In the last of 66 Hopalong Cassidy movies, Bill Boyd is on a cattle-buying trip when he stops in a town where a left-handed man is caught dead with a gun in his right hand, and there's counterfeit money floating around. Some one shoots at him while he's investigating, which gets his attention.
Boyd would reprise the role in a brief credited bit in Demille's THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, and of course he would appear in his syndicated show in the early 1950s, but this is the next to last of Boyd's 140 movie appearances. He was a decent, if occasionally wooden actor, and like many silent stars, he was on the skids in the talkies when he replaced James Gleason in the first of the movies in 1935. He was grateful for the opportunity and took his assumed responsibilities as a boys' idol seriously. "Hoppy" didn't smoke, drink, chew tobacco or swear, rarely kissed a girl and let the bad guy draw first. When the TV series ended, he vanished from public view, so they would not see him as an old man. He died in 1972, 77 years old. His movies still play and play well.
Boyd would reprise the role in a brief credited bit in Demille's THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, and of course he would appear in his syndicated show in the early 1950s, but this is the next to last of Boyd's 140 movie appearances. He was a decent, if occasionally wooden actor, and like many silent stars, he was on the skids in the talkies when he replaced James Gleason in the first of the movies in 1935. He was grateful for the opportunity and took his assumed responsibilities as a boys' idol seriously. "Hoppy" didn't smoke, drink, chew tobacco or swear, rarely kissed a girl and let the bad guy draw first. When the TV series ended, he vanished from public view, so they would not see him as an old man. He died in 1972, 77 years old. His movies still play and play well.