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In the late 1920's/early 1930's, B-movie cowboys were a dime a dozen.
Many had only shortlived careers and are by today pretty much forgotten -
and most of them deservedly so, because their talents did not always
exceed riding a horse and holding a gun. Bob Steele however was an
exception to this rule, he was a fine actor who besides the usual heroics
could also handle the occasional bad guy-role, his charisma and acting
talent secured him leads in B-movies for over 20 years, and his film
career as a whole spanned more than 50 years, from child actor (along with
his twin brother Bill) to cowboy star with almost every B movie production
house there was, to character actor in his later years, when he proved he
could even handle comedy ... Bob Steele's acting talent did
probably not come without good reason, as he was born Robert Adrian
Bradbury into a vaudeville family in Portland, Oregon in 1907. Rumour has
it that Bob joined the family act at the early age of 2 years. Rumours
also have Bob touring the country with various vaudeville acts during his
youth and him being a sports crack at highschool as well as highschool
buddies with John Wayne. Most of these stories are probably fabrications
by one studio publicist or another, what is true though is that Bob's
father Ronald settled down in California in the 1910's and soon showed an
interest for moviemaking, first in front of the camera, but soon as a
screenwriter and director - during which he changed his name from Ronald
to Robert North Bradbury (being credited Robert N.Bradbury the most often)
- and over the years he would become a quite accomplished director and
maybe the leading (and most underrated) B-Western auteur there was. In
1920, dad Robert hired his twin sons Bob and Bill for the first in a Pathé-prduced
series of short films entitled The Adventures of Bob and Bill,
youthful adventures that mostly had wildlife-themes with youthful leads aimed at a young audience, a
series that ran until 1922. Brother Bill quit the movie business for good
a short time after that (though it is rumoured that he lent several screen
cowboys his singing voice in the early talkie days) and in later life
became a leading surgeon, specialising in gynecology and obstetrics. Bob
on the other hand loved being an actor, and eventually he even quit
highschool to pursue a career in the movies. Bob was not yet 20 when he played
supporting parts in a few films of his father, among them Daniel Boone
Through the Wilderness, Davy Crockett at the Fall of Alamo
(both 1926) and Sitting Bull at the Spirit Lake Massacre (1927),
all produced by strictly small-frye Sunset Productions. In all of
these films he was still credited under his real name, Bob Bradbury jr. In
1927 however, Bob Bradbury jr caught the eye of FBO, for which Bob
had already acted in their college comedy The College Boob (1926, Harry
Garson) the previous year. FBO - the
production house that would eventually become RKO
but back in the 1920's was still merely a subsidiary of British R-C
Pictures headed by Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK - back then needed a
cowboy actor who could play in a series of B-Westerns - something
Kennedy had realized to be cheap to make but successful with the crowds. Initially,
FBO had cowboy actor Fred Thomson in their stable, who made his first film
for the company in 1924 and had over the years become very successful.
Eventually though, his demands regarding both his salary and production
values exceeded Kennedy's visions of a cheap Western, so he was let go in
1927 (upon which he headed to
Paramount for a short stint before his untimely death from
tetanus in 1928). So FBO was left with a free spot of a cowboy
hero which Bob was more than able to fill: Though he was rather short for
a movie hero (usually sources claim his height to be 5'5" [= 165 cm],
but he might have been even shorter than that), but what he lacked in
height he made up in charisma, virility and acting talent (something not
all cowboy actors necessarily possessed in droves). Plus he could ride a
horse, had a background in sports and was wiry enough to do most of his
own stunts - things that were almost indispensable for B-Western heroes of
the time. At
FBO, Bob's name was changed to Bob Steele, and while it's not
absolutely certain why it might just be because the company had the
publicity for Bob's series of films already working before he was even
signed - something not uncommon in Hollywood at the time and certainly not
for FBO, Western star Tom Tyler (born Vincent Markowski) allegedly
got his name in a quite similar way [Tom Tyler bio -
click here] ... (By the way: For a time - 1927 to 1929 -, FBO
actually
had both Tyler and Steele - the men the company baptized
- under contract as cowboy stars. Interestingly their paths would cross
again later in life, somewhere completely different.) Bob
stayed with FBO for a bit over a dozen of films, with some directed
by his father Robert N.Bradbury (The Mojave Kid [1927], Lightning
Speed and Headin' for Danger [both 1928]), but the majority
done by Wallace Fox, whose first film as director, The Bandit's Son (1927),
was actually one of
Bob's first films for FBO, but who
over the years would become one of Hollywood's most prolific B-movie (and
later television) directors, making movies of various genres. In
1929, Bob was released from his contract with FBO, and thus he
hooked up with Syndicate
Pictures, a smalltime B-movie outfit definitely below FBO.
In the 1929/30 season, Bob was Syndicate's
Western hero in a handful of films, all
directed by their then house director J.P.McGowan and all silents
(remember, while the first commercial sound film, The Jazz Singer
[Alan Crosland], was released in 1927, it took Hollywood and especially
the B movie outfits quite a while to make the transition to sound,
primarily for budget reasons).
Near the Rainbow's End
(1930, J.P.McGowan) would be Bob's first talkie, produced by another
small-time company, Tiffany,
and here Bob proves that he can not only handle sound films without effort
(something all but certain back in the days, as the talkies cost many a
fine actor their jobs), he would even sing a tune - years before Gene
Autry made the singing cowboy genre popular. (Of course, it is all but
certain that Bob actually sang the tune himself, several sources suggest
that his song was actually done by his twin brother, Bill, who was known to have a
fine singing voice). (By the way: Bob would also sing in Oklahoma
Cyclone [1930, John P.McCarthy], The Ridin' Fool [1931, John
P.McCarthy] and Near the Trail's End [1931, Wallace Fox] for Tiffany
as well as Trailin' North ]1933, John P.McCarthy] for Monogram
and Western Justice [1934, Robert N.Bradbury] for Hackel/Supreme.) The
films Bob made for Tiffany
for their 1930/31 season - eight in total - were all produced by Trem Carr
and all but two were directed by John P.McCarthy - the exceptions were the
above-mentioned films Near the Rainbow's End (1930) by J.P.McGowan
and Near the Trail's End (1931) by Wallace Fox. Producer Trem
Carr would also handle the next bunch of films Bob did for Sono-Art
in 1932, a sixpack of movies that were mostly directed by Bob's father
Robert N.Bradbury. And finally, Trem Carr took Bob with him when he
started producing a series of Westerns (8 in total) for Monogram's
1932/33 season - with again many being directed by Robert N.Bradbury.
Artistically,
his Monogram-films
were the first real highlights in Bob's still young career: These films
often exceeded the boundaries of the genre and included elements not
usually found in or expected from cheap Westerns: Hidden
Valley (1932, Robert N.Bradbury) features not only a lost Indian
tribe and bizarre torture rituals but also a prominent role for the
Goodyear blimp (!), The
Fighting Champ (1932, John P.McCarthy) is essentially a boxing
melodrama in Western attire, while Texas
Buddies (1932, Robert N.Bradbury) is about horseracing, in Breed
of the Border (1933, Robert N.Bradbury), Bob is a race car driver
and consequently the film culminates in a (quite exciting) car chase, and
in The Gallant Fool
(1933, Robert N.Bradbury), Bob travels with a circus (and even wears
tights in several scenes).
In several of these films, Bob is supported
by George Hayes who would later come to fame as bearded sidekick Windy in
the Hopalong
Cassidy series and as bearded sidekick Gabby in
many Roy Rogers Westerns [Roy Rogers
bio - click here], but when he did the films with Bob, he was
still at the beginning of his career - despite his advanced age (he was
born in 1885 and didn't make his first film until 1929). Unfortunately,
Bob's contract with Monogram
wasn't renewed after just one season, instead producers Trem Carr and Paul
Malvern decided to try out another up-and-coming cowboy hero, John Wayne [John
Wayne in the 1930's - click here] - and even though on paper
the 16 Westerns Wayne made for Monogram
from 1933 to 1935 (click
here) seem to be little more than a continuation of the
Westerns Bob Steele made for the company (concerning supporting cast and
crew, including returning director Robert N.Bradbury), many of Wayne's
Monogram-films can now be considered as some of the finest
examples of B-Western moviemaking (which is not to say the films would
have been any worse with Bob Steele in the lead).
His contract
with Monogram
being history, Bob Steele hooked up with Mascot
[Mascot history - click here]
to make his first and only serial, The Mystery Squadron
(1933, Colbert Clark, David Howard) - and given Bob Steele's (relative)
popularity as a range hero, it comes as rather a surprise that The Mystery Squadron
is not a Western but rather an adventure yarn, disguised - as was usual
for Mascot-serials
- as a convoluted mystery with the typically hooded criminal. But of
course, it's not the story that counts in serials like this but the
action, and The Mystery Squadron
features aplenty, including car- and airplane chases and an abundance of
aerial action. Bob Steele is sided by Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams - character
actor and occasional cowboy hero - in this one.
In 1934, Bob
Steele found a new home with producer A.W.Hackel and Supreme
Pictures. In all, Steele stayed with Hackel for four years and
made a total of 32 movies for him - all Westerns. The films Supreme
put out were typical B Western fare made on the cheap and without much
ambition of making big films, still several of them were pretty solid
(which is hardly surprising since many of them were once again directed by
Robert N.Bradbury), like Big
Calibre (1935, Robert N.Bradbury) - a blend of Western and
(pulp-)crime cinema -, Trail of Terror (1935, Robert N.Bradbury) -
in which Bob plays an undercover G-Man out West -, or Tombstone Terror
(1935, Robert N.Bradbury) - in which Bob plays not only the hero but also
his evil twin.
In 1936, Hackel got lucky when the then newly
formed Republic
Pictures - a merger of Mascot, Monogram,
Liberty, Majestic
and the film developing outfit Consolidated Film Laboratories
- asked him to produce a string of Westerns under their brand to fill
their production schedule ... which (to a degree) took the risk out of
film producing for Hackel while at the same time it gave him more money to put
into production. However, higher production values did
not necessarily mean better films, as for example Paroled
to Die (1937) - directed by B-Western veteran Sam Newfield like
many of Bob's films Hackel produced for Republic
- is one of Bob's most boring films, not necessarily bad, merely dead
boring. (That said, other films of the series are still pretty decent.) During
his time with Hackel, Bob Steele only rarely strayed away from the series
Westerns he was making, a notable exception being RKO's
Powdersmoke Range (1935, Wallace Fox),
an early adaptation of William Colt MacDonald's Three
Mesquiteers. And while Bob did not play any of the three leads
- they were played by Harry Carey, Hoot Gibson and Guinn 'Big Boy'
Williams, it is interesting to note that both Bob and his co-star in Powdersmoke
Range Tom Tyler [Tom Tyler bio -
click here] would star as the leads in Republic's
Three
Mesquiteers-series only a few years later.
Another
film done outside of series-Westerns featured maybe Bob's most memorable
performance ever, the role of treacherous and cowardly Curley in Hal Roach's production
of the John Steinbeck-adaptation Of Mice and Men (1939, Lewis
Milstone). Bob, totally cast against type, gives a memorable performance
in this one, even if the film by and large belonged to Burgess Meredith as
George and Lon Chaney jr's breakthrough performance as Lennie [Lon
Chaney jr bio - click here]. After his association
with A.W.Hackel and Republic
ended though, Bob Steele's career experienced a temporary setback when he
was hired by Bernard B.Ray and Harry S.Webb to do eight B Westerns for the
1939/40 season of their newly formed Metropolitan Pictures - which
they founded almost immediately after they crashed with their former
company Reliable.
All of these films - directed by Bernard B.Ray, Harry S.Webb or Ira Webb
(Harry's brother, who only ever directed two films in his life, both
starring Steele: El Diablo Rides (1939) and Wild Horse Valley
[1940]) - were at best routine Westerns and utterly unremarkable.
From
Metropolitan - a company that didn't last all that long, going
belly-up in 1940 - Steele moved on to another very young company, PRC
[PRC history - click here], to
star as the title character in their Billy
the Kid-series. The series, which was exclusively directed by PRC's
house director Sam Newfield, had actually very little to do with the
historical Billy the Kid but essentially presented the character as a Robin
Hood-like outlaw who was wronged by society. As a whole, the
films were routine B Westerns, if a notch or two above Bob's films with Metropolitan,
and nothing special - if it wasn't for Bob's sidekick Al St.John, whose
character Fuzzy
had become PRC's
house sidekick, doing double duty on the Billy
the Kid- and the Lone
Rider-series. Al St.John had learned his trade with the
Keystone Cops in the silent era, and in early sound films he played many
character roles in a variety of films but mainly Westerns (and several of
them actually starring Bob Steele). Eventually, St.John created his Fuzzy
alter ego in 1937, siding singing cowboy Fred Scott in a string of
Westerns for Spectrum
(several of them also directed by Sam Newfield), then Jack Randall in two Monogram
productions, Gunsmoke Trail (1939, Sam Newfield) and Oklahoma
Terror (1939, Spencer Gordon Bennet), before making him part of a
proposed cowboy trio series, Trigger Pals (1939, Sam Newfield),
which was produced by Grand
National and in which he sided Art Jarrett and Lee Powell, before
he took the character with him to PRC,
where he first appeared opposite Bob Steele in Billy the Kid
Outlawed (1940, Sam Newfield). What made Al St.John's Fuzzy
special among the many sidekicks there were in the 1930's and 40's
was that despite St.John being perfectly capable of doing the slapstick
the role demanded, he had his character fleshed out and was also able to
do quiet scenes that far exceeded the demands for a mere funnyman, and he
could also carry the plot to a certain extent. St.John
would continure playing his Fuzzy-character
until the early 1950's, exclusively siding Lash La Rue [Lash
La Rue bio - click here] in his later life,
long after PRC had
already ceased to exist. Bob Steele however did not stay all
that long with the Billy
the Kid-series, a mere 6 pictures for the 1940/41 season, then
he got a better offer from Republic
[Republic history - click here]
to star in their Three
Mesquiteers-series, taking over the role of Tucson Smith from
Duncan Renaldo (whose character was called Rico Rinaldo though), while his Billy
the Kid-role at PRC
went to Buster Crabbe [Buster
Crabbe bio - click here].
Bob Steele entered the Three
Mesquiteers - by that time the extablished cowboy trio, with a
series already 31 entries strong - in 1940 (he did the Billy
the Kid-films at PRC
before his change to Republic,
but both series were released simulatneously), at first playing second
fiddle to Robert Livingston's Stoney Brooks, with Rufe Davis as Lullaby
Joslin playing the customary sidekick character. However, after seven
films, Livingston left the series - incidently to go to PRC
to take over the Lone
Rider role from George Houston, where he was
sided by Al St.John's Fuzzy.
Tom Tyler [Tom Tyler bio -
click here] came in to replace Livingston, with the effect
that Bob Steele, then the bigger star of the two, moved up to the top spot in
the credits. (As mentioned above, both Steele and Tyler were also in an
earlier Three
Mesquiteers-adaptation, RKO's
Powdersmoke Range, but neither of them played a Mesquiteer.) The
Steele-Tyler-Davis combination lasted for another seven films (from 1941
to '42), then Davis was replaced by Jimmie Dodd for the last six films of
the series (1942 to '43). And then the Mesquiteers were history ...
In
respect with Republic's
Three
Mesquiteers it is interesting to note that the series was
never fixed in any one time, so while a film like West
of Cimarron (1941, Lester Orlebeck) would take place immediately
after the US-American Civil War in 1865, Phantom Plainsmen
and Valley of Hunted Men (both 1942, John English) are clearly set
during World War II, as part of the American
propaganda efforts that were at the time taking place pretty
much everywhere in Hollywood.
During his time with Republic,
Steele only rarely did a film outside of the Three
Mesquiteers-series, one was The Great Train Robbery (1941,
Joseph Kane), a Western/mystery about a whole train that went missing with
Bob investigating the disappearance, the other was Carson
City Kid (1940, Joseph Kane), a Roy Rogers-vehicle [Roy
Rogers bio - click here], which is a change of pace for Bob
inasmuch as in this one, he plays the bad guy - and wouldn't you know it,
he really shines in the role. After his association with Republic
came to an end, Bob Steele moved back to Monogram
(second generation Monogram
that is, after they had unmerged with Republic
again), where he first played in a charmingly forgettable horror flick, Revenge
of the Zombies (1943, Steve Sekely), playing a shady
invetigator co-starring John Carradine [John
Carradine bio - click here], Gale Storm, Robert Lowery, and
above everyone else black comic genius Mantan Moreland [Mantan
Moreland bio - click here]. Then Bob was asked to join another
cowboy trio series, the Trail Blazers ... The Trail Blazers
were not even conceived as trio Westerns actually,
producer/director Robert Emmett Tansey actually created the series as a
vehicle for veteran silver screen cowboys Hoot Gibson and Ken Maynard -
both of whom were around 50 and past their prime in every sense - to
combine their drawing powers at the box office and play undercover
investigators out West in the films, to replace the Range
Busters-series that went out of commission earlier that year.
However, somehow the series was not quite as successful as it was supposed
to be, so with film four, Death Valley Rangers (1943, Robert Emmett
Tansey), Bob Steele, not yet 40, was added to the line-up to add some
young blood to the veteran cowboys. The main problem about this
arrangement was that Ken Maynard was used to calling the shots, and while
he was good friends with Hoot Gibson and accepted him as a partner, he
couldn't accept youngster (relatively speaking) Bob Steele to share the
limelight with him. He desperately wanted Steele of the series ... but
instead, after film number 6 - Arizona Whirlwind (1944, Robert
Emmett Tansey) -, Maynard was dropped from the series, with Chief Thundercloud
a.k.a. Victor Daniels completing the trio in the final 2 films, Outlaw
Trail and Sonora Stagecoach (both 1944, Robert Emmett Tansey). After
eight films however, the Trail Blazers
were history, as trio
Westerns by and large had run their course (actually, by the time the Trail Blazers-series folded, the only other trio Western series still in
existence was PRC's
Texas
Rangers). Bob Steele and Hoot Gibson did however make three
more Westerns with each other, Marked Trails (1944, John
P.McCarthy), Trigger Law and The Utah Kid (both 1944, Vernon
Keays). Gibson's career after those three was pretty much over (he did
appear in a few more films, but not as lead), and Steele was sent packing
by Monogram
to look for work elsewhere ... Bob Steele next moved to Action
Pictures/Lippert
to do two films in colour, Wildfire
(1945, Robert Emmett Tansey) - a story about rustlers and a wild horse
also starring Eddie Dean - and Northwest Trail (1945, Derwin
Abrahams) - which takes Bob to Canada as a Mountie in a film based on a
story by James Oliver Curwood. The films were of course not shot in
glorious Technicolor but the cheaper (and cheaper looking) Cinecolor, but
still, with these films, Bob was among the first B-movie cowboys to go
colour (if only for two films). From Action
Pictures,
Bob moved back to PRC
for a foursome of films that would prove to be his last starring roles - The
Navajo Kid (1945, Harry L.Fraser), and Six Gun Man, Ambush
Trail and Thunder Town (all 1946, Harry L.Fraser).
But
even though the B Western in general was in decline and Bob's time as a
range hero was over, he did not have too much trouble finding work over
the next years, actually he soon even got parts (if small ones) in A
pictures, like Howard Hawks' The
Big Sleep (1946) starring Humphrey
Bogart and Lauren Bacall, in which he played gangster Canino, who is gunned
down by Bogart in the finale. Another high profile supporting role was in
Raoul Walsh's Cheyenne (1947), like The
Big Sleep produced by Warner
Brothers. Most of Steele's supporting work in the later part of
the 1940's though was with Republic,
like the Red Ryder-film Sheriff of Redwood Valley (1946,
R.G.Springsteen), starring Wild Bill Elliott and post-Our Gang
and pre-Barretta (and way before the murder of his wife)
Robert Blake, the Sunset Carson Western Rio Grande Raiders (1946,
Thomas Carr), the Gene Autry Western Twilight on the Rio Grande
(1947, Frank McDonald), Exposed (1947, George Blair), a crime drama
about a female private eye, or the Rocky Lane Western Bandits of Dark
Canyon (1947, Philip Ford). All of these films were reasonably ok in
their own right but nothing great.
Like so many other B-cowboys
at the tail end of their careers, Bob did some circus work: around 1950 he
toured with the Clyde Beatty Circus, and he might actually have
done some other circus work as well. Unlike other B-cowboys though, Steele
stayed within the film business for another 20 plus years after his starring
career was over, doing supporting roles in all kinds of films. His more
interesting films in the 1950's included the Humphrey Bogart starrer The
Enforcer (1951, Bretaigne Windust), the Gene Autry Western Silver
Canyon (1951, John English), the Randolph Scott Western Fort Worth
(1951, Edwin L.Marin), the Joel McCrea Western Cattle Drive (1951,
Kurt Neumann), the Audie Murphy Westerns Column South (1953,
Frederick de Cordova) and Drums Across the River (1954, Nathan
Juran), the John Wayne starrer Island in the Sky (1953, William
A.Wellman), the horse racing drama The Fighting Chance (1955,
William Witney) starring Ben Cooper, Rod Cameron and Julie London, the
prison drama The Steel Jungle (1956, Walter Doniger), the Dean
Martin & Jerry Lewis Western comedy Pardners (1956, Norman
Taurog), another Western comedy, Once upon a Horse (1958, Hal
Kanter), starring Dan Rowan and Dick Martin of later TV-fame (Rowan
& Martin's Laugh-In), the war drama Pork Chop Hill
(1959, Lewis Milestone) starring Gregory Peck, and the sci-fi underwater
thriller Atomic Submarine (1959, Spencer Gordon Bennet). In another
John Wayne starrer, the classic Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks),
which also starred Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson, Bob
Steele had a small, uncredited role, while in Giant
from the Unknown (1958, Richard E.Cunha), his role was quite big,
that of a sheriff trying to run down a cattle killer that proves to be a
... giant from the unknown. Too bad the film was nothing more than typical
- if enjoyable - drive-in fare.
In the 1950's, Bob would also
start doing work for television, mainly supporting work in Western series
(naturally) such as The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
(1955), Cheyenne (1956), Colt .45 (1957), Maverick
(1957, 1958), Have Gun, Will Travel (1958), Tales of
Wells Fargo (1958), The Californians (1958, 1959), Rawhide
(1959, 1960), The Deputy (1960), The Wide Country
(1962), Gunsmoke (1963, 1964) ... and eventually this all
led up to F Troop, a popular comedy series about army life
in the Old West that ran from 1965 to 1967. In the series Bob Steele had a
regular supporting role as Trooper Duffy - a verteran soldier telling
grand tales about his own past and American history -, which breathed new
life into Bob's career and which allowed him to show his comic side. Besides
his television work, Bob continued doing films throughout the 1960's, and
his parts include the Audie Murphy Westerns Hell Bent for Leather
(1960, George Sherman), Six Black Horses (1962, Harry Keller) -
scripted by Burt Kennedy - and Bullet for a Badman (1964,
R.G.Springsteen), an uncredited appearance in the John Wayne starrer The
Comancheros (1961, Michael Curtiz), the Sam Katzman-quickie The
Wild Westerners (1962, Oscar Rudolph), more work with John Wayne in McLintock
(1963, Andrew V.McLaglen) - this one also starring, Maureen O'Hara,
Wayne's own son Patrick and Stephanie Powers -, 4 for Texas (1963,
Robert Aldrich), a Western comedy starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin,
Ursula Andress, Anita Ekberg and Victor Buono, a small role in the Western
Taggart (1964, R.G.Springsteen), an uncredited role in the James
Stewart-starrer Shenandoah (1965, Andrew V.McLaglen), and roles in
two Alex Gordon produced nostalgia Westerns, Requiem for a
Gunfighter (1965, Spencer Gordon Bennet) - co-starring the veterans
Rod Cameron, Tim McCoy, Johnny Mack Brown, Lane Chandler and Raymond
Hatton - and The Bounty Killer (1965, Spencer Gordon Bennet) - this
time he has to share the screen with Dan Duryea, Rod Cameron, Buster
Crabbe [Buster
Crabbe bio - click here], Fuzzy Knight and Johnny Mack Brown. The
regular work on F Troop interrupted his film career for a
while, but after the series had ended, Bob - by now in his 60's - returned
to the movies, taking a part in the Clint Eastwood starrer Hang 'Em
High (1968, Ted Post) ... as if to show he can still measure up to the
new crop of Western actors. Other films Bob Steele was in in the late
1960's/early 70' were The Great Bank Robbery (1969, Hy
Averback), a Wesern comedy starring Zero Mostel, another John Wayne
starrer, Rio Lobo (1970, Howard Hawks), for which Bob once again
didn't receive an onscreen credit, Something Big (1971, Andrew
V.McLaglen), a nostalgic Western starring Dean Martin, and Nightmare
Honeymoon (1973, Elliot Silverstein), a rather crude and forgettable horror film
starring John Beck. Bob Steele's last (uncredited) screen appearance was
Charley Varrick (1973, Don Siegel), a crime drama starring Walter
Matthau. After this film, Steele, 66, retired from active moviemaking. In
1988, Bob Steele died from emphysema after spending literally years
in ill health. Still by his fans he will be remembered as one of the most
virile Western stars, one of the best actors of the 1930's and 40's
B-Western cycle, as a memorable supporting player in Westerns from later
years and a rather hilarious character from F Troop. And
even though his career might never have reached the same heights as Tom Mix or Ken
Maynard much less John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, (B-)Western film history would
be poorer without him ...
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