One of the
most reliable and noteworthy character actors of American cinema and
television, red-headed, square-jawed, rocky but stern-voiced Kenneth Tobey
turned in memorable performances as military men, law enforcement officers
and especially cowboys.
Tobey was a veteran of more than 100 films and dozens of TV
shows consisting of science fiction, dramas and Westerns from the 1940s to
the 1990s. He even starred in his own series Whirlybirds, from 1957
-'59.
Ironically, Tobey graduated form the University of
California, Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in political science before
settling in Hollywood's Wild West and roping in a great herd of roles on
both sides of the law, beginning with his screen debut in a Hopalong Cassidy
feature.
Tobey was outstanding as a suspicious Ponderosa ranch hand
and a stolid deputy sheriff on TV's Bonanza and The Lone Ranger,
respectively. Some of his more memorable roles include corrupt Deputy Mike
-- nemesis to Tom Laughlin -- in the cult classic Billy Jack,
and undercover Pinkerton man and sidekick to Randolph Scott in the excellent
B-Western Rage at Dawn, the fever-ridden Jim Bowie doomed a the Alamo
in Disney's mega-hit Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier, and
John Wayne's cake-in-the-face exchanging antagonist in John Ford's
underrated The Wings of Eagles. |
