Top Ten B Western Villains
Recently, I have become a big fan of old westerns and series that existed before my birth. I have noticed there is a regular group of actors who portray the villain in these B westerns. Here is a list of my favorite villains, in no particular order.
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George Chesebro was an American character actor who, after a few leading roles in silent films, became an omnipresent bit player in "B" westerns. A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chesebro became involved in traveling stock theater productions before the age of 20, and by 1911 was a seasoned performer. He played in a musical spectacular that toured Asia for two years, then returned to America and played in stock and vaudeville. Moving to Los Angeles in 1915, Chesebro began to supplement his vaudeville career with movie work and quickly began moving up the ladder of film success. World War I interrupted his work (sources differ as to whether he served in the US Navy or US Army). Following the war he resumed his movie career, starring in several popular serials. His popularity and the size of his roles waned during the 1920s, and with the arrival of talkies he was most often seen as heavies, henchmen and cops in a huge number of westerns and crime dramas, most of them low-budget. He became a fixture in "B" westerns, rarely billed but always familiar, and finished out his career in the 1950s with the demise of the B-Western. Occasional TV appearances marked his retirement, and he died in 1959, two months prior to his 71st birthday.- After serving in World War I, Roy Barcroft spent most of the 1920s and early 1930s moving from job to job. It was in the 1930s, after he moved to California with his wife, that he found his calling while acting in amateur theatrical productions. In 1937 he was appearing in bit parts in various genres, but by 1938 he was in westerns, where he became a well-known (and memorable) "heavy". Roy would alternate among Monogram, Universal, Columbia and other studios. In 1943, however, he signed an exclusive ten-year contract with Republic Pictures and became the convincing, and tireless, menace to all the good people in the West. He also did more than sneer at the likes of Don 'Red' Barry, Bill Elliot, Sunset Carson and Allan Lane. Roy acted in The Fighting Seabees (1944), which starred John Wayne. He was the Purple Martian in The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) and Capt. Mephisto in Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945), and who can forget his Retik, The Moon Menace. from the classic Radar Men from the Moon (1952)? Roy even played the good-natured marshal in Oklahoma! (1955). It was westerns, though, that were his bread and butter, and he knocked out a lot of them over the years. Outlaws of Cherokee Trail (1941), Riders of the Rio Grande (1943) and Sun Valley Cyclone (1946) were but a few of the "B" westerns Roy turned out. Off-screen, he was known as one of the nicest, kindest and most helpful people anyone would want to meet, with a terrific sense of humor. More than once, many a leading hero type such as Barry or Elliot would find that their hairpieces would mysteriously disappear before they were to put them on prior to shooting. When the era of the "B" westerns started to fade out, Roy's volume of work also slowed. He appeared in a handful of films, but his movie career had stalled by the end of 1957. He moved into the small screen with roles in TV westerns and also a recurring role in the Walt Disney production of The Adventures of Spin and Marty (1955). In the early 1960s he worked in a couple of movies, but his resurgence began in the mid-'60s when he appeared in low-budget films like Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966). Roy would make some better films, such as Texas Across the River (1966) and The Reivers (1969).
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- Stunts
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Jack Kirk was born on 19 February 1895 in Nickerson, Kansas, USA. He was an actor, known for Zorro's Black Whip (1944), Stormy (1935) and The Topeka Terror (1945). He was married to Ethel Mason. He died on 13 September 1948 in Ketchikan, Alaska, USA.- Actor
- Producer
Prolific American character actor of primarily villainous roles. The son of German parents, Cincinnati feed-store manager August Wilke and his wife Rose, Robert Joseph Wilke grew up in Cincinnati. He worked as a lifeguard at a Miami, Florida, hotel, where he made contacts in the film business. He was able to obtain work as a stuntman and continued as such until the mid-'40s, when he began getting actual roles in low-budget westerns and serials. A prominent appearance as one of the heavies in High Noon (1952) led to work in higher-quality films. He worked extensively in television as well as movies, and became an enormously familiar face, though a fairly anonymous one to the general public. His weathered visage made him a perfect western bad guy, but he occasionally played sympathetic parts as well, as in Days of Heaven (1978). An expert golfer, he was said by his friend Claude Akins to have earned more money on the golf course than he ever did in movies. He died in 1989.- Actor
- Writer
Kenne Duncan was born on 17 February 1902 in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for Night of the Ghouls (1959), Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945) and The Astounding She-Monster (1957). He died on 5 February 1972 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
LeRoy Mason was born on 2 July 1903 in Larimore, North Dakota, USA. He was an actor, known for Daughter of Don Q (1946), California Straight Ahead! (1937) and The Tiger Woman (1944). He was married to Rita Carewe and Bernice. He died on 13 October 1947 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Stunts
Terry Frost was born on 26 October 1906 in Bemidji, Minnesota, USA. He was an actor, known for Mysterious Island (1951), Dead Man's Gold (1948) and Apache Rose (1947). He was married to Marion Carney and Marguerite Beday. He died on 1 March 1993 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- American actor who had a brief flirtation with stardom before settling into character roles and bit parts. Born in rural South Dakota (according to government records, though some sources say Walsh County, North Dakota) as Robert C. Oakes, the son of a horse rancher, he moved with his family to Culbertson, Montana (not his birthplace as some sources have it), where he grew up. The family moved again and he graduated from high school in Helena. A brief attendance at Montana Wesleyan College was interrupted by the offer of a job driving a tour bus in Yellowstone National Park.
Drifting down to Los Angeles in the early 1920s, he got work as an auto mechanic, but his ranch-honed cowboy skills got him bit parts in pictures at Paramount when director John Waters offered him work in a series of Westerns. Paramount recognized possibilities in the tall, rugged, handsome cowboy and put him (with a new name, Lane Chandler) into leading roles, first in Westerns, then in contemporary films opposite some of the biggest star actresses of the time, Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, Betty Bronson, and Esther Ralston. As silent films were phased out, Chandler found his stock slipping at Paramount, which had begun to overtly favor Gary Cooper in his place. He began appearing in lower-budgeted Westerns, first in leads, then as second leads to stars such as John Wayne and Jack Hoxie. During this period he free-lanced at Big 4, Syndicate Pictures and Kent (see Willis Kent) Pictures, all a far cry from his days under contract with Adolph Zukor. Despite the relatively poor production values, several of his early talkies (The Hurricane Horseman (1931) and The Cheyenne Cyclone (1931)) rise above similar fare in entertainment value. Unfortunately, Chandler was also forced to work on other lesser productions helmed by hack directors such as J.P. McGowan who cared more about quickly earning a paycheck than the product itself. His association with Kent ended in 1930s and Chandler drifted to another independent outfit called Empire Pictures which promised to produce 6 films, although only 2 were ultimately shot, the entertaining quickies The Lone Bandit (1935) and The Outlaw Tamer (1935). Now in his mid-30's Chandler found his career in irreversible decline and settled into supporting roles. A favorite of director Cecil B. DeMille, Chandler worked in many DeMille films, often in tiny bit parts, though he claimed these were his favorite parts. Eventually Chandler no longer commanded roles of any substance and he spent the remaining 35 years of his career in progressively smaller supporting parts, playing in hundreds of films, often uncredited. A stalwart of television Westerns of the 1950s, he was a familiar face to movie fans for nearly fifty years. An astute businessman with industrial and property holdings, he died in Los Angeles in 1971 at 73. - Actor
- Additional Crew
Perennial film western heavy I. Stanford Jolley could be spotted anywhere and everywhere in dusty "B" fare from 1935 on. Often mustachioed, this freelancing, wideset-eyed, black-hatted villain, who showed up in Hollywood following vaudeville and Broadway experience, could be counted on to give the sagebrush hero a devil of a time before the film's end.
Born on October 24, 1900, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Morristown, Jolley was nicknamed "Ike" (short for his given name "Isaac") by his parents but "Stan" by his friends. Of French and English descent, his entertainment-minded father, Robert B. Jolley, at one time owned and operated a traveling circus and carnival before becoming a successful restaurateur and opening an electrical contracting service. Jolley worked at his father's electrical store following high school for a time but then drifted around for a few years while searching for a passionate direction in life.
Around the time he married Emily Hacker in 1921, he took an interest in performing and started in vaudeville for both the B.F. Keith and Marcus Loew circuits. He also performed on stage and in stock shows, which led to a role as a blind man on Broadway in "Humoresque" in 1926. His father's death interrupted his acting pursuits, and he returned home to New Jersey in 1929 in order to handle the family's business affairs when the Great Depression brought his father's company to virtual bankruptcy.
In 1935, Jolley took a chance and moved his family (which now included two children) out west in order to reignite his acting career. His raw, sunken-cheeked, cold-eyed features seemed ideal for westerns and he found initial work in the genre in extra parts, wherein he learned how to ride horses on the spot. Although one of his first bits was in the Bette Davis drama Front Page Woman (1935), it wasn't long before he was firmly entrenched in oaters, playing uncredited bits throughout the rest of the 1930s. Slowly but surely he transitioned to featured roles in the WWII era, playing a reliable adversary to such cowboy heroes as Ray Corrigan in Trail of the Silver Spurs (1941) and Boot Hill Bandits (1942); Tom Keene in Arizona Roundup (1942); George Houston in Border Roundup (1942) and Outlaws of Boulder Pass (1942); Robert Livingston in Death Rides the Plains (1943) and Wolves of the Range (1943); Russell Hayden in Frontier Law (1943); Buster Crabbe in the western serial Blazing Frontier (1943), The Kid Rides Again (1943), and Lightning Raiders (1945)_; Dave O'Brien in Return of the Rangers (1943) and Outlaw Roundup (1944); and Tex Ritter in Oklahoma Raiders (1944), Gangsters of the Frontier (1944), and The Whispering Skull (1944).
Jolley's array of gunslingers, henchmen, and outlaws continued into the postwar years, but he wasn't completely confined to westerns. He also made appearances in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Errol Flynn and Bette Davis, The Ape (1940) with Boris Karloff (in which Jolley's little boy Stan Jolley appeared as an extra in a soda shop), Corregidor (1943) with Otto Kruger, the serial Batman (1943), Charlie Chan in the Chinese Cat (1944) with Sidney Toler, The Desert Hawk (1944) with Gilbert Roland, The Crimson Ghost (1946), the serials King of the Rocket Men (1949) and Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere (1951), Joan of Arc (1948) with Ingrid Bergman, and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) with John Wayne.
Come the 1950s, however, Jolley was almost completely confined in films and on TV to the western genre. On the small screen he became a familiar nemesis to "The Lone Ranger" and also played guest villain to "Annie Oakley," "Hopalong Cassidy, "The Cisco Kid," "Kit Carson," "Cheyenne" and "Daniel Boone". Jolley's baritone voice was also used on radio for such shows as The Lux Radio Theatre. He continued to act past age 70, including in his last film, Night of the Lepus (1972), directed partly by his son Stan Jolley, who also became an Oscar-nominated art director.
The heavy-smoking character actor was diagnosed with emphysema in his final years and died of the respiratory illness on December 6, 1978, at the Motion Picture and TV Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.- Actor
- Stunts
Born Sigsbee Maine Geary in Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 15, 1898, ace stuntman Bud Geary began appearing in films in 1920, and it wasn't long before the strapping (6'1"), athletic young man was strutting his stuff with such action players as Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1922) (in which Geary played Will Scarlett) and Buck Jones in The Arizona Romeo (1925). The coming of sound put the brakes on Geary's burgeoning acting career and he wound up playing a succession of henchmen, gangsters, cops and other bit parts until he hit his stride in a string of serials at Republic Pictures in 1939, and stayed there until 1946, as both an actor and stuntman. He doubled most of the studio's top western and action stars, in addition to freelancing at other studios. He gained a reputation as one of the industry's most fearless and inventive stunt men.
Bud Geary was killed in an automobile accident outside San Fernando, California, on Feb. 22, 1946, when his car left the road at a high rate of speed and rolled over.