Bob Steele (actor)

infobox actor
name=Bob Steele
birthname=Robert Adrian Bradbury
birthdate=birth date|1907|1|23
birthplace=Portland, Oregon
deathdate=death date and age|1989|12|21|1907|1|23
deathplace=Burbank, California
occupation=Film, television actor

Bob Steele was an American actor. He was born Robert Adrian Bradbury on January 23, 1907 in Portland, Oregon, into a vaudeville family. After years of touring, the family settled down in Hollywood in the late 1910s, where his father, Robert N. Bradbury, soon found work in the movies, first as an actor, later as a director, and by 1920, he hired Bob and his twin brother Bill as juvenile leads for a series of adventure movies entitled "The Adventures of Bob and Bill".

Bob's career began to take off for good in 1927, when he was hired by production company Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) to star in a series of Westerns. Bob—who was rechristened Bob Steele at FBO—soon made a name for himself, and in the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s starred in B-Westerns for almost every minor film studio, including Monogram, Supreme, Tiffany, Syndicate, Republic (including several films of the "Three Mesquiteers" series) and Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) (including the initial films of their "Billy the Kid" series), plus he had the occasional role in an A-movie like the John Steinbeck adaptation "Of Mice and Men" from 1939.

In the 1940s, Bob's career as a cowboy hero was on the decline, but he kept himself working by accepting supporting roles in many big movies like Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep", or the John Wayne vehicles "Island in the Sky", "Rio Bravo" and "Rio Lobo". Besides these he also made occasional appearances in science fiction films like "Atomic Submarine" and "Giant from the Unknown" and did lots of television work, culminating in a regular supporting role in the army comedy "F Troop" (1965 - 1967), which allowed him to show his comic talent. Steele played the character of Trooper Duffy who claimed to have been "shoulder to shoulder with Davy Crockett at the Alamo"; in fact Steele played in "With Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo" in 1926.

Bob Steele died on December 21, 1989 from emphysema after a long sickness.

References

* [http://www.searchmytrash.com/articles/bobsteele(5-07).shtml Bob Steele] - A Biography on (re)Search my TrashYou didn't mention anything about "Hang 'Em High" where he played one of the guys who hanged Jed Cooper (played by Clint Eastwood) but was sorry later, turned himself in and died in prison. Steele was an actor with a great career who ought to mentioned correctely, I shook his hand in the Disney Hotel one evening I couldn't believe it. You also didn't mention that in 1939 he started in Of Mice and Men.

External links

*imdb name|id=0824496|name=Bob Steele
*amg name|2:67813|Bob Steele
*findagrave|5440|Bob Steele