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 ...
June 29, 1919, Kingsburg, California, United States
Died
December 8, 1983, Modesto, California, United States
Place Of Birth
Kingsburg, California, USA
Height
6' 3" (1.91 m)
Profession
Actor, Soundtrack, Writer
Nationality
American
Spouse
Margaret Elizabeth Harmon
Children
Daryle Ann Lindley, Margaret Lou Pickens, Thom Pickens
Parents
Louis Bert Lindley, Sr., Sally Mosher Lindley
Siblings
Easy Pickens
Movies
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Blazing Saddles, One-Eyed Jacks, Major Dundee, 1941, The Cowboys, The Howling, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Getaway, Will Penny, In Harm's Way, White Line Fever, Tom Horn, ...
TV Shows
Filthy Rich, B. J. and the Bear, Custer, The Wide Country, Outlaws, The Sacketts, The Swamp Fox, The B.J./Lobo Show
Star Sign
Cancer
#
Trademark
1
His loud, proud and somewhat crude Southern characters
2
Tall, paunchy frame almost invariably in a cowboy hat and rodeo-style clothes
3
Often acted in post-modern Westerns or parodies of Westerns
#
Quote
1
[In a 1967 interview, on 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".
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.
2
Although he was known for his heavy Southern drawl, leading many to believe he was from Texas or Oklahoma, he was actually born not far from Fresno, California, and raised in California's San Joaquin Valley.
3
Inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall Of Fame (2005).
4
Inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame of the Rodeo Historical Society (a support group of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum) in 1986.
5
Bareback bronc rider; saddle bronc rider; rodeo clown and bullfighter.
6
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.
7
Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1982.
Well, there was this big, lanky, fourteen-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. (As told to Ed Zern)
10
Dedicatee of Howard Waldrop's story "Night of the Cooters," whose protagonist is Sheriff Bert Lindley.
Before becoming an actor, Slim was riding on the rodeo circuit. Someone told him that he should take up another line of work because all he would ever get in the rodeo was "Slim Pickin's."
$10 Million
