Slim Pickens

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Actor

1983 Sawyer and Finn (TV movie)

1982 Pink Motel

1982 Filthy Rich (TV series)

1981 The Nashville Palace (TV series)

1981 The Nashville Grab (TV movie)

1981 Best of the West (TV series)

1981 Charlie and the Great Balloon Chase (TV movie)

1981 This House Possessed (TV movie)

1981 The Howling

1979-1981 B.J. and the Bear (TV series)

1981 Christmas Mountain

1980 Honeysuckle Rose

1980 Tom Horn

1980 Swan Song (TV movie)

1980 The Love Boat (TV series)

1979 The Black Hole (voice) (uncredited)

1979 Spirit of the Wind

1979 1941

1979 The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo (TV series)

1979 Undercover with the KKK (TV movie)

1979 Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

1979 The Sacketts (TV movie)

1979 The Sweet Creek County War

1978 Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws

1978 Vega$ (TV series)

1978 The Swarm

1978 The Busters (TV movie)

1978 How the West Was Won (TV mini-series)

1977 ABC Weekend Specials (TV series)

1977 The Shadow of Chikara

1977 The White Buffalo

1977 The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (TV series)

1975-1977 Baretta (TV series)

1977 Mr. Billion

1976 Pony Express Rider

1976 Hawmps!

1976 Banjo Hackett: Roamin' Free (TV movie)

1976 McMillan & Wife (TV series)

1975 Babe (TV movie)

1975 White Line Fever

1975 The Apple Dumpling Gang

1975 Poor Pretty Eddie

1975 Rancho Deluxe

1957-1974 Disneyland (TV series)

1974 Runaway on Rogue River (TV movie)

1974 The Legend of Earl Durand

1974 Ginger in the Morning

1974 Bootleggers

1974 The Gun and the Pulpit (TV movie)

1974 Twice in a Lifetime (TV movie)

1974 Blazing Saddles

1974 Kung Fu (TV series)

1973 Hawaii Five-O (TV series)

1973 Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

1973 Night Gallery (TV series)

1972 The Getaway

1972 The Partridge Family (TV series)

1971-1972 Alias Smith and Jones (TV series)

1972 Rolling Man (TV movie)

1964-1972 Gunsmoke (TV series)

1972 The Honkers

1972 J.C.

1972 The Cowboys

1972 Outdoor Rambling

1971 The Devil and Miss Sarah (TV movie)

1971 Temporada salvaje

1971 Hitched (TV movie)

1971 The Deserter

1971 Mary Tyler Moore (TV series)

1963-1971 The Virginian (TV series)

1971 Sam Hill: Who Killed Mr. Foster? (TV movie)

1970 The Name of the Game (TV series)

1970 The Ballad of Cable Hogue

1963-1970 Bonanza (TV series)

1970 Medical Center (TV series)

1970 Rosolino Paternò, soldato...

1969 80 Steps to Jonah

1969 The Desperate Mission (TV movie)

1969 That Girl (TV series)

1969 Ironside (TV series)

1969 Mannix (TV series)

1968 Skidoo

1968 The Outcasts (TV series)

1968 The Legend of Custer

1968 Never a Dull Moment

1968 Gentle Ben (TV series)

1968 Will Penny

1968 Cimarron Strip (TV series)

1967 Custer (TV series)

1967 The Flim-Flam Man

1967 Rough Night in Jericho

1967 El magnifico extranjero

1967 Run for Your Life (TV series)

1967 Un tipo dificil de matar

1966 Daniel Boone (TV series)

1966 An Eye for an Eye

1966 The Legend of Jesse James (TV series)

1966 Stagecoach

1966 The Young Rounders

1965 The Glory Guys

1965 Up from the Beach

1965 In Harm's Way

1965 Major Dundee

1964 Profiles in Courage (TV series)

1964 Rawhide (TV series)

1964 The Fugitive (TV series)

1964 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV series)

1964 The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV series)

1964 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

1963 The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (TV series)

1963 Savage Sam

1963 Our Man Higgins (TV series)

1962-1963 The Wide Country (TV series)

1958-1962 Wagon Train (TV series)

1962 The Tall Man (TV series)

1961-1962 Outlaws (TV series)

1962 Route 66 (TV series)

1961 A Thunder of Drums

1961 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV series)

1960-1961 Lawman (TV series)

1961 The Americans (TV series)

1961 Coronado 9 (TV series)

1958-1961 Maverick (TV series)

1961 One-Eyed Jacks

1961 Surfside 6 (TV series)

1960 Chartroose Caboose

1960 The Westerner (TV series)

1960 Riverboat (TV series)

1957-1960 Sugarfoot (TV series)

1960 Overland Trail (TV series)

1959 Frontier Doctor (TV series)

1959 Stump Run

1958 Tonka

1958 Escort West

1958 The Sheepman

1957 Gunsight Ridge

1955-1957 Cheyenne (TV series) (uncredited)

1957 Lassie (TV series)

1956 Annie Oakley (TV series)

1956 Circus Boy (TV series)

1956 The Lone Ranger (TV series)

1956 Gun Brothers

1956 Buffalo Bill, Jr. (TV series)

1956 The Great Locomotive Chase

1956 Stranger at My Door

1956 When Gangland Strikes

1956 Cow Dog (short)

1955 The Last Command

1955 Santa Fe Passage

1954-1955 Stories of the Century (TV series)

1954 The Outcast

1954 The Boy from Oklahoma

1954 Phantom Stallion

1953 Red River Shore

1953 Shadows of Tombstone

1953 Down Laredo Way

1953 Iron Mountain Trail

1953 The Sun Shines Bright

1953 Old Overland Trail

1952 Thunderbirds

1952 South Pacific Trail

1952 Old Oklahoma Plains

1952 The Story of Will Rogers

1952 Border Saddlemates

1952 The Last Musketeer

1952 Colorado Sundown

1950 Rocky Mountain

1946 Smoky (uncredited)

Writer

1963 The Wide Country (TV series)

Appearances

1999 The Charlie Rose Show (TV series)

1981-1983 Hee Haw (TV series)

1979 When the West Was Fun: A Western Reunion (TV documentary)

1979 Behind the Scenes: Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (TV movie)

1970 The Merv Griffin Show (TV series)

Golden Boot Awards

1983 Won Golden Boot

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A virtuoso horse rider, Slim Pickens began as a rodeo performer aged only twelve. He spent the next 20 years touring the United States on the rodeo circuit as a bull wrangler and rodeo clown. It was his rodeo career that is said to have given him his stage name, because he was told such work would earn him "slim pickings." His portly figure, hoarse voice, and folksy manner seemed to destine him for comedy roles from his first entry into movies, in Errol Flynn's Rocky Mountain (1950). But in the Marlon Brando-directed Western One-Eyed Jacks (1961) he is successfully cast against type as a sadistic deputy sheriff. This led to more villainous roles; in the opening scene of the Western An Eye for an Eye (1966), he shoots a baby in its crib.

Perhaps his most memorable role was a kind of caricature of himself playing a Westerner in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). As Major T. J. "King" Kong, the gung-ho Texan air-force pilot, Pickens is last seen waving his Stetson while riding an atomic bomb.

In the remake of John Ford's Stagecoach (1966) he was cast as the driver, Buck, played in the original by the equally portly Andy Devine. A particular favorite of Western director Sam Peckinpah, Pickens appeared in Major Dundee (1965), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and most movingly as Sheriff Colin Baker in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), where his death scene is accompanied by Bob Dylan's elegiac "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." He made frequent appearances on TV, including in such series as The Lone Ranger (1956), Maverick (1958), and Alias Smith and Jones (1971-1972). One of his last notable performances was as the henchman Taggart in Mel Brooks's Western spoof Blazing Saddles (1974).

He died on December 8, 1983, after surgery for a brain tumor.

"After 'Dr. Strangelove', the roles, the dressing rooms, and the checks all started gettin' bigger."

Bareback bronc rider; saddle bronc rider; rodeo clown and bullfighter.