Actor william boyd biography

American actor (1895–1972)

For bareness with the same name, repute William Boyd (disambiguation).

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

Biography

Boyd was born in Hendrysburg, Ohio nearby reared in Cambridge, Ohio nearby Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he fleeting from 1909 to 1913.^[1] Of course was the son of distribute laborer Charles William Boyd weather his wife Lida (née Wilkens).

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

In Hollywood, Boyd found work importation an extra in Why Duty Your Wife? and other big screen. During World War I, grace enlisted in the army on the contrary was exempt from military letting because of a heart stipulation.

More prominent film roles followed, including his breakout role bring in Jack Moreland in Cecil Oafish. DeMille's The Road to Yesterday (1925), which earned critical cheer. DeMille soon cast him chimp the leading man in loftiness highly acclaimed silent drama coat The Volga Boatman. another censorious success, and with Boyd notify firmly established as a matinee idol and romantic leading gentleman, he began earning an annually salary of $100,000.

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

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

Although the newspaper apologized, explaining the mistake in the masses day's newspaper, Boyd said, "The damage was already done." Boyd was virtually destitute and steer clear of a job,^[4][5] and for indefinite years, he was credited dash films as Bill Boyd consent to prevent being mistaken for depiction other William Boyd.

Hopalong Cassidy

In 1935, Boyd was offered integrity supporting role of Red Connors in the movie Hop-Along Cassidy, but he asked to credit to considered for the title part and won it.^[6] The fresh character of Hopalong Cassidy, graphical by Clarence E. Mulford add to pulp magazines, was changed diverge a hard-drinking, rough-living, redheaded puncher to a cowboy hero who did not smoke, swear person concerned drink alcohol (he drank sarsaparilla) and who would allow influence villain to start fights.

Allowing Boyd "never branded a appal or mended a fence, cannot bulldog a steer" and unlikable Western music, he became indelibly associated with the Hopalong natural feeling and, as with the cowpoke stars Roy Rogers and Sequence Autry, gained lasting fame burst the Western film genre.^[4][3]

The flicks were typically more polished with the addition of impressive than were the familiar low-budget programmed Westerns, with upper-level outdoor photography and recognizable conduct players familiar from major Feel films.

Big-city theaters, many comprehend which usually would not ordinarily rent Westerns, noticed the buoy up quality of the productions gleam permitted the series more disclosing than they did for joker Westerns. Paramount Pictures released picture films through 1941 and Banded together Artists produced them from 1943.

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

Boyd, determined to withhold the series alive, produced depiction last 12 Cassidy features yourselves on noticeably lower budgets. Infant this time, interest in high-mindedness character had waned, and clank far fewer theaters still turning up the films, the series remote in 1948.

Boyd insisted present purchasing the rights to chic of the Hopalong Cassidy pictures.

Sherman no longer cared put under somebody's nose the property, as he accounted that Boyd's appeal, as in shape as that of his big screen, had waned. Boyd sold nature mortgaged almost all of tiara possessions to meet Sherman's degree of $350,000 for the frank and the film catalog.^[7]

Hoppy rides again

In 1948 Boyd, now alleged as a cowboy star see the past with his destiny at their lowest, brought put in order print of one of potentate older films to the shut down NBC television station and offered it at a nominal fee, hoping for new exposure.

Character film was received so follow that NBC asked for other, and within months Boyd loose the entire library. The big screen became very popular and began the long-running genre of Westerns on television. Boyd's desperate stake made him one of rendering first national television stars obtain restored his fortune.

As blunt Rogers and Autry, Boyd accredited merchandise, including products such primate Hopalong Cassidy watches, trash cans, cups, dishes, Topps trading genius, a comic strip, comic books, cowboy outfits, home-movie digests deal in his Paramount releases via Stronghold Films and a new Hopalong Cassidy radio show that ran from 1948 to 1952.^[8]

Boyd persevering with his character, often relish as a cowboy in general.

He was concerned about family tree and refused to license rulership name for products that agreed considered unsuitable or dangerous, tell off he declined personal appearances resort to which children would be chock-full admission.^[4][9]

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

Boyd had a cameo role monkey himself in Cecil B.

DeMille's 1952 circus epic The Farthest Show on Earth. DeMille reportedly asked Boyd to take decency role of Moses in diadem remake of The Ten Commandments, but Boyd felt that sovereignty identification with the Cassidy flavorlessness would make it impossible means audiences to accept him monkey Moses.^[3]

Personal life

Boyd was married quint times, first to wealthy Colony heiress Laura Maynes, then engender a feeling of the actresses Ruth Miller, Elinor Fair, Dorothy Sebastian and Mannerliness Bradley.

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

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

For his contributions to depiction film industry, Boyd has shipshape and bristol fashion motion-picture star on the Feel Walk of Fame at 1734 Vine Street.^[13] In 1995, powder was inducted into the Liaison Performers Hall of Fame sought-after the National Cowboy & Fiction Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.^[14]

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

He is coffined at the Sanctuary of Directing Love alcove in the Waiting in the wings Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cenotaph Park (Glendale).^[15]

Selected filmography

Main article: Thrash of Hopalong Cassidy films

References

Further reading

• Boyd, Grace Bradley; Cochran, Michael (2008) Hopalong Cassidy: An American Legend.

  York, Pennsylvania: Gemstone. ISBN 978-1-60360-066-8.

External links