ELAM (EE-luhm)
American
film actor who appeared mostly in westerns
Common clues: Jack
of “Rio Lobo”; Jack of oaters; Jack of westerns; Oater
actor Jack; Jack of “Big Bad John”
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
2 times a year
Video: Black
Jack Elam Gets His
Jack Elam (November 13, 1918—October 20, 2003) was an American film actor who appeared mostly in westerns.
He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became an accountant in Hollywood and, at one time, manager of the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles. His face is memorable in part because of an out-of-kilter blind left eye. In interviews, Elam admitted that he got the slow eye after a fellow Boy Scout stabbed him in the left eye with a pencil during a scrape at a troop meeting. He appeared mostly in westerns and gangster films playing "heavies". In 1963 he got a rare chance to play the good guy when he played the part of Deputy Marshall J.D.Smith in "The Dakotas", a TV western which was to run for 19 episodes. Elam was given his first comedic role in Support Your Local Sheriff!, after which he found his villainous assignments dwindling and his comic jobs increasing. He was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1994.
Elam died of heart failure on October 20, 2003.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jack Elam”
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