Wild Bill Elliott

• Name — Wild Bill Elliott • Birth Name — Gordon Nance • Born — 16 October 1904 • Birthplace — Pattonsburg, Missouri, U.S. • Died — 26 November 1965 • Place of death — Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. • Other Names — Gordon Elliott, William Elliott, Bill Elliott • Occupation — actor • Years Active — 1925–1957

Elliott was born Gordon Nance on a ranch near Pattonsburg, Missouri, the son of Leroy Whitfield Nance, a cattle broker, and his wife, Maude Myrtle Auldridge. The young Nance grew up within 20 miles of his birthplace; he spent most of his youth on a ranch near King City, Missouri. His father was a cattle rancher and commissioner buyer for the Kansas City stockyards. Riding and roping were part of Nance's upbringing. He won first place in a rodeo event in the 1920 American Royal livestock show. He briefly attended Rockhurst College, a Jesuit school in Kansas City, but soon left for California, hoping to become an actor.

• Illustration — Elliott starred in the 1952 Western Fargo. By 1925, he was getting occasional extra work in films. He took classes at the Pasadena Playhouse and appeared in a few stage roles there. By 1927, he had made his first Western, The Arizona Wildcat, playing his first featured role. Several co-starring roles followed, and he renamed himself Gordon Elliott, but as the studios transitioned to sound films, he slipped back into roles as an extra and bit parts, as in Broadway Scandals in 1929. For the next eight years, he appeared in over 100 films for various studios, but almost always in unbilled parts as an extra. Elliott began to be noticed in some minor B Westerns, enough that Columbia Pictures offered him the title role in a serial, The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938). The serial was so successful, and Elliott so personable, that Columbia promoted him to starring in his own series of Western features, replacing Columbia's number-two cowboy star, Robert "Tex" Allen. Henceforth, Gordon Elliott was known as Bill Elliott. Within two years, he was among the Motion Picture Heralds top-10 Western stars, where he would remain for the next 15 years. In 1943, Elliott signed with Republic Pictures, which cast him in a series of Westerns alongside George "Gabby" Hayes. The first of these, Calling Wild Bill Elliott, gave Elliott the name by which he would be best known and by which he would be billed almost exclusively for the rest of his career. Following several films in which both actor and character shared the name Wild Bill Elliott, he took the role for which he would be best remembered, that of Red Ryder in a series of 16 movies about the famous comic-strip cowboy and his young Indian companion, Little Beaver (played in Elliott's films by Robert Blake). Elliott played the role for only two years but would forever be associated with it. Elliott's trademark was a pair of six guns worn butt-forward in their holsters. Elliott's career thrived during and after the Red Ryder films. He continued making B Westerns into the early 1950s and had his own radio show in the late 1940s. In an interview with Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr., Johnson recalls teaching many actors, including Elliott, to ride a horse. Elliott didn't just learn to ride a horse, but also asked many questions about style and technique. According to Johnson, Elliott became an excellent horseman in his own right while other actors "looked like a sack of walnuts on a horse." His final contract as a Western star was with Monogram Pictures, where budgets declined as the B Western lost its audience to television. When Monogram became Allied Artists Pictures Corporation in 1953, it phased out its Western productions, and Elliott finished his contract playing a homicide detective in a series of five modern police dramas, his first non-Westerns since 1938. Elliott retired from films (except for a few TV Western pilots, which were not picked up). He worked as a spokesman for Viceroy cigarettes and hosted a local TV program in Las Vegas, Nevada, featuring many of his Western films.

Elliott married Helen Josephine Meyers in February 1927. Their daughter, Barbara Helen Nance, was born October 14, 1927. Elliott and his wife were divorced in 1961. He married Dolly (Herbst) Moore that same year. Following his retirement in 1957, he moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he bought a ranch. He died there from lung cancer on November 26, 1965, aged 61. His ashes are interred in the Eternity Mausoleum at Palm Downtown Mortuary/Cemetery on Main Street in Las Vegas. His wife Dolly is interred in The Lower Devotion Mausoleum in the same cemetery.

(His 3 serials and 16 Red Ryder films are noted below) • The Plastic Age (1925) (uncredited) • The Shamrock Handicap (1926) (uncredited) • Beyond London Lights (1928) • Restless Youth (1928) • The Passion Song (1928) • Smart Woman (1931) (uncredited) • Consolation Marriage (1931) (uncredited) • Left Over Ladies (1931) • The Final Edition (1932) • Cocktail Hour (1933) (uncredited) • The Goose and the Gander (1935) • Moonlight on the Prairie (1935) • Trailin' West (1936) • Boots and Saddles (1937) as Neil • Wife, Doctor and Nurse (1937) • The Lady in the Morgue (1938) • The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938) Serial • In Early Arizona (1938) • Frontiers of '49 (1939) • Lone Star Pioneers (1939) • The Law Comes to Texas (1939) • Overland with Kit Carson (1939) Serial • The Taming of the West (1939) • Pioneers of the Frontier (1940) • The Man from Tumbleweeds (1940) • The Return of Wild Bill (1940) • Prairie Schooners (1940) • Beyond the Sacramento (1940) • The Wildcat of Tucson (1940) • Across the Sierras (1941) • North from the Lone Star (1941) • The Return of Daniel Boone (1941) • Hands Across the Rockies (1941) • The Son of Davy Crockett (1941) • King of Dodge City (1941) • Roaring Frontiers (1941) • The Lone Star Vigilantes (1942) • Bullets for Bandits (1942) • North of the Rockies (1942) • The Devil's Trail (1942) • Prairie Gunsmoke (1942) • Vengeance of the West (1942) • The Valley of Vanishing Men (1942) Serial • Calling Wild Bill Elliott (1943) • The Man from Thunder River (1943) • Wagon Tracks West (1943) • Bordertown Gun Fighters (1943) • Death Valley Manhunt (1943) • Tucson Raiders (1944) featuring Red Ryder • Marshal of Reno (1944) featuring Red Ryder • The San Antonio Kid (1944) featuring Red Ryder • Cheyenne Wildcat (1944) featuring Red Ryder • Vigilantes of Dodge City (1944) featuring Red Ryder • Sheriff of Las Vegas (1944) featuring Red Ryder • Great Stagecoach Robbery (1945) featuring Red Ryder • Lone Texas Ranger (1945) featuring Red Ryder • Phantom of the Plains (1945) featuring Red Ryder • Marshal of Laredo (1945) featuring Red Ryder • Colorado Pioneers (1945) featuring Red Ryder • Wagon Wheels Westward (1945) featuring Red Ryder • California Gold Rush (1946) featuring Red Ryder • Sheriff of Redwood Valley (1946) featuring Red Ryder • Sun Valley Cyclone (1946) featuring Red Ryder • Conquest of Cheyenne (1946) featuring Red Ryder • Plainsman and the Lady (1946) • Wyoming (1947) • The Fabulous Texan (1947) • Old Los Angeles (1948) • The Gallant Legion (1948) • Hellfire (1949) • The Last Bandit (1949) • The Savage Horde (1950) • The Showdown (1950) • The Longhorn (1951) • Fargo (1952) • Waco (1952) • Kansas Territory (1952) • The Maverick (1952) • The Homesteaders (1953) • Rebel City (1953) • Topeka (1953) • Vigilante Terror (1953) • The Forty-Niners (1954) • Dial Red O (1955) • Sudden Danger (1955) • Calling Homicide (1956) • Chain of Evidence (1957) • Footsteps in the Night (1957)