Sam Elliott

For the actor Samuel L. Elliot, see his stage name, Samuel Page.

Sam Elliott
Elliott at the Veterans Day Ceremonies at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, November 2001
Born	Samuel Pack Elliott (1944-08-09) August 9, 1944 Sacramento, California, United States
Other names	Kyle Peterson
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1968–present
Spouse(s)	Katharine Ross (1984–present)

Samuel Pack "Sam" Elliott (born August 9, 1944) is an American actor. His rangy physique, thick horseshoe moustache, deep, resonant voice, and Western drawl lend to frequent casting as cowboys and ranchers.

Early life

Sam Elliott was born in Sacramento, California, to a physical training instructor mother and a father who worked for the Department of the Interior. He moved from California to Oregon with his family during his teenage years, where he graduated from David Douglas High School in Portland. He attended Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, where he completed a two-year program and was cast as one of the leads in Guys and Dolls. The local newspaper suggested that Elliott should be a professional actor. Soon after, Elliott declared he was going to Hollywood to become a star. Elliott is a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at Cal State L.A.. He worked in construction while studying acting in Los Angeles. Elliott also lived for a short time in Princeton, West Virginia.

Career

Elliott began his career as a character actor; his appearance, voice and bearing were ideally suited to Westerns. One of his first film roles was as 'Card Player #2' in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

In 1970-71, Sam Elliott starred as Doug Robert in the hit TV series Mission: Impossible, and played the lead character Sam Damon in Once an Eagle, an NBC miniseries during the 1976-77 season. He also had the starring role as Rick Carlson in the summer sleeper, "Lifeguard" (1976). In 1979, he played the oldest brother in the made-for-TV miniseries The Sacketts, also starring Tom Selleck, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Glenn Ford, Ruth Roman, Mercedes McCambridge, Jack Elam, and Gilbert Roland, among others. He later played a wife killer in the miniseries Murder in Texas (1981) and A Death in California (1985). He has made guest appearances on shows such as Felony Squad, Gunsmoke, Lancer and Hawaii Five-O and has been featured in many TV movies, including Buffalo Girls Also he was in Prancer in (1989) (1995) in which he played Wild Bill Hickok. In 1998, Elliot was named the grand marshal of the Calgary Stampede parade and rode in the procession before 300,000 spectators. He has also starred in Road House (1989) with Patrick Swayze and played Virgil Earp in Tombstone (1993), which starred Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer.

Elliott co-starred in We Were Soldiers, which is based on the book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, portraying Sgt. Maj. Basil L. Plumley. He also played General John Buford in the 1993 film Gettysburg.

Elliott played "The Stranger", a character narrating the story of The Big Lebowski (1998). In 2005 he appeared in Thank You For Smoking where he played a former Marlboro Man advertisement cowboy who has developed lung-cancer. Elliot joined Nicolas Cage in 2007 in the popular Ghost Rider, and stood out in another film the same year, in The Golden Compass as a key character, Lee Scoresby. In 2009, Elliott had a small role in Up In The Air in which he portrayed the Captain of an American Airlines jet.

Elliott has performed voice-over narration for various commercials. He has lent his voice to campaigns for Dodge, IBM, Kinney Drugs, Union Pacific, and, most notably, the American Beef Council, succeeding Robert Mitchum in the latter. Since late 2007, Elliott has done voice-overs for Coors beer, bringing his deep, rich voice and "western" appeal to the brand brewed in Colorado. In 2010, Dodge hired Elliott to do the voice-over for their Ram Heavy Duty truck commercial. He is also the new voice for Smokey Bear ("Only YOU can prevent wildfires"). Coincidentally, Elliott and "Smokey" share the same birthday (the U.S. Forest Service recognizes this as Smokey's "birthdate"). He lent his voice to "Buster" (a.k.a. Chupadogra) in Marmaduke (2010). He also narrated the opening of the Super Bowl introductions, in 2011 Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas. He has a supporting role in the forthcoming film The Company You Keep.

Personal life

Elliott married actress Katharine Ross in 1984. Although Ross starred in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in which Elliott had a very small role, the two did not meet and begin dating until 1978 when they both starred with Roger Daltrey in The Legacy. He and Ross have a daughter, Cleo Rose Elliott, born in 1984, who is now a musician in Malibu. In March 2011, Ross got a restraining order against her daughter after she allegedly stabbed Ross repeatedly with a pair of scissors.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1969	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	Card Player #2
1972	Frogs	Pickett Smith
1976	Lifeguard	Rick Carlson
1978	The Legacy	Pete Danner
1985	Mask	Gar
1987	Fatal Beauty	Mike Marshak
1988	Shakedown	Richie Marks
1988	Blue Jean Cop	Richie Marks
1989	Prancer	John Riggs
1989	Road House	Wade Garrett
1990	Sibling Rivalry	Charles Turner Jr.
1991	Rush	Dodd
1993	Tombstone	Virgil Earp
1993	Gettysburg	Brigadier General John Buford
1995	Final Cut	John Pierce
1995	The Desperate Trail		direct to video film
1996	Dog Watch	Charlie Falon	direct to video film
1998	The Big Lebowski	The Stranger
1998	The Hi-Lo Country	Jim Ed Love
2000	The Contender	Kermit Newman
2001	Pretty When You Cry	Detective Lukas Black
2002	We Were Soldiers	Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley
2003	Hulk	General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross
2003	Off the Map	Charley
2006	Barnyard: The Original Party Animals	Ben the cow	voice only
2006	Thank You for Smoking	Lorne Lutch
2006	The Alibi	The Mormon
2007	Ghost Rider	The Caretaker / Carter Slade
2007	The Golden Compass	Lee Scoresby
2009	Did You Hear About the Morgans?	Clay Wheeler
2009	Up in the Air	Maynard Finch	Nominated - Critics Choice Award for Best Acting Ensemble Nominated - Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble
2010	Marmaduke	Chupadogra	voice only
2011	The Big Bang	Simon Kestral

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1970	The Challenge	Bryant	Television film
1971	Assault on the Wayne	Ensign William 'Bill' Sandover	(TV movie)
1972	Gunsmoke	Corey Soames
1972	Molly and Lawless John	Johnny Lawler	(TV movie)
1973	The Blue Knight	Detective Charlie Bronski	(TV movie)
1974	The Two-Faced Corpse	Jack Houston	(TV movie)
1974	Evel Knievel	Evel Knievel	(TV movie)
1975	I Will Fight No More Forever	Captain Wood	(TV movie)
1976	Once an Eagle	Sam Damon	TV miniseries
1977	Aspen	Tom Keating	(TV movie)
1979	The Sacketts	Tell Sackett	(TV movie)
1980	Wild Times	Hugh Cardiff	(TV movie)
1981	Murder in Texas	Dr. John Hill	(TV movie)
1982	The Shadow Riders	Dal Traven	(TV movie)
1983	The Yellow Rose	Chance McKenzie
1983	Travis McGee		(TV movie)
1985	A Death in California	D. Jordan Williams	TV miniseries
1986	Gone to Texas	Sam Houston	(TV movie)
1987	The Quick and the Dead	Con Vallian	(TV movie)
1991	Conagher	Conn Conagher	(TV movie) Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV
1993	Fugitive Nights: Danger in the Desert	Lyn Cutter	(TV movie)
1995	The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky	Bill Bell	(TV movie)
1995	Buffalo Girls	Wild Bill Hickock	(TV movie) Nominated - Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV
1995	Blue River	Henry Howland	(TV movie)
1996	Woman Undone	Ross Bishop	(TV movie)
1997	Rough Riders	Capt. Bucky O'Neil	(TV movie)
1998	Texarkana		(TV movie)
1999	You Know My Name	Bill Tilghman	(TV movie)
2000	Fail Safe	Congressman Raskob	(TV movie)
2006	Avenger	Calvin Dexter	(TV movie)
2010	November Christmas	Jess Sanford	(TV movie)

External links

• Sam Elliott at IMDb
• Murder in Texas, movie trailer
• A Tribute to Sam Elliott, fansite
• Where have you gone, Grizzly Adams?, a Los Angeles Times article on the Sam Elliott cowboy stereotype