Wild Bill Elliott

Born: October 16, 1904, Pattonsburg, Missouri
Died: November 26, 1965 (age 61), Las Vegas, Nevada

Wild Bill Elliott (Gordon A. Nance) was an American film actor. He specialized in playing the rugged heroes of B-Westerns.

What do you know about Wild Bill Elliott? Try this quick quiz.

1. The young Nance grew up within twenty miles of his birthplace, most of his youth spent 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 Gordon Nance's upbringing.

• Fact or Myth?

2. By 1925, he was getting occasional extra work in films. He took acting classes and appeared in a few stage roles there. Where did he attended acting classes?

• Pasadena Playhouse
• USC
• UCLA

3. By 1927, he had made his first Western and his first featured role. Several co-starring roles followed and he renamed himself Gordon Elliott. But as the studios made the transition to sound films, he slipped back into extra roles and bit parts. For the next eight years, he appeared in over a hundred films for various studios, but almost always in unbilled extra parts. What was his first Western?

4. In 1938, Columbia Pictures offered him the title role in a serial, The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938), which was successful enough that Columbia offered him a contract as a leading man. What was the serial?

5. Elliott married Helen Josephine Meyers in February, 1927. Their daughter, Barbara Helen Nance, was born October 14, 1927. When was Elliott and his wife divorced?

• 1961
• 1951
• 1941

6. In 1943, Elliott signed with Republic Pictures, which cast him in a series of Westerns. The first of these, Calling Wild Bill Elliott, gave Elliott the name by which he would best be known and by which he would be billed almost exclusively for the rest of his career. Who was his sidekick?

• Smiley Collins
• Happy Chandler
• George 'Gabby' Hayes

7. Elliott's trademark was a pair of six-guns worn butt-forward in their holsters.

• Fact or Myth?

8. What movie role is he best remembered for?

• Tex Ritter
• Jesse James
• Red Ryder

9. What did Elliott die from?

• Heart disease
• Lung cancer
• Natural causes

10. Where is Wild Bill Elliott buried?

• Palm Desert Memorial, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California
• Saint Helenas Episcopal Churchyard, Beaufort, South Carolina

Answers

• 1. Fact
• 2. Pasadena Playhouse
• 3. The Arizona Wildcat
• 4. The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
• 5. 1961
• 6. George 'Gabby' Hayes
• 7. Fact
• 8. Red Ryder
• 9. Lung cancer
• 10. Palm Desert Memorial, Las Vegas, Nevada
  Plot: Eternity Mausoleum, Row E, Niche 2011