William Scott "Jack" Elam (November 13, 1920Other sources cite 1916 and 1918. The year 1920 is stated on both his birth and death certificates. Arizona Certificate of Live Birth for William Scott Elam – October 20, 2003) was an American film and television actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films, and later in his career, comedies (sometimes spoofing his villainous image). His most distinguishing physical quality was his misaligned eye. Before his career in acting, he took several jobs in finance and served two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Elam performed in 73 movies and in at least 41 television series.
Early life Born on November 13, 1920, in Miami, Arizona, a small mining town located 85 miles east of Phoenix, Jack was one of two children of Millard Elam and Alice Amelia, née Kerby.Television Western Players 1960–1975: A Biographical Dictionary, Everett Aaker, McFarland Inc., 2017, p. 1926."Arizona, Birth Certificates and Indexes, 1855–1930", William Scott Elam, Miami, Gilda County, Arizona, November 13, 1920, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Arizona State Board of Health, Phoenix. Microfilm image of original birth certificate signed by attending physician Cyril M. Crow, M.D.; retrieved online via FamilySearch archives, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 2, 2022. Jack's father supported the family by working assorted jobs over the years, including stints as a carpenter, millman, and accountant."Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population Schedule", household of Millard Elam, Miami, Arizona, January 23–24, 1920; digitized image of original census page, ED [Enumeration District] 42, sheet 11B, line 85, family 257; National Archive Records Administration. Image of original census page retrieved via FamilySearch, December 11, 2022. The Elams by 1924 had moved from Miami to the nearby community of Globe, Arizona, where in September that year Alice died at the age of 40, succumbing to what state medical records cite as a three-year struggle with "general paralysis"."Arizona Deaths, 1870–1951", digital image of original death certificate of Alice Kirby Elam, September 7, 1924; Globe, Gila County, Arizona; Department of Library and Archives, Phoenix, Arizona. Image of original death certificate retrieved via FamilySearch, October 1, 2022. After their mother's death, young Jack and his older sister Mildred went to live with various family members until Millard married again in April 1928 to Kansas native Flossie Varney.McCormick, Tiffany. "Jack Elam (1920–2003)", Oregon Encyclopedia, a project of Portland State University and The Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Oregon. Retrieved December 21, 2022."Arizona, County Marriages, 1871–1964," Millard Elam and Flossie I. Varney, April 8, 1928; Maricopa, Pinal County, Arizona; microfilm copy (004251440) of original marriage license and certificate, Arizona Department of Libraries, Archives, and Public Records, Phoenix. Retrieved via FamilySearch, October 2, 2022. Federal census records show that two years later, the children, their father, stepmother, and Flossie's own mother were residing together in Globe, where Millard had a new job as an investigator for a loan company."Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930 Population Schedule", household of Millard Elam, Miami, Gila County, Arizona, April 8, 1930; digitized image of original census page, ED 42, sheet 11B, line 85, family 257; NARA. Retrieved via FamilySearch, October 2, 2022. Flossie was employed, as well, at the time as a public-school teacher, while Jack also contributed to the family's income by periodically working on nearby farms gleaning cotton.Exshaw, John (2003). "Jack Elam: Veteran baddie, he acted in more than 50 films", obituary, The Guardian (London, UK), October 28, 2003, p. 25. Retrieved via ProQuest Historical Newspapers (Ann Arbor, Michigan) through subscription at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, October 2, 2022.
Eye injury In 1931, Elam suffered a severe injury to his left eye during an altercation with another boy, an injury that ultimately blinded him in that eye and permanently damaged the muscles surrounding it.Martin, Douglas (2003). As Jack grew older, the impaired muscles caused his eye increasingly to "drift" within its socket and not track in unison with his right eye, often giving him a cock-eyed appearance. Percy Shain, a veteran film and television critic for The Boston Globe, interviewed Elam in 1974 and quoted the actor's comments about the injury: Zanuck's remarks about Elam's eye proved to be wise career advice, for despite any lifelong disadvantages that his "lazy eye" created for him personally, it proved to be an asset professionally, at least as a performer. His eye's distinctive appearance, combined with Elam's natural acting abilities, drew the attention of many casting directors of films and television series throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Education, military service, and jobs prior to acting Before becoming an actor, Elam completed his high-school education, got married, attended college, worked in a variety of jobs, and despite being blind in one eye, served two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II as a supply officer. He completed his secondary education in Arizona, graduating from Phoenix Union High School in the late 1930s and then moving to California, where he majored in "business studies" at Modesto and Santa Monica junior colleges. During that time, he was also employed in several positions before entering military service, including work as a salesman for a "house trailer agency","Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940 Population Schedule", household of Jack M. Elam, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, April 29, 1940; digitized image of original census page, Enumeration District 14, 60-1131; NARA. Retrieved via FamilySearch, December 30, 2022. as an accountant for the Standard Oil Company, a bookkeeper at the Bank of America, and a manager at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.Magers, Boyd. "Characters and Heavies: Jack Elam", Western Clippings, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Retrieved July 27, 2014.
For a few years after his discharge from the Navy, Elam continued to apply his business training as an accountant for Hopalong Cassidy Productions and as an independent auditor for Samuel Goldwyn and other moguls and companies associated with the film industry. That work required Jack to spend long hours each day reading and examining in detail large quantities of financial records, a routine that put too much strain on his right eye, his "good eye"."Jack Elam hadn't been bad for years", interview, The Baltimore Sun, July 30, 1974, p. B4. "'I only see out of one eye'", he explained in an interview published in The Baltimore Sun in 1974, "'and that eye kept going shut.'" While Elam was widely recognized in Hollywood as "a leading independent auditor in motion pictures", by 1947, he found it necessary to quit that successful occupation entirely. He added, "'I had [my right eye] operated on several times and finally the doctor said he couldn't open it any more. He told me I had to get out of the business immediately or go blind.'"
Acting career
Elam made his screen debut in 1949 in She Shoulda Said No!, an exploitation film in which a chorus girl's habitual marijuana smoking ruins her career and then drives her brother to suicide. Over the next decade as an actor, Elam continued to perform most often in gangster films and Westerns, firmly establishing himself in those genres as a reliable and memorable villain or "heavy". In fact by the end of the 1950s, various American news outlets and moviegoers were referring to him as "the screen's most loathsome character".Aikman, Bonnie (1962). "D.C. Studios: We'd Better Dig Up a Sheriff...", Evening Star (Washington, DC), December 2, 1962, p. 35. Retrieved via "Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers", Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC, January 11, 2023.
On television in the 1950s and 1960s, he made multiple guest-star appearances on many popular Western series, including The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Lawman, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Have Gun – Will Travel, Zorro, The Rebel, F Troop, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Texan, and Rawhide. In 1961, he played a slightly crazed bus passenger on The Twilight Zone episode "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?". That same year, he also portrayed the Mexican historical figure Juan Cortina in "The General Without a Cause", an episode of the anthology series Death Valley Days. In 1962, Elam appeared as Paul Henry on Lawman in the episode titled "Clootey Hutter".
Elam was the antagonist of the 1960 film The Girl in Lovers Lane, which was subsequently the subject of a season-five episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
In 1963, Elam portrayed a heroic character, appearing as the reformed gunfighter Deputy US Marshal J. D. Smith in the ABC/Warner Bros. series The Dakotas, a Western intended as the successor of Cheyenne. The Dakotas ran for 19 episodes. He was then cast as George Taggart, "a former gunfighter who has become a U.S. marshal", in the 1963–1964 NBC/WB series Temple Houston."Jeffrey Hunter Will Star in Title Role of 'Temple Houston'", N.B.C. trade release issued July 18, 1963, by National Broadcasting Company, New York, N.Y. Retrieved via Internet Archive, San Francisco, California, January 11, 2023.
In 1966, Jack Elam was cast in his first comedic role by Paramount Pictures, playing Hank in the Western film The Night of the Grizzly starring Clint Walker."The Night of the Grizzly (1966)", catalog, American Film Institute (AFI), Los Angeles, California. Retrieved January 5, 2023. The next year, for the Harold Hecht production The Way West, he was chosen for another light-hearted role, playing Preacher Weatherby and providing support to costars Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, and Kirk Douglas in a story about a wagon train traveling the Oregon Trail."The Way West (1967)", catalog, AFI. Retrieved January 4, 2023. Then in 1968, Elam performed in the opening scenes of Sergio Leone's celebrated "spaghetti Western" Once Upon a Time in the West. In that film, he portrays one of a trio of gunslingers sent to a train station to kill Charles Bronson's character. Elam, in one sequence, spends a good portion of his screen time simply trying to rid himself of an annoying fly, finally capturing the elusive insect inside the barrel of his pistol."Once Upon a Time in the West The opening sequence 1", seven-minute digitized segment from Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), posted by "prytz1000" on the streaming service YouTube "7 years ago" . Retrieved January 4, 2023.
In 1969, he played another comedic role in Support Your Local Sheriff!, which was followed two years later by Support Your Local Gunfighter, both opposite James Garner. After his performances in those two films, Elam found his villainous parts dwindling and his comic roles increasing. (Both films were also directed by Burt Kennedy, who had seen Elam's potential as a comedian and directed him a total of 15 times in features and television.) Between those two films, he also played a comically cranky old coot opposite John Wayne in Howard Hawks's Rio Lobo (1970). In 1974–1975, he was cast as Zack Wheeler in The Texas Wheelers, a short-lived comedy series in which he portrayed a long-lost father returning home to raise his four children after their mother dies. Also on television, in 1979, he performed as Frankenstein's monster on the CBS sitcom Struck by Lightning, but the show was canceled after only three of eleven episodes produced were aired (the remaining eight episodes remain unaired in the US while all episodes were aired in the UK the following year). He then appeared in the role of Hick Peterson in a first-season episode of Home Improvement alongside Ernest Borgnine (season one, episode 20, "Birds of a Feather Flock to Taylor").