William Boyd (actor)

Not to be confused with William "Stage" Boyd.

William Boyd
Boyd in Chicago (circa 1950)
Born	(1895-06-05)June 5, 1895 Belmont County, Ohio. U.S.
Died	September 12, 1972(1972-09-12) (aged 77) Laguna Beach, California, U.S.
Cause of death	complications from Parkinson's disease and heart failure
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery
Occupation(s)	Actor, Producer, Director
Years active	1918–1954
Height	6'
Spouse(s)	Laura Maynard (m. 1917–1921; divorced) Ruth Miller (m. 1921–1924; divorced) Elinor Fair (m. 1926–1929; divorced) Dorothy Sebastian (m. 1930–1936; divorced) Grace Bradley (m. 1937–1972; his death)
Parent	Charles William Boyd Lida Wilkens Boyd

William Lawrence Boyd (June 5, 1895 – September 12, 1972) was an American film actor known for portraying cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy.

Boyd and "Miss Josephine" in 1931

Biography

Boyd was born in Hendrysburg Ohio. He was reared in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of day laborer Charles William Boyd and his wife, the former Lida Wilkens. Following his father's death, he moved to California and worked as an orange picker, surveyor, tool dresser and auto salesman.

In Hollywood, he found extra work in Why Change Your Wife? and other films. During World War I, he enlisted in the army but was exempt because of a "weak heart". More prominent film roles followed, and he became famous as a leading man in silent film romances, earning an annual salary of $100,000. He was the lead actor in Cecil B. DeMille's The Volga Boatman (1926) and DeMille's extravaganza, The King of Kings, helping Christ carry the cross as Simon of Cyrene and also in DeMille's Skyscraper. He then appeared in D.W. Griffith's, Lady of the Pavements (1929).

Radio Pictures ended Boyd's contract in 1931 when his picture was mistakenly run in a newspaper story about the arrest of another actor, William "Stage" Boyd, on gambling and liquor charges. Having been reckless with his money, Boyd was broke and without a job, and for a few years he was credited in several films as "Bill Boyd" to prevent being mistaken for his actor namesake.

Hopalong Cassidy

In 1935, he was offered the supporting role of Red Connors in the movie Hop-Along Cassidy, but asked to be considered for the title role and won it. The original Hopalong Cassidy character, written by Clarence E. Mulford for pulp fiction, was changed from a hard-drinking, rough-living wrangler to its eventual incarnation as a cowboy hero who did not smoke, swear, or drink alcohol (his drink of choice being sarsaparilla) and who always let the bad guy start the fight. Although Boyd "never branded a cow or mended a fence, cannot bulldog a steer", and disliked Western music, he became indelibly associated with the Hopalong character and, like rival cowboy stars Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, gained lasting fame in the Western film genre.

The films were more polished and impressive than the usual low-budget "program westerns." The Hopalong Cassidy adventures usually boasted superior outdoor photography of scenic locations, and "name" supporting players familiar from major Hollywood films. Big-city theaters, which usually wouldn't play westerns, noticed the high quality of the productions and gave the series more exposure than other cowboy films could hope for. Paramount Pictures released the films through 1941, then United Artists handled them from 1943.

Producer Harry "Pop" Sherman wanted to make more ambitious epics and abandoned the Hopalong Cassidy franchise. William Boyd, determined to keep it alive, produced the last 12 Cassidy features himself on noticeably lower budgets. By this time, interest in the character had waned and, with far fewer theaters still showing the films, the series died a quiet death in 1948.

Boyd insisted on buying the rights to all of the Hopalong Cassidy films. Harry Sherman no longer cared about the property -- he thought both the films and the star were played out -- and regarded Boyd's all-consuming interest with skepticism. Boyd was so single-minded about his mission that he sold or mortgaged almost everything he owned to meet Sherman's price of $350,000 for the rights and the film backlog.

In 1948 Boyd, now regarded as a washed-up cowboy star and with his fortunes at their lowest ebb, brought a print of one of his older pictures to the local NBC television station, and offered it at a nominal rental, hoping for new exposure. The film was received so well that NBC asked for more, and within months Boyd released the entire library to the national network, where they became extremely popular and began the long-running genre of Westerns on television. Boyd's desperate gamble paid off, making him the first national TV star and restoring his personal fortune. Like Rogers and Autry, Boyd licensed much merchandise, including such products as Hopalong Cassidy watches, trash cans, cups, dishes, Topps trading cards, a comic strip, comic books, cowboy outfits, home-movie digests of his Paramount releases via Castle Films, and a new Hopalong Cassidy radio show, which ran from 1948 to 1952.

The actor identified with his character, often dressing as a cowboy in public. Although Boyd's portrayal of Hopalong made him very wealthy, he believed that it was his duty to help strengthen his "friends" – America's youth. The actor refused to license his name for products he viewed as unsuitable or dangerous, and turned down personal appearances at which his "friends" would be charged admission.

Boyd appeared as Hopalong Cassidy on the cover of numerous national magazines, including the August 29, 1950 issue of Look and the November 27, 1950 issue of Time. For Thanksgiving in 1950, he led the Carolinas' Carrousel Parade in Charlotte, North Carolina and drew an estimated crowd of 500,000 persons, the largest in the parade's history.

Boyd had a cameo as himself in Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth. DeMille reportedly asked Boyd to take the role of Moses in his remake, The Ten Commandments, but Boyd felt his identification with the Cassidy character would make it impossible for audiences to accept him as Moses.

Personal life

Boyd was married five times, first to Laura Maynard and then to actress Ruth Yeager Miller, who played uncredited roles alongside Boyd in films during his pre-stardom acting years in the early 1920s. They divorced in 1924. In 1926, after being cast in the lead role of Cecil B. DeMille's epic melodrama, The Volga Boatman, William Boyd and his leading lady Elinor Fair met and fell in love during filming. He proposed to her during one of the love scenes, and she accepted. As soon as filming was completed, they were married in Santa Ana on January 13, 1926. With William Boyd now enjoying star-status, the popular husband and wife were naturally portrayed as the perfect couple. However, the marriage ended four years later, with rumors that Elinor was having issues with drug use, mental instability, and infidelity. Their divorce became final in November of 1930. Years after their separation, around 1936, Elinor was broke and unable to pay her medical bills, due to poor financial investments, illness, and the fact that she was no longer in demand in films. William Boyd, hearing of her difficulties, agreed to step in and help by hiring a doctor and nurse for her, as well as agreeing to pay her bills and support her financially until she was able to find work again.

During the filming of His First Command (1929), William Boyd and co-star Dorothy Sebastian met and became friends of sympathy, due to both of them recently going though marital problems: William Boyd was going through divorce, and Dorothy Sebastian had recently broken up with director Clarence Brown. The two married on December 19, 1930, making Dorothy the fourth Mrs. William Boyd. They played in several more films together during their marriage. Oddly enough, William and Dorothy had different tastes when their relationship began. While Dorothy had a flair for parties, William preferred socializing only with close friends and spending time outdoors or on his fishing boat. But as time went on, Dorothy learned to understand and love the life her husband introduced to her. Once, while still 'playing the social game', Dorothy admitted to William she thought it wasn't good that they were such hermits. For an answer, he said, "Alright, let's go dancing." As Dorothy later reflected, all that night on the town, she began to wish the two of them were just out on the fishing boat. The two of them regretfully divorced in 1936, parting friends.

The fifth and final Mrs. William Boyd was Grace Bradley. Following his retirement from the screen, Boyd invested both his time and money in real estate and moved to Palm Desert, California. He refused interviews and photographs in later years, preferring not to disillusion his millions of fans who remembered him as their screen idol.

He had a son, by third wife Fair, died aged 9 months.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1734 Vine Street. In 1995, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The inner sleeve of the original American Pie album by Don McLean featured a free verse poem written by McLean about Boyd along with a picture of Boyd in full Hopalong regalia. This sleeve was removed within a year of the album's release. The words to this poem appear on a plaque at the hospital where Boyd died.

At his death in 1972, he was survived by his fifth wife, actress Grace Bradley Boyd, who died on September 21, 2010, on her 97th birthday.

Filmography

Hopalong Cassidy TV series (1952 - 1954) - Hopalong Cassidy

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) - Hopalong Cassidy

Strange Gamble (1948) - Hopalong Cassidy

False Paradise (1948) - Hopalong Cassidy

Borrowed Trouble (1948) - Hopalong Cassidy

Sinister Journey (1948) - Hopalong Cassidy

The Dead Don't Dream (1948) - Hopalong Cassidy

Silent Conflict (1948) - Hopalong Cassidy

Hoppy's Holiday (1947) - Hopalong Cassidy

The Marauders (1947) - Hopalong Cassidy

Dangerous Venture (1947) - Hopalong Cassidy

Unexpected Guest (1947) - Hopalong Cassidy

Fool's Gold (1946) - Hopalong Cassidy

The Devil's Playground (1946) - Hopalong Cassidy

Forty Thieves (1944) - Hopalong Cassidy

Mystery Man (1944) - Hopalong Cassidy

Lumberjack (1944) - Hopalong Cassidy

Texas Masquerade (1944) - Hopalong Cassidy

Riders of the Deadline (1943) - Hopalong Cassidy

False Colors (1943) - Hopalong Cassidy

Bar 20 (1943) - Hopalong Cassidy

Colt Comrades (1943) - Hopalong Cassidy

Leather Burners (1943) - Hopalong Cassidy

Border Patrol (1943) - Hopalong Cassidy

Hoppy Serves a Writ (1943) - Hopalong Cassidy

Lost Canyon (1942) - Hopalong Cassidy

Undercover Man (1942) - Hopalong Cassidy

Secrets of the Wasteland (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Outlaws of the Desert (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Twilight on the Trail (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Riders of the Timberline (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Stick to Your Guns (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Wide Open Town (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Pirates on Horseback (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Border Vigilantes (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

In Old Colorado (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Doomed Caravan (1941) - Hopalong Cassidy

Three Men from Texas (1940) - Hopalong Cassidy

Stagecoach War (1940) - Hopalong Cassidy

Hidden Gold (1940) - Hopalong Cassidy

The Showdown (1940) - Hopalong Cassidy

Santa Fe Marshal (1940) - Hopalong Cassidy

Law of the Pampas (1939) - Hopalong Cassidy

Range War (1939) - Hopalong Cassidy

Renegade Trail (1939) - Hopalong Cassidy

Silver on the Sage (1939) - Hopalong Cassidy

The Frontiersmen (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

In Old Mexico (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

Sunset Trail (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

Pride of the West (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

Bar 20 Justice (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

Heart of Arizona (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

Cassidy of Bar 20 (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

Partners of the Plains (1938) - Hopalong Cassidy

Texas Trail (1937) - Hopalong Cassidy

Hopalong Rides Again (1937) - Hopalong Cassidy

Rustlers' Valley (1937) - Hopalong Cassidy

North of the Rio Grande (1937) - Hopalong Cassidy

Hills of Old Wyoming (1937) - Hopalong Cassidy

Borderland (1937) - Hopalong Cassidy

Trail Dust (1936) - Hopalong Cassidy

Hopalong Cassidy Returns (1936) - Hopalong Cassidy

Go-Get-'Em-Haines (1936) - Steve Haines

Burning Gold (1936) - Jim Thornton

Federal Agent (1936) - Bob Woods

Three on the Trail (1936) - Hopalong Cassidy

Call of the Prairie (1936) - Hopalong Cassidy

Heart of the West (1936) - Hopalong Cassidy

Bar 20 Rides Again (1935) - Hopalong Cassidy

Racing Luck (1935) - Dan Morgan

The Eagle's Brood (1935) - Bill Hopalong Cassidy

Hop-Along Cassidy (1935) - Bill Hopalong Cassidy

Port of Lost Dreams (1934) - Lars Christensen

Cheaters (1934) - Steve Morris

Emergency Call (1933) - Joe Bradley

Lucky Devils (1933) - Skipper Clark

Men of America (1932) - Jim Parker

Flaming Gold (1932) - Dan Manton

Carnival Boat (1932) - Buck Gannon

Main article: List of Hopalong Cassidy films

Further reading

• Boyd, Grace Bradley and Cochran, Michael (2008) Hopalong Cassidy: An American Legend Gemstone, York, Pennsylvania, ISBN 978-1-60360-066-8

External links

• William Boyd at IMDb
• William Boyd at AllMovie
• http://www.b-westerns.com/hoppy.htm
• Hopalong Cassidy Music
• Photos of William Boyd
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture entry
• elinorfair.weebly.com/biography.html
• dorothysebastian.com/SiteMap.html