Bob Steele

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia                                          Bob Steele January 23 1907 December 21 1988 was an American actor He was born Robert Adrian Bradbury in Portland Oregon into a vaudeville family After years of touring the family settled down in Hollywood in the late 1910s where his father Robert N Bradbury soon found work in the movies first as an actor later as a director and by 1920 he hired Bob and his twin brother Bill 19071971 as juvenile leads for a series of adventure movies entitled The Adventures of Bob and Bill Bobs career began to take off for good in 1927 when he was hired by production company Film Booking Offices of America FBO to star in a series of Westerns Bobwho was rechristened Bob Steele at FBOsoon made a name for himself and in the late 1920s 1930s and 1940s starred in BWesterns for almost every minor film studio including Monogram Supreme Tiffany Syndicate Republic including several films of the Three Mesquiteers series and Producers Releasing Corporation PRC including the initial films of their Billy the Kid series plus he had the occasional role in an Amovie as in the adaptation of John Steinbecks novel Of Mice and Men from 1939 In the 1940s Bobs career as a cowboy hero was on the decline but he kept himself working by accepting supporting roles in many big movies like Howard Hawks The Big Sleep or the John Wayne vehicles Island in the Sky Rio Bravo and Rio Lobo Besides these he also made occasional appearances in science fiction films like Atomic Submarine and Giant from the Unknown and did lots of television work culminating in a regular supporting role in the army comedy F Troop 19651967 which allowed him to show his comic talent Steele played the character of Trooper Duffy who claimed to have been shoulder to shoulder with Davy Crockett at the Alamoin fact Steele played in With Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo in 1926 Bob Steele died on December 21 1988 from emphysema after a long sickness Bob Steele is said to have been the inspiration for the character Cowboy Bob in the Dennis The Menace comic strip                              Description above from the Wikipedia article Bob Steele actor licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia