Willis Ben Bouchey was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films and television shows. He was born in Vernon, Michigan

Vernon, Michigan

Vernon is a village in Shiawassee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 847 at the 2000 census. The village is located within Vernon Township.-Geography:...

, but reared by his mother and stepfather in Washington State.

Bouchey may be best-known for his appearances in The Horse Soldiers

The Horse Soldiers

The Horse Soldiers is a 1959 DeLuxe Color war film, set in the American Civil War, directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne, William Holden and Constance Towers...

, The Long Gray Line

The Long Gray Line

The Long Gray Line is a 1955 American drama film directed by John Ford based on the life of Marty Maher. Tyrone Power stars as the scrappy Irish immigrant whose 50-year career at West Point took him from dishwasher to non-commissioned officer and athletic instructor.Maureen O'Hara, one of Ford's...

, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a 1962 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring James Stewart and John Wayne. The black-and-white film was released by Paramount Pictures. The screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck was adapted from a short story written by Dorothy M...

, The Big Heat

The Big Heat

The Big Heat is a 1953 film noir directed by Fritz Lang, starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Lee Marvin. It is about a cop who takes on the crime syndicate that controls his city after the brutal murder of his beloved wife. The film was written by former crime reporter Sydney Boehm based on a...

, No Name on the Bullet

No Name on the Bullet

No Name on the Bullet is a 1959 western film. It is one of a handful of pictures in that genre directed by Jack Arnold, better known for his science-fiction movies of the era...

, and Suddenly

Suddenly (1954 film)

Suddenly is an American film noir  directed by Lewis Allen with a screenplay written by Richard Sale. The drama features Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, James Gleason and Nancy Gates, among others....

. He also made uncredited appearances in 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...

, How the West Was Won

How the West Was Won (film)

How the West Was Won is a 1962 American epic Western film. The picture was one of the last "old-fashioned" epic films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to enjoy great success. It follows four generations of a family as they move ever westward, from western New York state to the Pacific Ocean...

, Them!, and A Star is Born

A Star Is Born (1954 film)

A Star Is Born is a 1954 American musical film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay written by Moss Hart was an adaptation of the original 1937 film, which was based on the original screenplay by Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell...

. Bouchey appeared twice as Joe Carr in the 1960-1961 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...

 sitcom, Harrigan and Son

Harrigan and Son

Harrigan and Son is an ABC sitcom about a father-and-son team of lawyers, played by Pat O'Brien and Roger Perry as Jim Harrigan, Sr., and Jim, Jr. In supporting roles, as secretaries, are Georgine Darcy as Gypsy and Helen Kleeb as Miss Claridge. The series aired 34 episodes at 8 p.m. Eastern Time...

, starring Pat O'Brien

Pat O'Brien (actor)

Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...

 and Roger Perry

Roger Perry

Roger Perry is an American film and television actor whose career began in the late 1950s.In the 1960-1961 television season, Perry portrayed a handsome young attorney, Jim Harrigan, Jr., in the ABC and Desilu Studios sitcom Harrigan and Son, with co-stars Pat O'Brien, Helen Kleeb, and Georgine...

. He played the judge in 23 episodes of 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...

 and again with Raymond Burr

Raymond Burr

Raymond William Stacey Burr was a Canadian actor, primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. His early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television and in film, usually as the villain...

 in an episode of Ironside

Ironside (TV series)

Ironside is a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-using Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967. The original title of the show in the...

.

Throughout his career, he worked in twelve different productions for director John Ford

John Ford

John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...

 and was one of the more frequently-used members of the John Ford Stock Company

John Ford Stock Company

The John Ford Stock Company is the name given to the large collection of actors used repeatedly in the films of American director John Ford. Most famous among these was John Wayne, who appeared in twenty-four films and three television episodes for the director...

. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance he delivered the line, "Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance."

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