Charles King(1895-1957)
- Actor
- Stunts
In films since childhood (as a teenager he appeared in
The Birth of a Nation (1915)),
Charles King played a variety of roles in silent films, and even made a
series of comedy shorts for Universal in the 1920s. However, it was as
a villain in sound westerns that King achieved his greatest fame. In
the 1930s and 1940s his jowly face, beady eyes, Texas accent, droopy
walrus mustache and overhanging beer belly became familiar to legions
of fans of B westerns, especially those of rock-bottom PRC Pictures (it
seemed like he showed up in every western PRC ever made), and you knew
as soon as you saw him that he would meet his doom before the end of
the last reel. Sometimes he was actually the head of the gang, but
usually he was just a hired gun or, on even rarer occasions, "middle
management". There's a line in
Blazing Saddles (1974) where
Gene Wilder says, "I've killed more men than
Cecil B. DeMille"; it's doubtful that
anyone has been killed more times in films than Charlie King. He's been
shot, beaten up, run over, thrown off cliffs and blown up by the likes
of John Wayne,
Buster Crabbe,
Buck Jones,
Tim McCoy, and pretty much anyone who
ever appeared in a movie with him--if he had been in a
Shirley Temple picture, she would have
found a way to bump him off.
After a memorable career as a punching bag, piñata and moving target for most of the actors in Hollywood, Charlie King finally hung up his spurs in 1957, and died of cirrhosis of the liver in May of that year.
After a memorable career as a punching bag, piñata and moving target for most of the actors in Hollywood, Charlie King finally hung up his spurs in 1957, and died of cirrhosis of the liver in May of that year.
