Jack Elam (November 13, 1920 — October 20, 2003) was an American film actor. He appeared mostly in westerns.
William Scott Elam, "Jack", was born in Miami, Arizona to Millard Elam and Alice Amelia Kerby. Despite wildly spread rumors to the contrary, Alice did not die when Jack was one or two years old. She died in 1924 when he was just shy of four years old. After she died, he was raised by relatives in very unhappy circumstances. By 1930, he was once again living with his father, older sister, Mildred, and their step-mother, Flossie.
He grew up picking cotton, and as a Boy Scout he lost the sight in his left eye after another Scout threw a pencil at him at a troop meeting.[citation needed] His face became famous at least in part due to the "lazy" left eye. He was a student of both Miami High School in Gila County and Phoenix Union High School in Maricopa County and graduated from the latter in the late 1930's.
He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became...
Created by dipity on Feb 7, 2008
Last updated: 11/09/09 at 07:29 AM
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The Villain is a 1979 sendup of western films, directed by Hal Needham, starring Kirk Douglas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ann-Margret, Paul Lynde, Foster Brooks, Strother Martin, Ruth Buzzi, Jack Elam, and Mel Tillis. It was released in the UK as Cactus Jack.
The plot revolves around a woman named Charming Jones (Ann-Margret) being escorted by cowboy Handsome Stranger (Schwarzenegger) — named by his mother after his father — to claim money left by her father Parody Jones (Martin). But the rich Avery Simpson (Elam) wants to steal his own money and hires an old cowboy Cactus Jack (Douglas) to rob them when they ride back from the town. However Jack is not very good at robbery.
In essence, the trip back with the money is a live-action tribute to Looney Tunes, particularly the Road-Runner cartoons, with Jack playing the part of Wile E. Coyote, including cartoon gravity and painted tunnel entrances. At the end however there is a surprise twist when Charming chooses Cactus...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080097
Support Your Local Gunfighter! is a 1971 comic western film starring James Garner and Suzanne Pleshette. Other actors include Harry Morgan, Jack Elam, John Dehner, Kathleen Freeman, Joan Blondell, Marie Windsor, Dub Taylor and Chuck Connors. It was directed by Burt Kennedy and written by James Edward Grant.The film shares many cast and crew members and plot elements with the earlier Support Your Local Sheriff!, but is not a sequel.Con artist Latigo Smith is on board a train travelling across frontier-era Colorado, with his would-be fiancée, a rich and powerful woman named Goldie. Looking for a way to escape this situation, he manages to slip off the train at a jerkwater stop, and finds himself in Purgatory, a small town wherein two rival companies of miners, led by Taylor Barton and Colonel Ames, are in a frantic round-the-clock race to find "the motherlode" of gold buried somewhere under the town.After consulting the town doctor about getting an embarrassing Goldie-related tattoo...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067809
Rio Lobo is a 1970 western movie starring John Wayne. The film was directed by Howard Hawks from a script written by Leigh Brackett. The film was shot in Technicolor and lasted for 114 minutes. The musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith.
The film opens during the American Civil War. Col. Cord McNally (John Wayne) has instructions telegraphed to his close friend, Lt. Forsythe (Peter Jason), who was to be in change of the Union troops on a Union army payroll train. However, Confederates led by Capt. Pierre Cordona (Jorge Rivero) and Sgt. Tuscarora Phillips (Christopher Mitchum) hijacked the train. They had an elaborate plan of listening in on the telegraph wires, greasing the tracks to stop the train, disconnect the payroll wagon from the engine so it would run back down the hill, using a hornet's nest to force the Union guards to jump off the train, then catch the train with many ropes tied to trees. In the process, Lt. Forsythe was fatally injured.
In the subsequent...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066301
Support Your Local Sheriff! is a 1969 comic western film which parodies the often-filmed scenerio of an iconoclastic new arrival who tames a lawless frontier town. Starring James Garner, Joan Hackett and Jack Elam, the film was directed by Burt Kennedy and written by William Bowers.
A frontier town in the Old West springs up almost literally overnight when the rather klutzy and hotheaded Prudy Perkins discovers gold in a grave during a funeral. Her father Olly becomes mayor of the new settlement. He and the other members of the town council bemoan the twin facts that the place has become a drunken round-the-clock free-for-all, and that in order to ship out all the gold they are mining, they must pay a hefty fee to the Danbys, a family of ranchers/bandits who control the only route out of town. Most people are too busy digging to take time out to be sheriff, and those who are willing to put down their shovel quickly die.
This all changes with the arrival in town of Jason McCullough, a...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065051
The Way West is a 1967 epic western film based on the novel by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.. The film stars Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, and Sally Field in her first film role. The film was directed by veteran television director Andrew V. McLaglen and featured breathtaking on-location cinematography by William H. Clothier. Though reviews were mixed, critics such as Roger Ebert praised the film for its realistic portrayal of settlers and their motivations. [1]The film follows former senator William Tudlock (Kirk Douglas) as he leads a wagon train from along the Oregon Trail from Missouri with the help of hired guide Dick Summers (Robert Mitchum). After several accidents which cost settlers lives, a mutiny of sorts develops and his position is overtaken by Lije Evans (Richard Widmark). Soon, different factions develop amongst the train as they try to survive their trek to Oregon.The Way West at the Internet Movie Database...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062479
The Comancheros is a 1961 western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring John Wayne and Stuart Whitman. When health troubles prevented Curtiz from finishing the film, Wayne directed the remainder of the movie, though his role remained uncredited. Curtiz died shortly after the film was completed. Featured are western film veterans Bob Steele, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, and Harry Carey, Jr. in uncredited supporting roles.Roguish gambler Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman) escapes a death penalty after winning a duel with the son of a Louisiana judge (and he claimed that he would have only wounded him if he hadn't sidestepped). He is captured by Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (John Wayne) after a tryst with a mysterious lady, Pilar Graile Ina Balin. But Regret manages to escape, but is soon recaptured after a chance encounter with Cutter in a saloon.In the process of returning Regret to Louisiana, Cutter is forced to join forces with the condemned to fight the "Comancheros;" white men who...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054757
Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich starring Ralph Meeker. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer mystery novel Kiss Me, Deadly.Kiss Me Deadly is considered a classic of the film noir genre. References (usually to the glowing briefcase) appear in such diverse films as Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Alex Cox's Repo Man (1984), Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) and David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997).The film grossed $726,000 in the States and a total of $226,000 overseas.Meeker plays Mike Hammer, a tough Los Angeles private eye who is just slightly less brutal and corrupt than the crooks he chases.One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina (Cloris Leachman), an attractive hitchhiker he picks up on a lonely country road. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semiconsciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048261
Jack Elam was born
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