William Boyd

Overview

Born
June 5, 1895 · Hendrysburg, Ohio, USA
Died
September 12, 1972 · Laguna Beach, California, USA (Parkinson's disease and heart failure)
Birth name
William Lawrence Boyd
Height
6′ (1.83 m)

Biography

Family

Spouses

Trademarks

Expressive blue eyes
Prematurely silver-gray hair
Black western outfit in contrast to a magnificent white stallion

Trivia

During the run of the Hopalong Cassidy TV series, William Boyd began making PSA-style monologues at the end of each show where he spoke to his young fans directly as "Hoppy". The character of Hopalong Cassidy imbued such traits as fair play, honesty, courtesy, and patriotism, and Boyd felt strongly about sharing these beliefs with his young viewers. These monologues included subjects such as eating the right kinds of foods, getting plenty of sleep, being a good sport, minding your mother and father, respecting police officers, attending Sunday School, following the Golden Rule, and the ethical treatment of animals.
William Boyd lived in a cabin in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine while he made some of the Hoppy movies. It is also where he and his wife Grace spent their honeymoon. That same cabin, now known as "Hoppy Cabin", was used in 6 Hopalong Cassidy movies. It is easily recognized by the stone well in front of the house.
During the production of Suicide Fleet (1931), William Boyd and several other actors performed an unscheduled rescue at sea when a launch exploded off the Coronado Islands in the Pacific. Nine men, members of the film expedition, were in the launch when its gas tanks blew up, throwing all into the water. Two of the men were slightly burned, but William Boyd, James Gleason, and Robert Armstrong quickly took action and plunged into the ocean to rescue their assistants.
Television talk-show host Johnny Carson told a story of how, in the mid-1960s, he met Boyd on a plane while flying cross-country. He asked Boyd, who hadn't made any public appearances in many years, if he would like to come on Carson's show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). Boyd politely declined, and when Carson asked why, Boyd replied that he thought it would be too much of a jolt for kids--even though they were now adults--who had grown up seeing Hoppy as a tall, strong young cowboy hero to see him as the old man that Boyd now was.
There is a Hopalong Cassidy Museum located in Cambridge, Ohio.

Quotes

[on his fondness for his many fans] Sometimes I can feel hands all over me when I get home. But they do it because they're Hoppy's friends.
I've tried to make Hoppy a plain and simple man in manners and dress. Hoppy isn't a flashy character. He isn't illiterate. Nor is he smart-alecky. He doesn't use big words or bad words. After all, I felt that Hoppy might be looked up to and that children might try to pattern their lives after the man. If Hoppy said 'ain't' and 'reckon' and that-away', all the kids might start saying the same things.
[in an interview with Motion Picture Classic magazine, April 1926) Got my strength swinging a sledge-hammer ten hours a day in the oil fields. I was sixteen. I began to work when I was twelve, when my father died, but the oil-field was the hardest job I ever had. I used to get so tired. But I wouldn't let it tear me down because I had too much spirit. It wasn't going to beat me! I think any boy who wants to grow up into a he-man ought to go out and get himself kicked around all over the place and fight and struggle and endure - that is, if he has spirit. If he hasn't, he'll go under.
[on first hearing of Cecil B. De Mille in the early 1920s] I didn't know who Mr. De Mille was - he might have been the janitor at Lasky's - that was how ignorant I was then!
[in an interview with Motion Picture Classic magazine, April 1926] I've always worked. I didn't care what kind of job it was, but I tried to get one that would take me among educated people so that I could learn by listening to them talk. That's the way I got all the education I have. Associating with people who knew things helped a lot. I wanted to know so desperately that I couldn't help remembering.