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(June 5, 1895 - September 12, 1972)
 Born
William Lawrence Boyd in Cambridge, Ohio, he was raised in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. He became famous as a Hollywood leading man in silent film
romances with a yearly salary of $100,000, but by the end of the
1920s his career had begun to deteriorate, Boyd was without a
contract and going broke.
In 1935 he was offered the lead role in the movie Hopalong Cassidy.
He changed the original pulp-fiction character, written by Clarence
E. Mulford, from a whisky guzzling wrangler to a cowboy hero who
didn't smoke, drink, or swear. And he always let the bad guy start
the fight. Boyd would be indelibly associated with the Hopalong
Cassidy character, and he gained lasting fame in the Western film
genre because of it.
Boyd purchased the rights to the character of Hopalong, as well as
the rights to the 66 Hopalong Cassidy movies. In the early 1950s, he
released the movies to television, where they became extremely
popular. Along with other cowboy figures, such as Roy Rogers and
Gene Autry, Boyd licensed merchandise, including such products as
Hopalong Cassidy watches, cups and dishes, comic books and cowboy
outfits. Boyd used his fame and his fortune to meet with children
around the world, and underscore for them the fine qualities of the
Hopalong Cassidy figure he portrayed. As a private individual and an
actor, he was a hero to a generation of American children. The
Hopalong Cassidy films remain available for broadcast, and are on
DVD in restored form.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, William Boyd
has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1734 Vine Street. In
1995, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at
the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Since 1991, the Friends of Hoppy fan club has held the
Hopalong Cassidy Festival in Boyd's hometown of Cambridge, Ohio. |
