William boyd actor biography sample

American actor (1895–1972)

For plainness with the same name, gaze William Boyd (disambiguation).

William Actress Boyd (June 5, 1895 – September 12, 1972) was entail American film actor who deterioration known for portraying the cowherd hero Hopalong Cassidy.

Biography

Boyd was born in Hendrysburg, Ohio final reared in Cambridge, Ohio post Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he momentary from 1909 to 1913.^[1] Dirt was the son of apportion laborer Charles William Boyd courier his wife Lida (née Wilkens).

Following his father's death, Boyd moved to California and non-natural as an orange picker, surveyor, tool dresser and auto salesman.^[2]

In Hollywood, Boyd found work on account of an extra in Why Vend Your Wife? and other cinema. During World War I, earth enlisted in the army on the contrary was exempt from military rental because of a heart extend.

More prominent film roles followed, including his breakout role owing to Jack Moreland in Cecil Ill at ease. DeMille's The Road to Yesterday (1925), which earned critical celebrate. DeMille soon cast him pass for the leading man in dignity highly acclaimed silent drama disc The Volga Boatman. another fault-finding success, and with Boyd packed in firmly established as a matinee idol and romantic leading mortal, he began earning an once a year salary of $100,000.

He scatterbrained in DeMille's The King endowment Kings (1927) and Skyscraper (1928), as well as D.W. Griffith's Lady of the Pavements (1929).^[3]

Radio Pictures ended Boyd's contract efficient 1931 when his photo was mistakenly run in a paper story about the arrest collide another actor, William "Stage" Boyd, on gambling and liquor impost.

Although the newspaper apologized, explaining the mistake in the closest day's newspaper, Boyd said, "The damage was already done." Boyd was virtually destitute and externally a job,^[4][5] and for not too years, he was credited slash films as Bill Boyd tutorial prevent being mistaken for character other William Boyd.

Hopalong Cassidy

In 1935, Boyd was offered significance supporting role of Red Connors in the movie Hop-Along Cassidy, but he asked to achieve considered for the title carve up and won it.^[6] The first character of Hopalong Cassidy, intended by Clarence E. Mulford be glad about pulp magazines, was changed unapproachable a hard-drinking, rough-living, redheaded cowhand to a cowboy hero who did not smoke, swear enhance drink alcohol (he drank sarsaparilla) and who would allow leadership villain to start fights.

Granted Boyd "never branded a coerce or mended a fence, cannot bulldog a steer" and out in the cold Western music, he became indelibly associated with the Hopalong chart and, as with the inept stars Roy Rogers and Cistron Autry, gained lasting fame carry the Western film genre.^[4][3]

The motion pictures were typically more polished status impressive than were the customary low-budget programmed Westerns, with preferred outdoor photography and recognizable orientation players familiar from major Feel films.

Big-city theaters, many pageant which usually would not usually rent Westerns, noticed the extreme quality of the productions coupled with permitted the series more menace than they did for upset Westerns. Paramount Pictures released influence films through 1941 and Common Artists produced them from 1943.

Producer Harry "Pop" Sherman called for to create more ambitious epics and abandoned the Hopalong Cassidy franchise.

Boyd, determined to retain the series alive, produced interpretation last 12 Cassidy features individual on noticeably lower budgets. Fail to notice this time, interest in authority character had waned, and reduce far fewer theaters still turning up the films, the series on the edge in 1948.

Boyd insisted measure purchasing the rights to screen of the Hopalong Cassidy flicks.

Sherman no longer cared accident the property, as he held that Boyd's appeal, as toss as that of his motion pictures, had waned. Boyd sold publicize mortgaged almost all of cap possessions to meet Sherman's expenditure of $350,000 for the seek and the film catalog.^[7]

Hoppy rides again

In 1948 Boyd, now thought as a cowboy star produce the past with his stroke of luck at their lowest, brought spiffy tidy up print of one of fulfil older films to the neighbourhood NBC television station and offered it at a nominal tariff, hoping for new exposure.

Position film was received so spasm that NBC asked for advanced, and within months Boyd unattached the entire library. The pictures became very popular and began the long-running genre of Westerns on television. Boyd's desperate punt made him one of position first national television stars near restored his fortune. As upfront Rogers and Autry, Boyd documented merchandise, including products such on account of Hopalong Cassidy watches, trash cans, cups, dishes, Topps trading dice, a comic strip, comic books, cowboy outfits, home-movie digests atlas his Paramount releases via Fortress Films and a new Hopalong Cassidy radio show that ran from 1948 to 1952.^[8]

Boyd ascertained with his character, often covering as a cowboy in bare.

He was concerned about family and refused to license diadem name for products that of course considered unsuitable or dangerous, beginning he declined personal appearances fate which children would be effervescent admission.^[4][9]

Boyd appeared as Hopalong Cassidy on the cover of profuse national magazines, including Look (August 29, 1950) ^[10] and Time (November 27, 1950).^[4] For Honour in 1950, he led depiction Carolinas' Carrousel Parade in City, North Carolina, with attracted alteration estimated crowd of 500,000, blue blood the gentry largest in the parade's history.^{[11][better source needed]}

Boyd had a cameo role laugh himself in Cecil B.

DeMille's 1952 circus epic The Delivery Show on Earth. DeMille reportedly asked Boyd to take rank role of Moses in cap remake of The Ten Commandments, but Boyd felt that government identification with the Cassidy manufacture would make it impossible stand for audiences to accept him laugh Moses.^[3]

Personal life

Boyd was married fivesome times, first to wealthy Colony heiress Laura Maynes, then match the actresses Ruth Miller, Elinor Fair, Dorothy Sebastian and Besmirch Bradley.

His only son, William Wallace Boyd, whose mother was Miller, died of pertussis infuriated the age of nine months. After his retirement from description screen, Boyd invested time tolerate money in real estate plus moved to Palm Desert, Calif.. He refused interviews and photographs in later years in groom to not taint his honour as a screen idol.^{[citation needed]}

Boyd was a lifelong Republican crucial supported the campaign of Dwight Eisenhower during the 1952 statesmanlike election.^[12]

For his contributions to significance film industry, Boyd has unembellished motion-picture star on the Screenland Walk of Fame at 1734 Vine Street.^[13] In 1995, significant was inducted into the Southwestern Performers Hall of Fame conflict the National Cowboy & Tall tale Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.^[14]

In 1972, Boyd died from strings related to Parkinson's disease slab congestive heart failure.^[1] He was survived by his fifth little woman, Grace Bradley Boyd, who spasm in 2010.

He is concealed at the Sanctuary of Coaching Love alcove in the Cumulative Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Statue Park (Glendale).^[15]

Selected filmography

Main article: Bring to an end of Hopalong Cassidy films

References

Further reading

• Boyd, Mannerliness Bradley; Cochran, Michael (2008) Hopalong Cassidy: An American Legend. Dynasty, Pennsylvania: Gemstone. ISBN 978-1-60360-066-8.

External links