William Scott “Jack” Elam was an American film and television actor best known for his numerous roles in Western films and, later in his career, comedies. He appeared in about 100 films and 200 television episodes. In one of his first significant roles, Rawhide (1951), he cemented his reputation as a bad guy by shooting a baby to make it dance and killing everybody in the picture except Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward.
Birth, disputed dates, born on Nov. 13, 1916, in Miami, Arizona or November 13, 1920. Elam was born in Miami in Gila County in south-central Arizona, to Millard Elam and Alice Amelia Kirby. His mother died in September 1924. The year 1920 is said to be stated on both his birth and death certificates however his friend in Ashland, Al Hassan, told the press once that he was actually 84 when he died having lied about his age to get work as a youngster. Elam would never confirm his true age when questioned.
Elam was married twice, first to Jean Hodgert from 1937 until her death in 1961, and then to Margaret Jennison from 1961 until his own death in 2003. He is/was survived by his wife, Jenny (Margaret Jennison), a daughter and two sons. Jack and Jenny got married in a wedding ceremony in the year 1961. The pair have a daughter named Jacqueline Elam. Margaret became the stepmother of Scott Elam and Jeri Elam. Scott Elam and Jeri Elam were born out of Jack Elam’s previous marriage.
Good guys from Frank Sinatra to Henry Fonda gunned him down in classic westerns. His credits included High Noon and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. He had major roles in five television series, including The Dakotas and Struck by Lightning and appeared as a guest in many others, including more than 20 Gunsmoke episodes. Later in his career did Mr. Elam have a chance to display his natural wit and comic timing, in starring roles in comedies like Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970). On Gunsmoke, his roles changed from thugs to more varied characters.
His most distinguishing physical quality was his misaligned eye, the result of an accidental stabbing with a pencil at a Boy Scout meeting that left him blind on the left side. Jack Elam is quoted as saying of his eye, "I don't control it at all. It does whatever the hell it wants." The accident, when he was 12, took half of the boy's own sight.
As a young child Jack Elam was taken in by various families who made him earn at least part of his keep. He told a reporter in an interview he could remember picking cotton for work at the age of 6. When he was 9, he was returned to his father, who lived in Northern California. His father was going blind and had trouble doing his job as an accountant for the state government. He had his son fill out forms for him at night.
His career began as an accountant. College courses in accounting and his father's training helped him get a job as a bookkeeper with the Bank of America in Los Angeles. He then became an auditor for the Standard Oil Company. For a time, he was also the manager of the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. After two years in the Navy during World War II, be became an independent auditor for Samuel Goldwyn Studios and General Services Studios.
He was billed as "the killer", in a western short entitled Trailin' West (1949). Then Elam's early career appearance some sources call his debut in 1949 is "She Shoulda Said No!," a film about the dangers of marijuana use. Wikipedia, as is often inaccurate and incorrect has his film debut wrong as well as other details. His switch to acting came of a Doctor's warning telling Jack he would lose his sight permanently if he continued to stare at ledger sheets. He made a deal with a producer who needed money for three westerns and was willing to cast Mr. Elam as a heavy in all three films in return for backing. One role was a tough-guy part in The Sundowners (1950), which starred Robert Preston. A string of now-forgotten "B" westerns followed, from High Lonesome (1950) and The Battle at Apache Pass (1952) to Jubilee Trail (1954) and Thunder over Arizona (1956).
On television in the 1950s and 1960s, he made multiple guest-star appearances on many popular Western series, including Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Lawman, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Have Gun – Will Travel, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, The Rebel, F Troop, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Texan, and Rawhide. In 1961, he played a slightly crazed bus passenger on The Twilight Zone episode "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?". That same year, he also portrayed the Mexican historical figure Juan Cortina in "The General Without a Cause", an episode of the anthology series Death Valley Days. In 1962, Elam appeared as Paul Henry on Lawman in the episode titled "Clootey Hutter".
In the 1960s Elam found himself in demand internationally. He turned down the chance to play the one-armed bounty hunter in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), but did appear briefly as a member of Henry Fonda's murderous gang in the director's now classic Once upon a Time in the West (1969). In 1963, Elam received a rare chance to play the good guy, reformed gunfighter and Deputy U.S. Marshal J. D. Smith, in the ABC/Warner Bros. series The Dakotas, a Western intended as the successor of Cheyenne. The Dakotas ran for 19 episodes. He was then cast as George Taggart, a gunslinger-turned-marshal, in the 1963–1964 NBC/WB series Temple Houston.
In 1966 Jack Elam was given his first comedic role with Clint Walker in the Western film The Night of the Grizzly. In 1968, Elam had a cameo in Sergio Leone's celebrated spaghetti Western Once Upon a Time in the West. In that film, he played one of a trio of gunslingers who were sent to kill Charles Bronson's character. Elam spent a good part of the scene trying to trap an annoying fly in his gun barrel. In 1967, Elam appeared in The Way West with Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, and Kirk Douglas as the light-hearted Preacher Weatherby taking part in a wagon train on the Oregon Trail.
In 1969, he played a comedy role in Support Your Local Sheriff!, which was followed two years later by Support Your Local Gunfighter, both opposite James Garner. After his performances in those two films, Elam found his villainous parts dwindling and his comic roles increasing. (Both films were also directed by Burt Kennedy, who had seen Elam's potential as a comedian and directed him a total of 15 times in features and television.) Between those two films, he also played a comically cranky old coot opposite John Wayne in Howard Hawks's Rio Lobo (1970).
Around this time Jack Elam notes in an interview that he had gained significant weight. He remarked, "I was too fat to get on a horse". In 1974–1975, he was cast as Zack Wheeler in the short-lived comedy series, The Texas Wheelers, in which he played the long-lost father returning home to raise his four children after their mother dies. The cast of that series included the up-and-coming actors Gary Busey and Mark Hamill.
In 1979, he was cast as the Frankenstein monster in the CBS sitcom Struck by Lightning. Elam's film work became increasingly family-oriented and included Grayeagle (1978), The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979) and the early Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy Cactus Jack (1979). Elam played Doctor Nikolas Van Helsing, an eccentric doctor in the 1981 movie The Cannonball Run. Three years later, he returned in the same role in the film's sequel, Cannonball Run II.
In 1985, Elam played Charlie in the film The Aurora Encounter. During production, Elam developed what would become a lifelong relationship with an 11-year-old boy named Mickey Hays, who suffered from progeria. In 1986, Elam also co-starred on the short-lived comedy series Easy Street as Alvin Stevenson, the down-on-his-luck uncle of Loni Anderson's character, L. K. McGuire. In 1988, Elam co-starred with Willie Nelson in the movie Where The Hell's That Gold?
In Suburban Commando (1991) and the horror film Uninvited (1993), his roles proved little more than small, if effective, cameos. March 3, 1992 Elam was still doing comedy. He then appeared in the role of Hick Peterson in a first-season episode of Home Improvement alongside Ernest Borgnine (season one, episode 20, "Birds of a Feather Flock to Tim"). Images from the episode are available on the fandom wiki.