Robert J. Wilke
Encyclopedia
Robert J. Wilke was a prolific American film actor noted primarily for his villainous roles, mainly in westerns
.
Wilke started as a stuntman in the 1930s and his first appearance on screen was in San Francisco (1936). He soon began to acquire regular character parts, mainly as a heavy, and made his mark when, along with Lee Van Cleef
and Sheb Wooley
, he played one of the "three men waiting at the station" in High Noon
(1952).
He became a prominent western "bad guy" after this but unfortunately he was one of those actors who fall into the "man with no name" category. His face was instantly recognisable but few cinemagoers actually knew his name. Unlike Van Cleef, Wilke never got the "big break". Wilke appeared seven times each on the NBC
western Laramie
and the CBS's Gunsmoke
.
He also starred five times on Bonanza
, four times on Wagon Train
and Death Valley Days
, three times on Clint Eastwood
's Rawhide
, Duncan Renaldo
's The Cisco Kid
, Pat Conway
's Tombstone Territory
, and Fess Parker
's Daniel Boone
, twice on The Virginian
, Cimarron Strip
, and The Guns of Will Sonnett
, and once on Andrew Duggan
's Lancer
, Robert Conrad
's The Wild Wild West
, and the ABC
family western The Monroes
. He appeared as a dishonest fight promoter in the 1958 episode "The Fighter" of NBC's Bat Masterson
, having engaged in fisticuffs with Gene Barry
, who played Masterson.
In the 1965-1966 television season, Wilke played a lawman, Marshal
Sam Corbett, in the 34-episode western series The Legend of Jesse James
, who in vain tried to capture the outlaws Jesse James
and his brother Frank James
. Ann Doran
co-starred as the Jameses mother, Zerelda James Samuel
. In 1960, Wilke had portrayed Jesse James associate Cole Younger
in the short-lived NBC western series Overland Trail
with William Bendix
and Doug McClure
.
Outside of westerns, Wilke appeared in such films as From Here to Eternity
(1953) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
(1954), in which he was the first mate of the "Nautilus".
He had a good role as a hitman in The Far Country
(1954) and continued to work steadily in films and TV over the next twenty years. More western credits followed in Man of the West
(1958) and numerous lesser known films but he was most active in TV during the 1950s and 1960s.
Other television programs in which Wilke appeared included Maverick
, Tarzan, Tales of Wells Fargo
, Perry Mason
, 77 Sunset Strip
, Have Gun - Will Travel, The Untouchables
, Bronco
, The Westerner
, Cheyenne, Overland Trail
, Lawman
, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Zorro, and The Rifleman
.
In 1960, he played a cameo in The Magnificent Seven
as the railroad bully, Wallace, who was quickly killed off by James Coburn
in the remembered gun v knife fight. He had an unusually sympathetic (and large) role in Days of Heaven
(1978) as Farmer Sam Shepard's ally, The Farm Foreman.
Wilke's final film role was somewhat against type as General Barnicke in the comedy Stripes
in 1981.
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
.
Wilke started as a stuntman in the 1930s and his first appearance on screen was in San Francisco (1936). He soon began to acquire regular character parts, mainly as a heavy, and made his mark when, along with Lee Van Cleef
Lee Van Cleef
Lee Van Cleef was an American film actor who appeared mostly in Western and action pictures. His sharp features and piercing eyes led to his being cast as a villain in scores of films such as High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Good The Bad and the Ugly.-Early life:Van Cleef was...
and Sheb Wooley
Sheb Wooley
Shelby F. "Sheb" Wooley was a character actor and singer, best known for his 1958 novelty song "Purple People Eater"...
, he played one of the "three men waiting at the station" in High Noon
High Noon
High Noon is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself...
(1952).
He became a prominent western "bad guy" after this but unfortunately he was one of those actors who fall into the "man with no name" category. His face was instantly recognisable but few cinemagoers actually knew his name. Unlike Van Cleef, Wilke never got the "big break". Wilke appeared seven times each on the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
western Laramie
Laramie (TV series)
Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. Laramie was a Revue Studios production which originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert Crawford, Jr...
and the CBS's Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
.
He also starred five times on Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
, four times on Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
and Death Valley Days
Death Valley Days
Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945. It continued from 1952 to 1975 as a syndicated television series...
, three times on Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
's Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
, Duncan Renaldo
Duncan Renaldo
Renault Renaldo Duncan , better known as Duncan Renaldo, was an American actor who portrayed The Cisco Kid in films and on the 1950-1956 American TV series, The Cisco Kid.-Early years:...
's The Cisco Kid
The Cisco Kid (TV series)
The Cisco Kid is a half-hour American Western television series starring Duncan Renaldo in the title role, The Cisco Kid, and Leo Carrillo as the jovial sidekick, Pancho...
, Pat Conway
Pat Conway
Patrick Douglas Conway, known as Pat Conway , was an American actor best known for his role as young but tough Sheriff Clay Hollister on the ABC and then syndicated western television series Tombstone Territory . He was a maternal grandson of silent film star Francis X...
's Tombstone Territory
Tombstone Territory
Tombstone Territory is an American Western series starring Pat Conway and Richard Eastham. The series' first two seasons aired on ABC from 1957 to 1959...
, and Fess Parker
Fess Parker
Fess Elisha Parker, Jr. was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney 1955-56 TV mini-series and as TV's Daniel Boone from 1964-70...
's Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (TV series)
Daniel Boone is an American action/adventure television series starring Fess Parker as Daniel Boone that aired from September 24, 1964 to September 10, 1970 on NBC for 165 episodes, and was made by 20th Century Fox Television. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Native American friend, for the...
, twice on The Virginian
The Virginian (TV series)
The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series...
, Cimarron Strip
Cimarron Strip
Cimarron Strip is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from September 1967 to March 1968. Starring Stuart Whitman as Marshal Jim Crown, the series was produced by the creators of Gunsmoke...
, and The Guns of Will Sonnett
The Guns of Will Sonnett
The Guns of Will Sonnett is a Western television series set in the 1870s which ran on the ABC television network from 1967 to 1969. The series was the first production collaboration between Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas, who would later go on to produce one of ABC's most-memorable hits, The Mod...
, and once on Andrew Duggan
Andrew Duggan
-Career:During World War II, Duggan was in the 40th Special Services Company, led by actor Melvyn Douglas in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His contact with Douglas later led to his performing with Lucille Ball in the play Dreamgirl. He developed a friendship with Broadway...
's Lancer
Lancer (TV series)
Lancer is a 1968-1970 Western television series on CBS, which starred Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, and Wayne Maunder as a father with two half-brother sons, an arrangement similar to the more successful Bonanza on NBC....
, Robert Conrad
Robert Conrad
Robert Conrad is an American actor. He is best known for his role in the 1965 CBS television series The Wild Wild West, in which he played the sophisticated Secret Service agent James T. West, and his portrayal of World War II ace Pappy Boyington in the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep...
's The Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West is an American television series that ran on CBS for four seasons from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969....
, and the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
family western The Monroes
The Monroes (1966 TV series)
The Monroes is a 26-segment Western television series which ran on ABC during the 1966-1967 season – the story of five orphans trying to survive as a family on the frontier in the area about what is now Grand Teton National Park near Jackson in northwestern Wyoming.Michael Anderson, Jr., then 24,...
. He appeared as a dishonest fight promoter in the 1958 episode "The Fighter" of NBC's Bat Masterson
Bat Masterson (TV series)
Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of the life of real-life marshal/gambler/dandy Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry and the half-hour black and white shows ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961...
, having engaged in fisticuffs with Gene Barry
Gene Barry
Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City and The War of The Worlds and for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Bat Masterson, among many roles.-Personal life:Barry was born...
, who played Masterson.
In the 1965-1966 television season, Wilke played a lawman, Marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
Sam Corbett, in the 34-episode western series The Legend of Jesse James
The Legend of Jesse James (TV series)
The Legend of Jesse James is a 34-episode western television series starring Christopher Jones in the tile role of notorious outlaw Jesse James which aired on ABC from September 13, 1965, to May 9, 1966...
, who in vain tried to capture the outlaws Jesse James
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. He also faked his own death and was known as J.M James. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary...
and his brother Frank James
Frank James
Alexander Franklin "Frank" James was a famous American outlaw. He was the older brother of outlaw Jesse James.-Childhood:...
. Ann Doran
Ann Doran
Ann Lee Doran was an American character actress.-Early life and career:Born in Amarillo, Texas, Doran began acting at the age of four. She appeared in hundreds of silent films under assumed names to keep her father's family from finding out about her work...
co-starred as the Jameses mother, Zerelda James Samuel
Zerelda James
Zerelda Elizabeth Cole James Simms Samuel was the mother of Frank James and Jesse James.Born as Zerelda Elizabeth Cole in Woodford County, Kentucky her parents were James and Sarah Lindsay Cole; she had one younger brother, Jesse Richard Cole...
. In 1960, Wilke had portrayed Jesse James associate Cole Younger
Cole Younger
Thomas Coleman "Cole" Younger was an American Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War and later an outlaw with the James-Younger gang...
in the short-lived NBC western series Overland Trail
Overland Trail (TV series)
Overland Trail is a short-lived American Western series which aired on NBC from February 7 to June 6, 1960. The series starred William Bendix and Doug McClure,-Synopsis:...
with William Bendix
William Bendix
William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
and Doug McClure
Doug McClure
Douglas Osborne "Doug" McClure was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s...
.
Outside of westerns, Wilke appeared in such films as From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the troubles of soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the...
(1953) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954 film)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1954 adventure film starring Kirk Douglas as Ned Land, James Mason as Captain Nemo, Paul Lukas as Professor Pierre Aronnax, and Peter Lorre as Conseil. It was the first science fiction film produced by Walt Disney Productions, as well as the only science-fiction...
(1954), in which he was the first mate of the "Nautilus".
He had a good role as a hitman in The Far Country
The Far Country
The Far Country is a 1954 American western movie directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart in their fourth western collaboration...
(1954) and continued to work steadily in films and TV over the next twenty years. More western credits followed in Man of the West
Man of the West
Man of the West is a 1958 western film starring Gary Cooper and directed by Anthony Mann in his last film in the genre. The screenplay, written by Reginald Rose, is based on the novel The Border Jumpers by Will C...
(1958) and numerous lesser known films but he was most active in TV during the 1950s and 1960s.
Other television programs in which Wilke appeared included Maverick
Maverick (TV series)
Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...
, Tarzan, Tales of Wells Fargo
Tales of Wells Fargo
Tales of Wells Fargo is an American Western television series that ran from March 18, 1957 to June 2, 1962 on NBC. Produced by Revue Productions, the series aired in a half-hour format until its final season when it expanded to an hour.-Synopsis:...
, Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
, 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
, Have Gun - Will Travel, The Untouchables
The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a...
, Bronco
Bronco (TV series)
Bronco is a Western series on ABC from 1958 through 1962. It was shown by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The program starred Ty Hardin as Bronco Layne, a former Confederate officer who wandered the Old West, meeting such well-known individuals as Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, Jesse James,...
, The Westerner
The Westerner (TV series)
The Westerner is a 1960 Four Star Television Western series on NBC created by Sam Peckinpah. The series stars Brian Keith as Dave Blassingame and features John Dehner as semi-regular Burgundy Smith...
, Cheyenne, Overland Trail
Overland Trail
The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California and Mormon...
, Lawman
Lawman (tv series)
Lawman is an American Western television series originally telecast from 1958 to 1962 starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and featuring Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay on the ABC Television Network. The series was set in Laramie, Wyoming during the mid to late 1870s. Warner Bros....
, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Zorro, and The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
.
In 1960, he played a cameo in The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven is an American Western film directed by John Sturges, and released in 1960. It is a fictional tale of a group of seven American gunmen who are hired to protect a small agricultural village in Mexico from a group of marauding Mexican bandits...
as the railroad bully, Wallace, who was quickly killed off by James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
in the remembered gun v knife fight. He had an unusually sympathetic (and large) role in Days of Heaven
Days of Heaven
Days of Heaven is a 1978 American romantic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard and Linda Manz. Set in the early 20th century, it tells the story of two poor lovers, Bill and Abby, as they travel to the Texas Panhandle to harvest...
(1978) as Farmer Sam Shepard's ally, The Farm Foreman.
Wilke's final film role was somewhat against type as General Barnicke in the comedy Stripes
Stripes (film)
Stripes is a 1981 American comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman, starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Warren Oates, P. J. Soles, and John Candy. It also featured several actors in their first significant film roles, including John Larroquette, Sean Young, John Diehl, and Judge Reinhold. It was one...
in 1981.