William Boyd (actor)

William Boyd (actor)

Infobox Actor
name = William Boyd


imagesize = 225px
caption = in Chicago with children(fy|about 1950)
birthdate = 5 June fy|1895
location = Hendrysburg, Ohio U.S.
deathdate = September 12 fy|1972
birthname = William Lawrence Boyd

William Boyd (June 5, 1895 - September 12, 1972) was an American actor.

Biography

Born William Lawrence Boyd in Hendrysburg, Ohio, located 26 miles east of Cambridge, Ohio, he was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1918 he went to Hollywood where he became famous as a leading man in silent film romances with a yearly salary of $100,000. By the end of the 1920s, Boyd's career had begun to deteriorate, and he was without a contract and going broke. Then Boyd's picture was mistakenly run in a newspaper story about the arrest of another actor with a similar name (William Stage Boyd) on gambling and liquor charges, which further hurt his career.

Hopalong Cassidy

In 1935, he was offered the lead role in the movie "Hopalong Cassidy". He changed the original pulp-fiction character, written by Clarence E. Mulford, from a whisky guzzling wrangler to a cowboy hero who did not smoke, drink, or swear and he always let the bad guy start the fight. Boyd would be indelibly associated with the Hopalong Cassidy character, and he gained lasting fame in the Western film genre because of it. Boyd purchased the rights to the character of Hopalong, as well as the rights to the 66 Hopalong Cassidy movies. In the early 1950s, he released the movies to television, where they became extremely popular. "Hopalong Cassidy" is, in fact, credited with helping reinvigorate the time-worn Western genre. Along with other cowboy figures, such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, Boyd licensed merchandise, including such products as Hopalong Cassidy watches, cups and dishes, comic books and cowboy outfits. Boyd used his fame and his fortune to meet with children around the world, and underscore for them the fine qualities of the Hopalong Cassidy figure he portrayed. As a private individual and an actor, he was a hero to a generation of American children. The "Hopalong Cassidy" films remain available for broadcast and are on DVD in restored form.

Boyd appeared as Hopalong Cassidy on the cover of numerous national magazines, such as the August 29, 1950 issue of "Look " [http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/Hoppy.htm] , and the November 27, 1950 issue of "Time".

Oddly, both Clark Gable and Robert Mitchum experienced their first big breaks in movies playing bearded villains in westerns starring Boyd.

William Boyd died in 1972 in Laguna Beach, California and was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. He is survived by his wife, actress Grace Bradley Boyd.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, William Boyd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1734 Vine Street. In 1995, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Since 1991, the Friends of Hoppy fan club has held the Hopalong Cassidy Festival in Boyd's hometown of Cambridge, Ohio.

Marriages

*Laura Maynes(1917 - ?)(divorced)
*Ruth Yeager Miller (1921 - 1924) (divorced)
*Elinor Virginia Crow (December 1926 - 1929) (divorced)
*Dorothy Sebastian (1931 - 1935) (divorced)
*Grace Bradley (1937 - September 12, 1972) (his death)

Filmography

See: Hopalong Cassidy films

ee also

*Other notable figures in Western films

External links

*imdb name|id=0101955|name=William Boyd
*amg name|2:120607|William "Hopalong" Boyd
*http://www.b-westerns.com/hoppy.htm
* [http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/Hoppy.htm Hopalong Cassidy music]
* [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=805 Photographs of William Boyd]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • William Boyd (actor) — William Boyd (5 de junio de 1895 12 de septiembre de 1972) fue un actor estadounidense. Nacido Lawrence William Boyd en Hendrysburg Ohio, ubicada 26 millas al este de Cambridge, Ohio, fue criado en Tulsa, Oklahoma. Contenido 1 Carrera 1.1 Hoppy 2 …   Wikipedia Español

  • William Boyd — may refer to:*William Boyd, 3rd Earl of Kilmarnock (died 1717), Scottish nobleman *William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock (1704 1746), Scottish nobleman *William Boyd (pathologist) (1885 1979), Scottish Canadian professor and author *William Boyd… …   Wikipedia

  • William Boyd (writer) — William Boyd, CBE (born 7 March, 1952 in Accra, Ghana) is a contemporary Scottish novelist and screenwriter. BiographyOf Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7 March 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where… …   Wikipedia

  • William Boyd — puede referirse a: William Boyd (1895 1972), actor estadounidense intérprete del personaje Hopalong Cassidy. William Will Boyd (1979 ), músico estadounidense ex bajista de la agrupación Evanescence. Billy Boyd (1968 ), actor británico. Esta… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Boyd (surname) — Boyd is a surname of Scottish origin, and may refer to:A*Adam Boyd, English footballer *Alan Lennox Boyd, British politician (Viscount Boyd) *Alan Stephenson Boyd, American politician *Alex Boyd, Scottish photographer *Alfred Boyd, Canadian… …   Wikipedia

  • William "Stage" Boyd — William H. Boyd (December 28, 1889, New York, USA March 20, 1935, Los Angeles, USA) was an American actor.William H. Boyd was an early 20th century stage actor who appeared in two Broadway plays and then worked in motion pictures. To avoid later… …   Wikipedia

  • William Gillette — William Gilette en 1895 Nombre real William Hooker Gillette Nacimiento 24 de julio de 1853 …   Wikipedia Español

  • William — puede referirse a: Contenido 1 Nombre 1.1 Personajes 1.2 Desambiguaciones de nombre y apellido 2 Véase también …   Wikipedia Español

  • BOYD, William — (1895–1972)    Born in Hendrysburg, Ohio, William Boyd worked as a wildcatter in the Oklahoma oil fields before making his way to the California fruit orchards, evidently planning all along to try for the movies. He landed his first part in 1919… …   Westerns in Cinema

  • William Parker Sports College — Infobox UK school name = William Parker Sports College size = latitude = 50.87609 longitude = 0.56879 dms = dms motto = Care, Respect, Achievement motto pl = established = 1619 approx = closed = c approx = type = Voluntary controlled religion =… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”