A dependable character actor usually playing confident lawmen, polished businessmen and cocky army officers, Bing Russell possessed a certain intangible appeal that allowed him to carve out prolific acting careers, both in film and television.
Russell enjoyed recurring roles as deputies in TV’s Bonanza (as “Clem”) and The Big Valley, and a dramatic part as John Wayne’s right-hand man who loses his right leg in John Ford’s Civil War film, The Horse Soldiers.
Prior to a bang-up performance in the intriguing episode “The Arrival” of The Twilight Zone, director John Sturges twice used the talents of Russell, however sparingly, in the classic Westerns The Magnificent Seven and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. In Seven, Russell helps persuade Yul Byrnner and Steve McQueen to see that an Indian gets a decent burial. Interestingly, O.K. Corral that centers around the exploits of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, would three decades later be paralleled by George Cosmatos’ Tombstone in which Russell’s son Kurt, would star as famed lawman Earp.