Warren Oates
Encyclopedia
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah
including The Wild Bunch
(1969) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
(1974). He starred in numerous films during the early 1970s which have since achieved cult status including The Hired Hand
(1971), Two-Lane Blacktop
(1971) and Race with the Devil
(1975). Oates also portrayed Sergeant Hulka in Stripes
(1981).
(near Greenville
in Muhlenberg County
), the son of Sarah Alice (née
Mercer) and Bayless E. Oates, who owned a general store. He attended high school in Louisville
, got interested in theater at the University of Louisville and starred in several plays there in 1953 for the Little Theater Company. He got a big break in New York City starring in a live production of the television series Studio One
in 1957.
television programs of the period including Wagon Train
, Tombstone Territory
, Rawhide
,Trackdown
, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Have Gun-Will Travel, The Big Valley
and Gunsmoke
. Oates first met Peckinpah when he played a variety of guest roles on The Rifleman
(1958–1963), the popular television series created by the director. He also played a supporting role in Peckinpah's short-lived TV series The Westerner
in 1960. The collaboration continued as he worked on Peckinpah's early films Ride the High Country
(1962
) and Major Dundee
(1965
).
In 1961, he guest starred in the episode "Artie Moon" in NBC
's The Lawless Years
crime drama about the 1920s. In 1962, he appeared as "Ves Painter" in the short-lived ABC
series Stoney Burke
, co-starring Jack Lord
, a program about rodeo
contestants. Oates also portrayed a number of memorable characters in guest roles on the enduringly popular television series The Twilight Zone
("The Purple Testament
" 1960, "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms
" 1963, with co-stars Randy Boone
and Ron Foster
), The Outer Limits
("The Mutant" 1964), and Lost in Space
("Welcome Stranger" 1965). During the 1960s and '70s, he guest-starred on such shows as Twelve O'Clock High
, Lancer
, and The Virginian
.
In addition to Peckinpah, Oates worked with several major film directors of his era including Leslie Stevens
in the 1960 film Private Property, his first starring role; Norman Jewison
in In the Heat of the Night (1967
); Joseph L. Mankiewicz
in There Was a Crooked Man...
(1970); John Milius
in Dillinger
(1973
); Terrence Malick
in Badlands
(1973); Philip Kaufman
in The White Dawn
(1974); William Friedkin
in The Brink's Job
(1978); and Steven Spielberg
in 1941
(1979).
He appeared in the Sherman Brothers
musical version of Tom Sawyer as "Muff Potter" the town drunk. He also starred in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960), Return of the Seven
(1966), The Shooting
(filmed in 1965, released in 1968), The Thief Who Came to Dinner
(1973), Cockfighter
(1974) and China 9, Liberty 37
(1978). Oates co-starred three times with friend Peter Fonda
in The Hired Hand
(1971), Race with the Devil
(1975) and 92 in the Shade (1975).
Oates was cast in Roger Donaldson's 1977 New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs together with New Zealand actor Sam Neill. A political thriller with action film elements, 'Dogs' follows the lead character "Smith" (Neill) as New Zealand plunges into a police state as a fascist government institutes martial law after industrial disputes flare into violence. Smith gets caught between the special police and a growing resistance movement and reluctantly becomes involved. Oates plays the role of "Willoughby", commander of the American forces stationed in New Zealand and working with the NZ fascist government to find and subdue 'rebels' (the resistance movement).
His partnership with Peckinpah resulted in two of his most famous film roles. In the 1969
Western
classic The Wild Bunch
, he portrayed Lyle Gorch, a long-time outlaw who chooses to die with his friends during the film's violent conclusion. According to his wife at the time, Teddy, Oates had the choice of starring in Support Your Local Sheriff, to be filmed in Los Angeles, or The Wild Bunch in Mexico. "He had done Return of the Seven in Mexico; he got hepatitis
, plus dysentery
. But off he went again with Sam (Peckinpah). He loved going on location. He loved the adventure of it. He had great admiration for Sam. Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman
were the two directors Warren would work with anytime anywhere." In Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
, the dark 1974 action/tragedy also filmed in Mexico, Oates played the lead role of Bennie, a hard-drinking down-on-his-luck musician hoping to make a final score. The character was reportedly based on Peckinpah himself. For authenticity, Oates wore the director's sunglasses while filming scenes of the production.
Although the Peckinpah film roles are his best-known, his most critically acclaimed role is GTO in Monte Hellman
's 1971 cult classic Two-Lane Blacktop
. The film, although a failure at the box-office, is studied in film schools as a treasure of the '70s, in large part due to Oates' heartbreaking portrayal of GTO. Famed film critic Leonard Maltin
remarked that Oates' performance in this film was as good as any he'd seen and should have won the Oscar.
A year before his death, Oates co-starred with Bill Murray
in the 1981 military comedy Stripes
. In the role of drill sergeant Sergeant Hulka, Oates skillfully played the straight man to Murray's comedic character. The film was a huge financial success, earning $85 million at the box office. In 1982, he co-starred opposite Jack Nicholson
in director Tony Richardson
's The Border.
in Los Angeles, California
on April 3, 1982. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at his ranch in Montana.
A few months before his death, he had co-starred in the TV mini-series The Blue and the Gray, which aired in November 1982. His last two films, filmed back-to-back in the months before his death, Blue Thunder
and Tough Enough
(both released in 1983
), were posthumously dedicated to him. Monte Hellman
's film Iguana
ends with the titles "For Warren" as a dedication.
due to his memorable performances in not only Peckinpah's films, but Monte Hellman's
independent works, his films with Peter Fonda and a number of B-movies from the 1970s. His occasionally crude facade, likeable persona and uncommon presence are admired by such filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino
and Richard Linklater
. During a recent screening of Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop
, Linklater introduced the film and announced 16 reasons why viewers should love the 1971
movie. His sixth reason was "Because there was once a god who walked the Earth named Warren Oates."
The documentary film
Warren Oates: Across the Border was produced by Tom Thurman
in 1993 in tribute to the actor's career.
Oates was again recognized in March 2009 with the first-ever biography of his colorful life. Featuring interviews with the late actor's former wives, children, and friends, Warren Oates: A Wild Life, was written by Susan Compo. It has received much acclaim from fans and critics alike.
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
including The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
(1969) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
(1974). He starred in numerous films during the early 1970s which have since achieved cult status including The Hired Hand
The Hired Hand
The Hired Hand is a 1971 American western film directed by Peter Fonda, with a screenplay by Alan Sharp. The film stars Fonda, Warren Oates, and Verna Bloom. The cinematography was by Vilmos Zsigmond, and Bruce Langhorne provided the moody film score. The story is about a man who returns to his...
(1971), Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971...
(1971) and Race with the Devil
Race with the Devil
Race with the Devil is a 1975 occult thriller and action film starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit and Lara Parker. This was the second of three films Fonda and Oates would star in together...
(1975). Oates also portrayed Sergeant Hulka in 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...
(1981).
Early life
Oates was born and raised in Depoy, KentuckyKentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(near Greenville
Greenville, Kentucky
Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, United States. It is named for Revolutionary War General Nathan Greene...
in Muhlenberg County
Muhlenberg County, Kentucky
Muhlenberg County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 31,499. The county is named for Peter Muhlenberg. Its county seat is Greenville....
), the son of Sarah Alice (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Mercer) and Bayless E. Oates, who owned a general store. He attended high school in Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, got interested in theater at the University of Louisville and starred in several plays there in 1953 for the Little Theater Company. He got a big break in New York City starring in a live production of the television series Studio One
Studio One (TV series)
Studio One is a long-running American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by the 26-year-old Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC.-Radio:...
in 1957.
Career
The actor migrated to Los Angeles where he began to carve out a niche playing guest roles in WesternWestern (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...
television programs of the period including 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...
, 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...
, 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...
,Trackdown
Trackdown
Trackdown is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired on CBS between 1957 and 1959. The series offered more than seventy episodes and was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio...
, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Have Gun-Will Travel, The Big Valley
The Big Valley
The Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
and 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....
. Oates first met Peckinpah when he played a variety of guest roles on 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...
(1958–1963), the popular television series created by the director. He also played a supporting role in Peckinpah's short-lived TV series 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...
in 1960. The collaboration continued as he worked on Peckinpah's early films Ride the High Country
Ride the High Country
Ride the High Country is a noted 1962 American Western film. It stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Ron Starr, Edgar Buchanan and Mariette Hartley. It was written by N.B...
(1962
1962 in film
The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
) and Major Dundee
Major Dundee
Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It starred Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposing sides in the American Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apaches....
(1965
1965 in film
The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
).
In 1961, he guest starred in the episode "Artie Moon" in 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...
's The Lawless Years
The Lawless Years
The Lawless Years is the first television crime drama set during the Roaring 20s, having predated ABC's far more successful The Untouchables with Robert Stack by six months. The 47-episode half-hour series aired nonconsecutively on NBC from April 16 to August 27, 1959, from October 1, 1959, to...
crime drama about the 1920s. In 1962, he appeared as "Ves Painter" in the short-lived 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...
series Stoney Burke
Stoney Burke
Stoney Burke is a California street performer and actor.Burke performs political comedy on college campuses, most notably at the University of California, Berkeley near Sather Gate. Burke routinely engages crowds throughout the day using conservative Republican perspectives as his primary satire...
, co-starring Jack Lord
Jack Lord
John Joseph Patrick Ryan , best known by his stage name Jack Lord, was an American television, film, and Broadway actor. He was known for his starring role as Steve McGarrett in the American television program Hawaii Five-O from 1968 to 1980. Lord appeared in feature films earlier in his career,...
, a program about rodeo
Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
contestants. Oates also portrayed a number of memorable characters in guest roles on the enduringly popular television series The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
("The Purple Testament
The Purple Testament
"The Purple Testament" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It's "the story of a man who can forecast death."-Synopsis:...
" 1960, "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms
The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms
"The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" is an episode of the CBS American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, created by Rod Serling.-Summary:Three United States Army National Guard soldiers "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" is an episode of the CBS American television anthology series The...
" 1963, with co-stars Randy Boone
Randy Boone
Clyde Wilson Randall Boone, Jr., known as Randy Boone , is a former actor who co-starred in two of the three 90-minute westerns telecast during the 1960s on the national television networks, NBC's The Virginian and CBS's Cimarron Strip...
and Ron Foster
Ron Foster (actor)
Ronald R. Foster, known as Ron Foster , is an American actor, whose longest-running role was as Dr. Charles Grant from 1991-1995 in the defunct CBS soap opera The Guiding Light....
), The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. The series is similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction, rather than fantasy stories...
("The Mutant" 1964), and Lost in Space
Lost in Space
Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968...
("Welcome Stranger" 1965). During the 1960s and '70s, he guest-starred on such shows as Twelve O'Clock High
Twelve O'Clock High (TV series)
Twelve O'Clock High or 12 O'Clock High is an American drama series set in World War II. This TV series originally broadcasted on ABC-TV for two-and-one-half TV seasons from September 18, 1964, through January 13, 1967; was based on the motion picture Twelve O'Clock High...
, 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....
, and 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...
.
In addition to Peckinpah, Oates worked with several major film directors of his era including Leslie Stevens
Leslie Stevens
Leslie Clark Stevens III was the creator of the cult TV series The Outer Limits and director of the cult horror film Incubus , starring William Shatner. He wrote an early work of New Age philosophy, Est: The Steersman Handbook .-Early life and career:Leslie Stevens was born in Washington, D.C...
in the 1960 film Private Property, his first starring role; Norman Jewison
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
in In the Heat of the Night (1967
1967 in film
The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered as one of the most ground-breaking years in film.-Events:* December 26 - The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour airs on British television....
); Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J...
in There Was a Crooked Man...
There Was a Crooked Man...
There Was a Crooked Man... is a 1970 western comedy starring Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The film follows Paris Pitman , a charismatic criminal who ends up in jail, and his attempts to escape the prison of warden Lopeman...
(1970); John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...
in Dillinger
Dillinger (1973 film)
Dillinger is a 1973 gangster film about the life and criminal exploits of notorious bank robber John Dillinger.It stars Warren Oates as Dillinger and Ben Johnson as his pursuer, FBI Agent Melvin Purvis. The film, narrated by Purvis, chronicles the last few years of Dillinger's life as the FBI and...
(1973
1973 in film
The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
); Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick
Terrence Frederick Malick is a U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. In a career spanning almost four decades, Malick has directed five feature films....
in Badlands
Badlands (film)
Badlands is a 1973 American crime drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri are also featured. Malick has a small speaking part although he does not receive an acting credit...
(1973); Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
in The White Dawn
The White Dawn
The White Dawn is a Canadian film, released in 1974, and directed by Philip Kaufman and stars Warren Oates, Timothy Bottoms, and Louis Gossett, Jr. It portrays the conflict between aboriginal peoples' traditional way of life and Europeans' eagerness to take advantage of them. The film employs...
(1974); William Friedkin
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
in The Brink's Job
The Brink's Job
The Brink's Job is a 1978 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery in Boston, where almost 3 million dollars were stolen....
(1978); and Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
in 1941
1941 (film)
1941 is a 1979 period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and featuring an ensemble cast including John Belushi, Ned Beatty, John Candy, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee and Dan Aykroyd...
(1979).
He appeared in the Sherman Brothers
Sherman Brothers
The Sherman Brothers are an American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....
musical version of Tom Sawyer as "Muff Potter" the town drunk. He also starred in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960), Return of the Seven
Return of the Seven
Return of the Seven , is the first sequel to the 1960 western, The Magnificent Seven. Made in 1966, Yul Brynner is the sole returning cast member from the first film, portraying Chris Adams....
(1966), The Shooting
The Shooting
The Shooting is a 1966 western film directed by Monte Hellman, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman . It stars Warren Oates, Millie Perkins, Will Hutchins, and Jack Nicholson, and was produced by Nicholson and Hellman. The story is about two men who are hired by a mysterious woman to accompany her...
(filmed in 1965, released in 1968), The Thief Who Came to Dinner
The Thief Who Came to Dinner
The Thief Who Came to Dinner is a 1973 comedy film directed by Bud Yorkin and based on the novel by Terrence Lore Smith. The film stars Ryan O'Neal and Jacqueline Bisset, with Charles Cioffi, Warren Oates, and in an early appearance, Jill Clayburgh....
(1973), Cockfighter
Cockfighter
Cockfighter is a 1974 film by director Monte Hellman, starring Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton and featuring Laurie Bird and Ed Begley, Jr. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford...
(1974) and China 9, Liberty 37
China 9, Liberty 37
China 9, Liberty 37 is an Italian-Spanish 1978 western film directed by Monte Hellman, starring Warren Oates, Jenny Agutter, and Fabio Testi. The film was shot in locations in Spain and Italy by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno. Pino Donaggio composed the musical score...
(1978). Oates co-starred three times with friend Peter Fonda
Peter Fonda
Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...
in The Hired Hand
The Hired Hand
The Hired Hand is a 1971 American western film directed by Peter Fonda, with a screenplay by Alan Sharp. The film stars Fonda, Warren Oates, and Verna Bloom. The cinematography was by Vilmos Zsigmond, and Bruce Langhorne provided the moody film score. The story is about a man who returns to his...
(1971), Race with the Devil
Race with the Devil
Race with the Devil is a 1975 occult thriller and action film starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit and Lara Parker. This was the second of three films Fonda and Oates would star in together...
(1975) and 92 in the Shade (1975).
Oates was cast in Roger Donaldson's 1977 New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs together with New Zealand actor Sam Neill. A political thriller with action film elements, 'Dogs' follows the lead character "Smith" (Neill) as New Zealand plunges into a police state as a fascist government institutes martial law after industrial disputes flare into violence. Smith gets caught between the special police and a growing resistance movement and reluctantly becomes involved. Oates plays the role of "Willoughby", commander of the American forces stationed in New Zealand and working with the NZ fascist government to find and subdue 'rebels' (the resistance movement).
His partnership with Peckinpah resulted in two of his most famous film roles. In the 1969
1969 in film
The year 1969 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Last year for prize giving at the Venice Film Festival until it is revived in 1980...
Western
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...
classic The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
, he portrayed Lyle Gorch, a long-time outlaw who chooses to die with his friends during the film's violent conclusion. According to his wife at the time, Teddy, Oates had the choice of starring in Support Your Local Sheriff, to be filmed in Los Angeles, or The Wild Bunch in Mexico. "He had done Return of the Seven in Mexico; he got hepatitis
Hepatitis
Hepatitis is a medical condition defined by the inflammation of the liver and characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from the Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...
, plus dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
. But off he went again with Sam (Peckinpah). He loved going on location. He loved the adventure of it. He had great admiration for Sam. Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
were the two directors Warren would work with anytime anywhere." In Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
, the dark 1974 action/tragedy also filmed in Mexico, Oates played the lead role of Bennie, a hard-drinking down-on-his-luck musician hoping to make a final score. The character was reportedly based on Peckinpah himself. For authenticity, Oates wore the director's sunglasses while filming scenes of the production.
Although the Peckinpah film roles are his best-known, his most critically acclaimed role is GTO in Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
's 1971 cult classic Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971...
. The film, although a failure at the box-office, is studied in film schools as a treasure of the '70s, in large part due to Oates' heartbreaking portrayal of GTO. Famed film critic Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
remarked that Oates' performance in this film was as good as any he'd seen and should have won the Oscar.
A year before his death, Oates co-starred with Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
in the 1981 military 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 the role of drill sergeant Sergeant Hulka, Oates skillfully played the straight man to Murray's comedic character. The film was a huge financial success, earning $85 million at the box office. In 1982, he co-starred opposite Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
in director Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
's The Border.
Death
Oates died of a heart attackMyocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
on April 3, 1982. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at his ranch in Montana.
A few months before his death, he had co-starred in the TV mini-series The Blue and the Gray, which aired in November 1982. His last two films, filmed back-to-back in the months before his death, Blue Thunder
Blue Thunder
Blue Thunder is a 1983 feature film that features a high-tech helicopter of the same name. The movie was directed by John Badham and stars Roy Scheider...
and Tough Enough
Tough Enough (film)
Tough Enough is a 1983 film directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Dennis Quaid, Pam Grier, Warren Oates and Stan Shaw.-Plot synopsis:A down-on-his-luck country & western singer from Fort Worth enters a "toughman" competition to help pay his family's bills. Surprisingly, he does well against the...
(both released in 1983
1983 in film
-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...
), were posthumously dedicated to him. Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
's film Iguana
Iguana (film)
Iguana is a 1988 film directed by Monte Hellman....
ends with the titles "For Warren" as a dedication.
Legacy
Today, the actor has a dedicated cult followingCult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
due to his memorable performances in not only Peckinpah's films, but Monte Hellman's
Monte Hellman
Monte Hellman is an American film director, producer, and film editor.Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films...
independent works, his films with Peter Fonda and a number of B-movies from the 1970s. His occasionally crude facade, likeable persona and uncommon presence are admired by such filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
and Richard Linklater
Richard Linklater
-Early life:Linklater was born in Houston, Texas. He studied at Sam Houston State University and left midway through his stint in college to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. While working on the rig he read a lot of literature, but on land he developed a love of film through...
. During a recent screening of Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971...
, Linklater introduced the film and announced 16 reasons why viewers should love the 1971
1971 in film
The year 1971 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 8 - Bob Dylan's hour long documentary film, Eat the Document, premieres at New York's Academy of Music...
movie. His sixth reason was "Because there was once a god who walked the Earth named Warren Oates."
The documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Warren Oates: Across the Border was produced by Tom Thurman
Tom Thurman
Tom Thurman is an American filmmaker. Thurman has produced and directed numerous independent documentaries on film, music, and literary figures, including Nick Nolte, Warren Oates, Harry Crews, John Ford, and Sam Peckinpah.-Early career:Thurman received a bachelor's degree in 1984 from Centre...
in 1993 in tribute to the actor's career.
Oates was again recognized in March 2009 with the first-ever biography of his colorful life. Featuring interviews with the late actor's former wives, children, and friends, Warren Oates: A Wild Life, was written by Susan Compo. It has received much acclaim from fans and critics alike.
Films
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Up Periscope Up Periscope Up Periscope is a 1959 World War II drama starring James Garner as a Navy frogman fighting the Japanese. The supporting cast includes Edmond O'Brien, Andra Martin, and Alan Hale, Jr.. The film was written by Richard H. Landau and Robb White from White's novel, produced by Aubrey Schenk, and... |
Seaman Kovacs | Film Debut Uncredited |
| Yellowstone Kelly Yellowstone Kelly Yellowstone Kelly is a 1959 Warner Bros Western Technicolor movie based upon a novel by Heck Allen, with a screenplay by Burt Kennedy starring Clint Walker as Yellowstone Luther Kelly, and directed by Gordon Douglas... |
Corporal | First Credited Role | |
| 1960 | The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond | Eddie Diamond | |
| Private Property | Boots | ||
| 1962 | Guns in the Afternoon | Henry Hammond | |
| Hero's Island | Wayte Giddens | ||
| 1964 | West of Montana | Jace | |
| 1965 | The Rounders The Rounders (1965 film) The Rounders is a lighthearted 1965 film starring Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda. The comedy was based on the novel of the same name by Max Evans.-Plot:... |
Harley Williams | Also played uncredited cowboy |
| Major Dundee Major Dundee Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It starred Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposing sides in the American Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apaches.... |
O.W. Haldey | ||
| 1966 | Return of the Seven Return of the Seven Return of the Seven , is the first sequel to the 1960 western, The Magnificent Seven. Made in 1966, Yul Brynner is the sole returning cast member from the first film, portraying Chris Adams.... |
Colbee | |
| 1967 | Killer on a Horse | Leo Jenks | |
| In the Heat of the Night | Sam Wood | ||
| 1968 | The Shooting The Shooting The Shooting is a 1966 western film directed by Monte Hellman, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman . It stars Warren Oates, Millie Perkins, Will Hutchins, and Jack Nicholson, and was produced by Nicholson and Hellman. The story is about two men who are hired by a mysterious woman to accompany her... |
Willett Gashade | |
| The Split The Split The Split is a 1968 film directed by Gordon Flemyng and written by Robert Sabaroff based upon the novel by Donald E. Westlake.-Plot synopsis:... |
Marty Gough | ||
| Something for a Lonely Man Something for a Lonely Man Something for a Lonely Man is a made-for-television western movie. It was first broadcast in 1968; NBC aired it a second time on December 9, 1969.-Plot:... |
Angus Duren | Television Movie | |
| 1969 | Lanton Mills Lanton Mills Lanton Mills is a rarely seen seventeen-minute comedy written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton, Paula Mandel and Terrence Malick. It was completed in 1969, while he was a student at the American Film Institute. The story concerns two cowboys plotting... |
Short | |
| Smith! Smith! Smith! is a Western Film, starring Glenn Ford and directed by Michael O'Herlihy.- Plot :Native American Jimmyboy flees to the ranch owned by Smith , a white man raised by a Native American. Jimmyboy has been accused of a crime by a white man and fears he will not receive a fair trial... |
Walter Charlie | ||
| Crooks and Coronets Crooks and Coronets Crooks and Coronets is a 1969 British crime comedy film and/or heist movie written and directed by Jim O'Connolly. It starred Telly Savalas, Edith Evans, Warren Oates, Cesar Romero and Harry H... |
Marty Miller | ||
| The Wild Bunch The Wild Bunch The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913... |
Lyle Gorch | ||
| 1970 | The Movie Murderer | Alfred Fisher | Television Movie |
| Barquero | Jake (Jacob) Remy, Gang Leader | ||
| There Was a Crooked Man... There Was a Crooked Man... There Was a Crooked Man... is a 1970 western comedy starring Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The film follows Paris Pitman , a charismatic criminal who ends up in jail, and his attempts to escape the prison of warden Lopeman... |
Floyd Moon | ||
| 1971 | Two-Lane Blacktop Two-Lane Blacktop Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971... |
G.T.O | |
| The Hired Hand The Hired Hand The Hired Hand is a 1971 American western film directed by Peter Fonda, with a screenplay by Alan Sharp. The film stars Fonda, Warren Oates, and Verna Bloom. The cinematography was by Vilmos Zsigmond, and Bruce Langhorne provided the moody film score. The story is about a man who returns to his... |
Arch Harris | ||
| The Reluctant Heroes of Hill 656 | Cpl. Leroy Sprague | Television Movie | |
| Chandler | Chandler | ||
| 1972 | A Job for Mr. Banks | Mr. Elwood Colby Banks | Nominated Saturn Award for Best Actor Saturn Award for Best Actor The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed, who felt that films within those genres... |
| 1973 | The Thief Who Came to Dinner The Thief Who Came to Dinner The Thief Who Came to Dinner is a 1973 comedy film directed by Bud Yorkin and based on the novel by Terrence Lore Smith. The film stars Ryan O'Neal and Jacqueline Bisset, with Charles Cioffi, Warren Oates, and in an early appearance, Jill Clayburgh.... |
Dave | |
| Tom Sawyer | Muff Potter | ||
| Dillinger Dillinger (1973 film) Dillinger is a 1973 gangster film about the life and criminal exploits of notorious bank robber John Dillinger.It stars Warren Oates as Dillinger and Ben Johnson as his pursuer, FBI Agent Melvin Purvis. The film, narrated by Purvis, chronicles the last few years of Dillinger's life as the FBI and... |
John Dillinger | Saturn Award for Best Actor Saturn Award for Best Actor The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed, who felt that films within those genres... |
|
| Kid Blue Kid Blue Kid Blue is a 1973 film directed by James Frawley and starring Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Peter Boyle and Ben Johnson-Plot:Bickford Waner arrives in Dime Box, Texas to find work. He's befriended by Reese Ford and his wife Molly . Molly seduces Bickford... |
Reese Ford | ||
| Badlands Badlands (film) Badlands is a 1973 American crime drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri are also featured. Malick has a small speaking part although he does not receive an acting credit... |
Father | ||
| 1974 | The White Dawn The White Dawn The White Dawn is a Canadian film, released in 1974, and directed by Philip Kaufman and stars Warren Oates, Timothy Bottoms, and Louis Gossett, Jr. It portrays the conflict between aboriginal peoples' traditional way of life and Europeans' eagerness to take advantage of them. The film employs... |
Billy | |
| Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates.... |
Bennie | ||
| Cockfighter Cockfighter Cockfighter is a 1974 film by director Monte Hellman, starring Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton and featuring Laurie Bird and Ed Begley, Jr. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford... |
Frank Mansfield | ||
| 1975 | Rancho Deluxe Rancho Deluxe Rancho Deluxe is a comedy western film that was directed by Frank Perry and released in 1975. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston star as two cattle rustlers in modern-day Montana who plague a wealthy ranch owner, played by Clifton James.... |
Hamonica played in bar | Uncredited |
| Race with the Devil Race with the Devil Race with the Devil is a 1975 occult thriller and action film starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit and Lara Parker. This was the second of three films Fonda and Oates would star in together... |
Frank Stewart | ||
| 92 in the Shade | Nichol Dance | ||
| 1976 | Dixie Dynamite | Mack | |
| Drum Drum (1976 film) Drum is the 1976 sequel to the film Mandingo, and released by United Artists. Starring Warren Oates, Pam Grier , and Ken Norton and directed by Steve Carver, it parodies nineteenth century American slavery like its predecessor... |
Hammond Maxwell | ||
| 1977 | American Rasberry | Celebrity Sportsman | |
| The African Queen | Capt. Charlie Allnut | Television Movie | |
| Sleeping Dogs | Col. Willoughby | ||
| 1978 | True Grit: A Further Adventure True Grit: A Further Adventure True Grit: A Further Adventure is a 1978 television film sequel to the films True Grit and Rooster Cogburn.While John Wayne played the role of Rooster Cogburn in the first two films, Warren Oates played him in this 1978 television film.-Plot:... |
Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn | Television Movie |
| Amore, piombo e furore | Matthew Sebanek | ||
| The Brink's Job The Brink's Job The Brink's Job is a 1978 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery in Boston, where almost 3 million dollars were stolen.... |
Specs O'Keefe | ||
| 1979 | And Baby Makes Six | Michael Kramer | Television Movie |
| My Old Man My Old Man (film) My Old Man is a 1979 television film directed by John Erman. The film is based on an Ernest Hemingway story that had previously been adapted for the 1950 film Under My Skin.-Plot:... |
Frank Butler | Television Movie | |
| 1941 1941 (film) 1941 is a 1979 period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and featuring an ensemble cast including John Belushi, Ned Beatty, John Candy, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee and Dan Aykroyd... |
Colonel "Madman" Maddox | Nominated BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Best Actor in a Supporting Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding supporting performance in a film... |
|
| 1980 | Baby Comes Home | Michael Kramer | Television Movie |
| 1981 | 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... |
Sgt. Hulka | |
| 1982 | The Border | Red | |
| 1983 | Blue Thunder Blue Thunder Blue Thunder is a 1983 feature film that features a high-tech helicopter of the same name. The movie was directed by John Badham and stars Roy Scheider... |
Captain Jack Braddock | Released Posthumously |
| Tough Enough Tough Enough (film) Tough Enough is a 1983 film directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Dennis Quaid, Pam Grier, Warren Oates and Stan Shaw.-Plot synopsis:A down-on-his-luck country & western singer from Fort Worth enters a "toughman" competition to help pay his family's bills. Surprisingly, he does well against the... |
James Neese | Released Posthumously |
TV
- Tales of the UnexpectedTales of the UnexpectedTales of the Unexpected may refer to:*Tales of the Unexpected , a 1950s-1960s comic book*Tales of the Unexpected , a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl...
(1985) - One Episode...as Harry - The Blue and the Gray (1982) - Mini Series...as Major "Preacher" Welles
- East of EdenEast of Eden (TV series)East of Eden is a South Korean drama produced by Chorokbaem Media. MBC labeled it as their 47th Anniversary Special Project Drama. Twenty-five billion won was spent on the production of East of Eden.-Summary:...
(1981) - Mini Series...as Cyrus Trask - InsightInsight (TV series)Insight was an Emmy-winning syndicated television series produced by Paulist Productions that aired 250 episodes from 1960 to 1983. The series presented half-hour dramas illuminating the contemporary search for meaning, freedom, and love...
(1979) - One Episode - Police Story (1978) - One Episode...as Richey Neptune
- Black Beauty (1978) - Mini Series...Jerry Barker
- The Name of the GameThe Name of the Game"The Name of the Game" is a 1977 song by Swedish pop group ABBA, and was released as the first single from the group's fifth studio album, The Album...
(1971) - One Episode...John Lew Weatherford - The F.B.I. (1971) - One Episode...Richie Billings
- LancerLancerA lancer was a type of cavalryman who fought with a lance. Lances were used in mounted warfare by the Assyrians as early as and subsequently by Greek, Persian, Gallic, Han-Chinese, nomadic and Roman horsemen...
(1969–70) - Two Episodes...Sheriff Val "Drago" Crawford - Disneyland (1968) - Two Episodes...John Blythe
- Run for Your LifeRun for Your Life (TV series)Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only a short time to live. It ran on NBC from 1965 to 1968. The series was created by Roy Huggins, who had previously explored the "man on the move" concept with The Fugitive.-Synopsis:Gazzara plays lawyer...
(1968) - One Episode...Deputy Potter - Cimarron StripCimarron StripCimarron 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...
(1967) - Two Episodes...Mobeetie - The Iron HorseThe Iron HorseThe Iron Horse is an American Western television series that appeared on ABC from 1966 to 1968. It featured Dale Robertson as fictional gambler-turned-railroad baron Ben Calhoun...
(1967) - One Episode...Hode Avery - Dundee and the CulhaneDundee and the CulhaneDundee and the Culhane is a Western television series starring John Mills and Sean Garrison that aired on the CBS television network from September 7 to December 13, 1967....
(1967) - One Episode...Lafe Doolin - The Big ValleyThe Big ValleyThe Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
(1965–66) - Two Episodes...Korby "Duke" Kyles - ShaneShane (TV series)Shane is an American Western television series based on the 1949 book of the same name by Jack Schaefer . The series was created by Herschel Daugherty and Gary Nelson, and starred David Carradine as the title character...
(1966) - One Episode...Kemp Spicer - The MonroesThe 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,...
(1966) - One Episode...Nick Beresford - The VirginianThe 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...
(1963–66) - Four Episodes...Corbie/Roy Judd/Bowers/Buxton - Stoney BurkeStoney Burke (TV series)Stoney Burke is a short-lived Western television series broadcast on the ABC television network from October 1, 1962 until May 20, 1963. The series starred Jack Lord, who would later go on to star in the popular television series, Hawaii Five-O....
(1962–1963) - 11 episodes...Ves Painter [Oates' only regular role on a television series] - BonanzaBonanzaBonanza 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...
(1962) - One episode...The Mountain Girl - Lost In SpaceLost in SpaceLost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968...
(1965) - One episode...Welcome Stranger - RawhideRawhide (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...
(1960–1965) - 4 episodes - GunsmokeGunsmokeGunsmoke 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....
(1958–67) - 10 Episodes...Al Tresh/Chris Kelly/Deke Bassop/Speeler/Lafe/Tate Crocker - Twelve O'Clock HighTwelve O'Clock High (TV series)Twelve O'Clock High or 12 O'Clock High is an American drama series set in World War II. This TV series originally broadcasted on ABC-TV for two-and-one-half TV seasons from September 18, 1964, through January 13, 1967; was based on the motion picture Twelve O'Clock High...
(1965) Lt. Col. Temple - "The RiflemanThe RiflemanThe 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...
" (1962) - One Episode - "The Day of Reckoning"...Willie Breen