Denver Pyle(1920-1997)
- Actor
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
A rather wanderlust fellow before he latched onto acting, Denver
Pyle--who made a career of playing drawling, somewhat slow Southern
types--was actually born in Colorado in 1920, to a farming family. He
attended a university for a time but dropped out to become a drummer.
When that didn't pan out he drifted from job to job, doing everything
from working the oil fields in Oklahoma to the shrimp boats in Texas.
In 1940 he moseyed off to Los Angeles and briefly found employment as a
(somewhat unlikely) NBC page. That particular career was interrupted by
World War II, and Pyle enlisted in the navy. Wounded in the battle of
Guadalcanal, he received a medical discharge in 1943. Working for an
aircraft plant in Los Angeles as a riveter, the rangy actor was
introduced to the entertainment field after receiving a role in an
amateur theater production and getting spotted by a talent scout.
Training with such renowned teachers as
Maria Ouspenskaya and
Michael Chekhov, he made his film debut
in
The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947).
Pyle went on to roles in hundreds of film and TV parts, bringing a
touch of Western authenticity to many of his roles. A minor villain or
sidekick in the early 1950s, he often received no billing. Prematurely
white-haired (a family trait), he became a familiar face on episodes of
Gunsmoke (1955) and
Bonanza (1959) and also developed a
close association with actor
John Wayne, appearing in many of
Wayne's later films, including
The Horse Soldiers (1959),
The Alamo (1960),
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
and
Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973).
Pyle's more important movie roles came late in his career. One of his
most memorable was in
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) as Texas
Ranger Frank Hamer, the handcuffed hostage of the duo, who spits in
Bonnie's (Faye Dunaway) face after she
coyly poses with him for a camera shot. He settled easily into
hillbilly/mountain men types in his later years and became a household
face for his crotchety presence in
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1977)
and, especially,
The Dukes of Hazzard (1979).
He died of lung cancer at age 77.
