- Born
- Died
- Birth nameLouis Berton Lindley Jr.
- Height6′ 3″ (1.91 m)
- Slim Pickens spent the early part of his career as a real cowboy and the latter part playing cowboys, and he is best remembered for a single "cowboy" image: that of bomber pilot Maj. "King" Kong waving his cowboy hat rodeo-style as he rides a nuclear bomb onto its target in the great black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Born in Kingsburg, near Fresno in California's Central Valley, he spent much of his boyhood in nearby Hanford, where he began rodeoing at the age of 12. Over the next two decades he toured the country on the rodeo circuit, becoming a highly-paid and well-respected rodeo clown, a job that entailed enormous danger. In 1950, at the age of 31, Slim married Margaret Elizabeth Harmon and that same year he was given a role in a western, Rocky Mountain (1950). He quickly found a niche in both comic and villainous roles in that genre. With his hoarse voice and pronounced western twang, he was not always easy to cast outside the genre, but when he was, as in "Dr. Strangelove", the results were often memorable. He died in 1983 after a long and courageous battle against a brain tumor. He was survived by his wife Margaret and children.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
- SpouseMargaret Elizabeth Harmon(March 22, 1950 - December 8, 1983) (his death, 3 children)
- ParentsLouis Bert Lindley Sr.Sallie Mosher Turk
- Often acted in post-modern Westerns or parodies of Westerns
- Tall, paunchy frame almost invariably in a cowboy hat and rodeo-style clothes
- His loud, proud and somewhat crude Southern characters
- High-pitched, raspy voice with southern drawl.
- When he showed up on the set of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) fully dressed as a cowboy and speaking in a thick Southern accent, the British crew thought he was "Method" acting, not knowing that this was how he always dressed and acted.
- He explained how he got into the rodeo business: "Well, there was this big, lanky, 15-year-old California ranch kid, and he went into the rodeo manager's office and said, 'Mister, I want to sign up for the calf-roping but my paw says I ain't allowed to. So I can't use my right name'. And the manager said, 'Son, no matter what name you use, it'll be slim pickin's out there today'. So the boy said, 'That's as good a name as any, I reckon-put me down as Slim Pickin's'. The manager spelled it 'Pickens' and the boy won $400 that afternoon".
- Was Stanley Kubrick's first choice to play the role of Dick Halloran in The Shining (1980). Pickens declined, saying that after enduring Kubrick's notorious style of multiple retakes in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), he had no desire to work for him again. Subsequently, the role of Halloran went to Scatman Crothers.
- Peter Sellers was originally going to ride the atom bomb in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Slim got a phone call late one evening from Stanley Kubrick: "Peter has fallen and broken his hip, I need you for a day's shoot--I need you bad and I need you now. How soon can you get on a plane and make it to London?". Slim obliged and in his haste forgot that he didn't have a passport because he had never traveled outside the US before. His entrance was delayed while he had to go through the process of getting one before he was allowed to leave the airport.
- Although he was known for his heavy Southern drawl, leading many to believe he was from Texas or Oklahoma, he was actually born in Kingsburg, CA--not far from Fresno--and raised in California's San Joaquin Valley.
- After [Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)], the roles, the dressing rooms and the checks all started gettin' bigger.
- [In a 1967 interview, about appearing on Bonanza (1959)] . . . had to wear lifts . . . I'm 6'3" but alongside Dan Blocker I guess they thought I looked like Mickey Rooney.
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