Bob Steele
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Bob Steele (January 23, 1907 - December 21, 1988) was an American actor. He was born Robert Adrian Bradbury in Portland, Oregon, into a vaudeville family. After years of touring, the family settled down in Hollywood in the late 1910s, where his father, Robert N. Bradbury, soon found work in the movies, first as an actor, later as a director, and by 1920, he hired Bob and his twin broth
Bob's career began to take off for good in 1927, when he was hired by production company Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) to star in a series of Westerns. Bob—who was rechristened Bob Steele at FBO—soon made a name for himself, and in the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s starred in B-Westerns for almost every minor film studio, including Monogram, Supreme, Tiffany, Syndicate, Republic (including several films of the Three Mesquiteers series) and Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) (including the initial films of their "Billy the Kid" series), plus he had the occasional role in an A-movie, as in the adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men from 1939.
In the 1940s, Bob's career as a cowboy hero was on the decline, but he kept himself working by accepting supporting roles in many big movies like Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep, or the John Wayne vehicles Island in the Sky, Rio Bravo and Rio Lobo. Besides these he also made occasional appearances in science fiction films like Atomic Submarine and Giant from the Unknown and did lots of television work, culminating in a regular supporting role in the army comedy F Troop (1965–1967), which allowed him to show his comic talent. Steele played the character of Trooper Duffy who claimed to have been "shoulder to shoulder with Davy Crockett at the Alamo"-in fact Steele played in With Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo in 1926.
Bob Steele died on December 21, 1988 from emphysema after a long sickness.
Bob Steele is said to have been the inspiration for the character "Cowboy Bob" in the Dennis The Menace comic strip.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Bob Steele (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born
Jan 23, 1907
Portland, Oregon, USA
Died
Dec 21, 1988
Known For
Acting
Movies
218 acting
1 crew
Popularity
1.3
Known For
Rio Bravo
1959
as Matt Harris (uncredited)
The Shootist
1976
as Books' Victim in Flashback (archive footage / uncredited)
The Big Sleep
1946
as Lash Canino
Hang 'em High
1968
as Jenkins
Rio Lobo
1970
as Rio Lobo Deputy (uncredited)
McLintock!
1963
as Train Engineer
The Comancheros
1961
as Pa Schofield (uncredited)
Charley Varrick
1973
as Bank Guard (uncredited)
Of Mice and Men
1939
as Curley
The Enforcer
1951
as Herman
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