boyd was Cecil B. DeMille's first choice for Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956). Boyd turned the role down, fearing the Hopalong Cassidy identification would hurt the movie.

His career was derailed in the early 1930s when he was mistakenly identified as having been arrested for public drunkenness after his picture was mistakenly used in articles about the arrest. In fact, the culprit was William 'Stage' Boyd, an actor who later portrayed the villain in the serial The Lost City (1935/I).

His only child, a son by third wife Eleanor Fair, died in infancy.



Hopalong Cassidy's beautiful white horse was named "Topper".

In an early movie, Hoppy kissed Evelyn Brent on the forehead as she was dying. His fans saw this as unmanly, so all future romance was left to his partners, and there was a different leading lady in each picture.

Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1995.

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Sacred Promise.

Star of the syndicated radio show "Hopalong Cassidy" (1950-1952). The shows were actually recorded between 1948 and 1950.

Television talk-show host Johnny Carson told a story of how, in the mid-1960s, he met Boyd on a plane while flying cross-country. He asked Boyd, who hadn't made any public appearances in many years, if he would like to come on Carson's show, "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962). Boyd politely declined, and when Carson asked why, Boyd replied that he thought it would be too much of a jolt for kids--even though they were now adults--who had grown up seeing Hoppy as a tall, strong young cowboy hero to see him as the old man that Boyd now was.

The "Hoppies" launched the formula "Trio Western." Boyd was 40 years old when the series started. He got a younger partner to play the romantic leads James Ellison the only singing cowboy in the series, Russell Hayden, Brad King, Jay Kirby, Jimmy Rogers,George Reeves(only in "Bar 20") and Rand Brooks) and a second, usually older, partner for comic relief George Hayes known as "Gabby" playing Windy Holiday, (Britt Wood, Andy Clyde as California Carlson) and Edgar Buchanan as Red Connnors (as a duo with "Hoppy" in TV series).

There is a Hopalong Cassidy Museum located in Cambridge, Ohio.


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