[2dogs]

Most probably never heard of him- just a bit character actor really.

I liked his attitude though:

"But he complained about the modern villains that evolved in the 1970s, who had shades of psychological problems behind their bad behavior. "The heavy today is usually not my kind of guy," he said in the Los Angeles Times in 1977.

"In the old days, Rory Calhoun was the hero because he was the hero and I was the heavy because I was the heavy — and nobody cared what my problem was. And I didn't either," he added. "I robbed the bank because I wanted the money ... I've played all kinds of weirdos but I've never done the quiet, sick type. I never had a problem — other than the fact I was just bad."


another old timer bites the dust.
:(

[DorGunR]

Actor Jack Elam dies
Most probably never heard of him

Maybe so, but I've been a fan of Jack Elam for many years, I thought he was the "perfect" bad guy.

RIP......Jack.:(

[C.R.Sam]

Now,
Will somebody please tie firearms and Jack Elam together ?

Sam

[DorGunR]

Awww, CR Sam.....you know Jack always carried a colt single action pistol in those western movies.:rolleyes:

[BigG]

He was the guy with each eye looking in a different direction in about a thousand or so cowboy movies, much like Lee Van Cleef, he was everywhere. Came along way before Marty Feldman (another goggle eye) who made Young Frankenstein. Played Eye-gor.

[critter]

I liked him when he played with John Wayne and carried a sawed-off shotgun and a bag of buckshot shells on a strap around his neck.

JW told him he was 'out of range', but he 'was going to shoot anyway. Just made him feel better!'

Good actor. I miss the old ones!

[HogRider]

The perfect "bad guy". Anybody remember the opening scenes of "Once upon a time in the West", where he caught that fly in the barrel of his Colt and played with it while waiting at the train station? I always loved that scene.

[DF357]

he starred in a cuppla films. Support Your Local Sherrif and Support Your Local gunfighter, I think were the names of them. Jack Elam was a funny guy. Will miss him.

[FPrice]

one of the many outstanding supporting actors who helped make good movies better. Sometimes the star has to carry the show but more often than not it's the supporting actors who can really flesh out the whole story.

Sam,

He played in numerous westerns and he was well-liked and respected by many of us who like and respect firearms. Close enough for me to allow that his passing rates a thread on THR.

[Atticus]

http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=15282&c=c&search=17582&cat=101

Jack Elam with the fly trap.

[DJJ]

"If you hear a loud noise, it'll be Mr. Ketchum dying." -- From "Rio Lobo", where he had the triggers of his coach gun wired back.

Internet Movie Databse entry for Jack Elam (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001181/)

[STW]

How can you not like a forum where a bunch of Jack Elam fans hang out?

He said that there was a time in his career that people would see him walking down the street and cross to the other side to avoid him. They don't make a badder bad guy then that.:what:

Sorry he's gone. Glad his movies aren't.

[stephen_g22]

Didn't he play the doctor in Cannonball Run?

[FPrice]

Thanks for that reference. Some interesting reading, did not realize that he was in 130 movies. Quite a bit.

Jack Elam - "Colorful American character actor equally adept at vicious killers or grizzled sidekicks."

May he rest in peace.

[dinosaur]

A moment of silence for an old friend.:(

[jhisaac1]

Support Your Local Sherrif and Support Your Local gunfighter

"Me and the Sherrif takes a dim view of thems that play with guns." (or something like that.)

On a trivial note, I worked with his great-niece-twice-removed or some such relation a few years ago. She was close enough to have the last name, but wasn't granddaughter close.

Jason

[bdhawk]

he was in a TV western series. in the opening credits he would see his pardner across the street. he pulled out a cigar and match. his pardner shoots from across the street and strikes the match. elam pulls his sixgun and shoots, spinning the rowel on his pardners spur. without damaging the spur. now that's shootin'.

[jsalcedo]

Didn't he play the doctor in Cannonball Run?

Yep

[RocketMan]

What fun guy to watch in his various roles. Always enjoyed seeing him.
Gonna miss him.
R.I.P.

[AUTIGER04]

I didnt know the name until I saw his pic. RIP Jack.:(

[Moparmike]

James Garner and...
he starred in a cuppla films. Support Your Local Sherrif and Support Your Local gunfighter, I think were the names of them. Jack Elam was a funny guy. Will miss him.Oh man. Now I know who you are talking about. That really stinks.
:( :( :(

[ARperson]

Will somebody please tie firearms and Jack Elam together ?

Criminitly.

Does every last little thing we talk about on this board have to be related to firearms?

You want a tie: he played in lots of movies where he handled firearms.

Viola! Jack Elam and firearms, neatly tied together.

[jsalcedo]

Does every last little thing we talk about on this board have to be related to firearms?

Yes, unless you are in the Legal and Political forum then you can talk about politics and laws.

[FTG-05]

Harley,

Are you sure that's the name of the movie where he caught the fly? I know he did it, but IMDB doesn't list that movie name with him. Great movie, I want it on DVD.

Thanks,

Albin

[Quartus]

I liked him when he played with John Wayne and carried a sawed-off shotgun and a bag of buckshot shells on a strap around his neck.


The ORIGINAL uber-tactical! :D


Best scene was when he capped one round in the air to show the BGs he was serious - or crazy - and then shoved the shotgun in the head BG's neck and said, "I got one barrel left!"


I liked him better as a sidekick. He shorrrr didn't have the looks for a leading man! :D

[BluesBear]

Jack Elam's character of Phillips in Rio Lobo was a fitting tribute to Walter Brennan who played Stumpy in Rio Bravo. Rio Lobo, Rio Bravo & El Dorado are essentially the same story.

Rio Lobo (1971) also featured the recently departed George Plimpton as a 4th rate gun tough who got slammed (literally) against the was by Elam's double barreled shotgun blast. In an interview he said the harness attached to him was just supposed to pull him backwards off his feet, but that during actual shooting the wire was pulled much to hard thereby sending him flying against the wall. An effect that has now earned a permanent place in GollyWeird.

[vmi93]

The scene where he catches the fly in his revolver barrel (see, it IS on topic)is from Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West."

Great, but LONG movie with Henry Fonda playing a psychotic gunfighter and Charles Bronson as the good (or least bad) guy.

[HogRider]

"Once upon a time in the west", one of my favorite Westerns.

I just watched it on Video a few weeks ago after Charles Bronson died.

[grampster]

When Jack played that doctor, wasn't there a scene where he pulled on a rubber glove and waggled a finger around? I don't exactly remember what was going on in that scene, but now that I have cruised through my 50's the significance of the finger has more "impact". Keeping it "gun related", I think the finger was in .50 cal. heh.

:D :D

[jhisaac1]

Not only was he a doctor in SatB, but he was a Proctologist! :what:
I can't think of anything more freaky than that!

Jason

[dinosaur]

Nobody thought Henry Fonda could pull off being the B.G. in "Once Upon a Time". He was positively creepy. :cool:

[Joe Demko]

If you've ever seen The Grapes of Wrath, Henry Fonda portrayed Tom Joad as a mean and tough guy. I think if it hadn't gone against his grain personally to do so, Fonda could have had quite a career playing bad guys.

[Tango Sierra]

>>Rio Lobo (1971) also featured the recently departed George Plimpton as a 4th rate gun tough who got slammed (literally) against the was by Elam's double barreled shotgun blast<<

Actually it was Jorge Riviero's (sp?) character who shot Plimpton.

When I was a boy my mother would take me to the movies with her because my father never wanted to go and she wouldn't go alone. I was probably five years old when I saw Rawhide and I knew then and there I wanted to be like Tyrone Power and rid the world of the Jack Elams. Well, I grew up and found out that it was only a movie and I couldn't be a cowboy sheriff riding a horse in Chicago.

Elam was great as a villain and was even better at comedy late in his career.

[uglymofo]

Henry Fonda didn't think he could pull off playing the bad guy. Sergio Leone wanted him for the role, but he refused, thinking 'Spaghetti Westerns' have "that" reputation. Eli Wallach ('Tuco' in "The GBU") convinced him to take the part for the opportunity to work with Leone. Fonda had so many preconceptions from rote Hollywood badguys and misunderstood his role as a bad guy so badly that he went to an optometrist and had brown-eyed contact lenses made, thinking, there's never been a blue-eyed bad guy. The first day on the set, Leone spent hours convincing Fonda to leave the lenses behind; he wanted a blue-eyed bad guy who was ruthless and shot children [with guns]. (There. I got it in for CR Sam. :cool: ;) )

[Zip06]

Elam croaked. Another priceless actor bites the dust. He was a perfect character acter...as good a bad guy as Lee Marvin was and could be as funny. His portrayal of that goofy doctor in Cannonball Run was great but maybe not as funny as Lee Marvin on that drunken horse.

Both gone; both national treasurers and neither was a democrat. RIP

[Topgun]

This thread is still here because Jack Elam's eye is so cattywumpus that the mods can't sneak in and move it or close it without being observed.

Great actor. Also interesting thread for gun movie afficionados.

;)

[Brian D.]

Jack's "Mr Phillips" character in Rio Lobo just might be my favorite sidekick/second banana of all time..certainly among westerns I've seen. That gruff laugh-several times-after he dispatches bad guys never fails to crack me up. And, anybody who thinks that John Wayne didn't know comedy hasn't seen the exchanges between these two actors in this movie!

[ACORN]

Newbie here, but got to respectfully disagree about Tom Joad(Henry Fonda) being mean. He was just a guy that was tired of being pushed around, and fought back. Liked Henry Honda's acting not his politics.
I don't remember which "Rio" movie it was when Jennifer O'neil ran up to Jack Elams farmhouse with her skirt hiked up around her knees. Jack said "I'd have shot her too, but she had the prettiest legs" with that gleam in his eye only he could have.
Two other good bad guys: Richard Widmark, and maybe the best, Jack Palance.
Really great board!

[BluesBear]

got to respectfully disagree about Tom Joad(Henry Fonda) being mean. He was just a guy that was tired of being pushed around, and fought back.
:confused: :confused: :confused:

Did I miss something?

Tom Joad was the lead character in "The Grapes Of Wrath".

"Once Upon A Time In The West" had a slightly different storyline.

[ACORN]

Nope, I was just replying to an earlier comment that Tom Joad in the "Grapes of Wrath" was a tough and mean man.

[JohnKSa]

Mr. Elam also made frequent appearances as a bad guy/ne'er do well on the TV series Gunsmoke.

Always very believable and generally quite amusing.

[Hardtarget]

DF357 beat me to it. Support Your Local Gunfighter was a fun movie. Support Your local Sherrif was along the same line and also fun...plenty of comedy and a little shooting. One of those had my favorite line from Mr. Elam. The bad guys are in the bar, Garner comes in, Elam backing him up. Shooting starts, Elam shoots BG on stairs. Garner points out "spread" of Elam's shots and he responds..." I was saving your life, not tryin' to group my shots!" LMAO! Even my wife loved it! :D
Mark.

[Russ]

Jack was a great character actor up there with the likes of Walter Brennan. He was in a zillion westerns. He was an accountant at one of the studios and a producer saw him and the rest is history. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

[Viking6]

I was going to comment several days ago but I forgot my darned password. Jack Elam, Strother Martin and Ernest Borgnine played bad guys in a movie called "Haddie Caulder" with Raquel Welch being Haddie. It was hilarious, Jack's character "Frank" gets killed and Strother, his brother, is reading over his grave "Now, Frank, you're dead" in that perfect Strother Martin voice and Borgnine slaps the Bible out of his hands and Strother says "Don't go getting God mad at us, too!" Strother was a great character actor, The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool hand Luke, the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and also a two second part in Captain Jack when he steps out of ranks and yells. "He's wearing the General's coat" . I always associate the two, Salutes to them both.