Jack Elam

Jack Elam
Elam in Kansas City Confidential (1952)
Born	William Scott Elam November 13, 1920(1920 -11-13) Miami, Arizona, United States
Died	October 20, 2003 (aged 82) Ashland, Oregon, United States
Years active	1944–1995
Spouse(s)	Margaret Jennison (1961-2003) (his death) Jean Elam (1937-1961) (her death)

William Scott "Jack" Elam (November 13, 1920 – October 20, 2003) was an American film actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films.

Early life

Elam was born in Miami, Arizona, to Millard Elam and Alice Amelia Kerby. Alice died in 1924, when young Jack was not quite four years old. Afterwards, he was raised by relatives in unhappy circumstances. By 1930, he was once again living with his father, older sister, Mildred, and their stepmother, Flossie.

He grew up picking cotton. As a Boy Scout, he lost the sight in his left eye after another Scout threw a pencil at him at a troop meeting.^[1] 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 1930s.

He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became an accountant in Hollywood; one of his clients was movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn.^[2] At one time, he was the manager of the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles.

Acting career

In 1949, Elam made his debut in She Shoulda Said No!, an exploitation film wherein a chorus girl's marijuana smoking ruins her career and drives her brother to suicide. He then appeared mostly in westerns and gangster films playing villains. In 1961, Elam played a slightly crazed character in an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?".

In 1963, he got a rare chance to play the good guy when he played the part of Deputy Marshall J.T. Smith in The Dakotas, a TV western that ran for only nineteen episodes. He played an eccentric sidekick to John Wayne in Howard Hawks's Rio Lobo (1970). Elam was given his first comedic role in Support Your Local Sheriff!, after which he found his villainous assignments dwindling and his comic roles increasing.

In 1985 Elam played as Charlie in Aurora Encounter. During this film Elam made a lifelong relationship with a 11 year old boy named Mickey Hays who suffered from Progeria. As shown in the documentary I Am Not A Freak viewers see really how close Elam and Hays really were. Elam says: "You know I've met a lot of people, but I've never met anybody that got next to me like Mickey."

In 1994, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Elam classified the stages of a moderately successful actor's life, as defined by the way a film director refers to the actor suggested for a part.^{[citation needed]} This humorous quote has also been attributed to fellow actors Ricardo Montalban, Mary Astor, and John Amos:

Stage 1: "Who is Jack Elam?"
Stage 2: "Get me Jack Elam."
Stage 3: "I want a Jack Elam type."
Stage 4: "I want a younger Jack Elam."
Stage 5: "Who is Jack Elam?"

Elam died in Ashland, Oregon, of congestive heart failure at the age of 82. He was married twice, and had two daughters, Jeri Elam and Jacqueline Elam and a son, Scott Elam.

Partial filmography

• "She Shoulda Said 'No'!", also known as Wild Weed and The Devil's Weed (1949)
• A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950)
• American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950)
• High Lonesome (1950)
• Bird of Paradise (1951)
• Rawhide (1951)
• High Noon with Gary Cooper, as drunken Charlie in jail (uncredited) (1952)
• Kansas City Confidential (1952)
• Rancho Notorious (1952)
• Ride Vaquero! with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner and Howard Keel (1953)
• The Far Country with James Stewart (1954)
• Vera Cruz with Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, as Tex (1954)
• Cattle Queen of Montana with Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan, as Yost (1954)
• Kiss Me Deadly, as Charlie Max (1955)
• Man Without a Star (1955)
• Wichita with Joel McCrea and Vera Miles, as Al Mann (1955)
• The Man From Laramie with James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, as Chris Boldt the town liar (1955)
• Kismet (1955)
• Jubal (1956) with Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine
• Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957)
• Night Passage (1957)
• The Girl in Lovers Lane (1959)
• A Pocketful of Miracles (1961)
• The Comancheros (1961)
• The Last Sunset (1961)
• 4 for Texas (1963)
• The Night of the Grizzly (1966)
• The Rare Breed (1966)
• The Way West (1967)
• Firecreek (1968)
• Never a Dull Moment (1968)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• Support Your Local Sheriff! with James Garner, as Deputy Jake (1968)
• The Over-the-Hill Gang (1969)
• Support Your Local Gunfighter! with James Garner, as Jug May (1970)
• Dirty Dingus Magee as John Wesley Hardin (1970)
• Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County with Dan Blocker and Nanette Fabray (1970)
• Rio Lobo as Philips, a rancher (1970)
• Hannie Caulder (1971)
• Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)
• The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1975)
• Hawmps! (1976)
• Creature From Black Lake (1976)
• Grayeagle (1977)
• Hot Lead and Cold Feet, as Rattlesnake (1978)
• The Villain (1979)
• Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts 1979
• The Cannonball Run, as Doctor Nikolas van Helsing (1981)
• Jinxed! (1982)
• Sacred Ground (1983)
• Cannonball Run II (1984)
• The Aurora Encounter, as Charlie (1985)
• Where The Hell's That Gold? (1988)
• Shadow Force (1993)
• Uninvited (1993)

TV series

• Stories of the Century as Black Jack Ketchum (1954)
• Frontier as Father Matias in "Ferdinand Meyer's Army" and as Ness Fowler in "Cattle Drive to Casper" (1955)
• Sugarfoot (1957-1961)
• Tombstone Territory (1959) as Wally Jobe in the episode "Day of the Reckoning"
• Mackenzie's Raiders (1959) as Trooper Colin Grimes in the episode "Desertion"
• Bonanza episode "The Spitfire" (1961)
• Target: The Corruptors! (1962) guest star
• The Dakotas (1963) recurring role
• Temple Houston (1963-1964)
• The Legend of Jesse James (1965-1966) guest star
• Gunsmoke as a U.S. marshal (1971)
• The Brian Keith Show (1974) guest star
• The Texas Wheelers (1974-1975), situation comedy with costar Gary Busey
• Struck by Lightning (1979).^[3][4] Elam starred as Frankenstein's monster. In an interview, Elam recalled that when he was approached to take the part, he was told he would not need makeup; his appearance was already perfect for the part. This statement convinced him to accept the role.^{[citation needed]} The program only lasted about three weeks before it was canceled, either due to low ratings or because its use of dark humor made it inappropriate for American audiences at the time.
• Easy Street (1986)
• Home Improvement (1992) Guest star

Further reading

• Mahar, Ted. (Oct. 4, 1998) The Oregonian. A Sampling of Elams Movies. Page L10.
• 1920 November 13; Arizona Certificate of Live Birth for William Scott Elam
• 1920 United States Census, Arizona, Gila County, Miami
• 1924 September 7; Arizona Original Certificate of Death for Alice Amelia Kerby Elam
• 1930 United States Census, Arizona, Gila County, Miami
• 2003 October 20; Oregon Certificate of Death for Jack Elam

References

External links

• Jack Elam at the Internet Movie Database
• Jack Elam at Find a Grave