Bo Hopkins obit

Bo Hopkins, ‘Wild Bunch’ and ‘American Graffiti’ Actor, Dies at 84

Sam Peckinpah cast him in three films, and he went from bad guys to good during the course of his career.

 

 He was not on the list.

Bo Hopkins, the wily actor with the wild-eyed gaze who came to fame portraying thieves and scoundrels in such films as The Wild Bunch, American Graffiti, Midnight Express and White Lightning, died Saturday. He was 84.

Hopkins died at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys after suffering a heart attack on May 9, his wife of 33 years, Sian, told The Hollywood Reporter.

With his hair-trigger delivery, Hopkins was a favorite of Sam Peckinpah, who cast him in three features — as Clarence “Crazy” Lee in The Wild Bunch (1969), as a double-crossed bank robber in The Getaway (1972) and as a weapons expert in The Killer Elite (1975).

His turn as Joe Young, the leader of The Pharaohs greaser gang in George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973), solidified him as a top-notch screen villain. The highlight of his role included coaxing Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) to attach a hook and chain to a police car so that when it gives chase, the back axle flies off.

“I go to car shows because American Graffiti is the national anthem of car shows,” Hopkins said in a 2012 interview with Shock Cinema magazine. “Graffiti got people out draggin’ and going up, and down streets cruisin’. It got people into cars doing that kind of stuff again. If I told you how many times people have come up to Candy [Clark], Paul [Le Mat] and me at these shows and told us that we’ve changed their lives, you wouldn’t believe it.”

As his career evolved, the sandy-haired South Carolina native segued to the right side of the law, and executive producer Quentin Tarantino tapped him to portray a good guy in Dusk to Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999).

“Tarantino told me that he loved my work and that he had this part,” he said. “Well, I got the script and said, ‘Sure, I’ll do this. This is great.’ Well, they didn’t tell me they were going to shoot in South Africa.”

In The Wild Bunch, Hopkins’ character, a volatile young member of the gang, terrorizes a group of hostages inside a bank before meeting a horrible end in a hail of bullets. Just before his demise, he utters one of the film’s most quotable lines — “Well, how’d you like to kiss my sister’s black cat’s ass?”

“They took me to special effects and had wires runnin’ up my ass, up my legs. I was squibbed up 26 times,” he recalled of his first big movie role. “I fuckin’ thought I was gonna go to the moon if them things ever went off. I’d never worked with squibs. Sam asked me if I wanted a T-shirt. ‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘I want to feel it.’ … Well, see, I didn’t know. I wanted to feel it, experience it, just like we talked about at the Actors Studio. And like a damn fool, I didn’t wear a T-shirt.”

In a short but impactful performance in The Getaway (1972), Hopkins’ Frank Jackson gets his private parts blown off by his partner Rudy (Al Lettieri) during another bank robbery. Rudy, in turn, is shot by Doc (Steve McQueen), who takes off with the stolen loot.

Peckinpah gave Hopkins a more substantial role in The Killer Elite as a weapons expert recruited by James Caan to stop an assassination.

Hopkins added to his criminal mystique as a moonshiner alongside Burt Reynolds in White Lightning (1973) and as Tex, a mysterious man who seals Billy Hayes’ (Brad Davis) fate, in Midnight Express (1978).

William Mauldin Hopkins was born on Feb. 2, 1938, in Greenville, South Carolina. His father worked at a local mill while his mother stayed home with the children. At age 39, his dad had a heart attack and died on the porch of his home in front of his wife and son.

Hopkins was sent to live with his grandparents when his mom remarried the following year, then learned when he was 12 that he was adopted at nine months old. He eventually met his birth mother and got to know his half-siblings.

Quite the handful growing up, Hopkins said he used to steal money from family members to treat his friends to the movies. He was headed to reform school after a botched robbery when he enlisted in the U.S. Army just before his 17th birthday.

“I don’t know how my mother and grandmother put up with me,” Hopkins remembered. “Later, I went back home and took them to see The Wild Bunch and my second movie, [1969’s] The Bridge at Remagen. And that’s when everybody who said I was gonna end up in prison said they always knew Billy was going to make something of himself.”

After the service, which included nine months in Korea, Hopkins returned to Greenville and landed a role in a production of The Teahouse of the August Moon in a local theater, then received a scholarship to Kentucky’s Pioneer Playhouse. “I think there were 180 people trying out for summer stock,” he said. “I didn’t even know what summer stock was.”

Hopkins’ Pioneer Playhouse experience led to an opportunity to perform in a play in New York, and he was in an off-Broadway production of Bus Stop when the producers asked him to change his name. He took his character’s first name, and Bo Hopkins was born.

After just a few months in the city and another stint back home, Hopkins decided to try his luck in Hollywood and received a scholarship to an acting school at the Desilu-Cahuenga Studios and then a spot as an observer at the L.A. outpost of The Actors Studio.

With Diane Davis as his agent, Hopkins made his onscreen debut in 1966 on an episode of The Phyllis Diller Show. “After the Phyllis Diller thing, I did a Gunsmoke, then The Andy Griffith Show, playing Goober’s helper,” he said. “George Lindsey always said he was the one who started my career.”

Other early TV appearances came on The Virginian, The Wild Wild West, Judd for the Defense and The Rat Patrol.

Hopkins’ time at Desilu also led to his breakthrough role. Wild Bunch actor William Holden heard about his performance in a stage production of Picnic and recommended him to screenwriter Roy N. Sickner, who convinced Peckinpah to give Hopkins a shot as Crazy Lee.

Two of Hopkins’ favorite outlaw gigs came in 1975 when he played Turner, a high-strung, would-be Mafioso who liked to dress like a cowboy, in the independent neo-noir film The Nickel Ride and as gangster Pretty Boy Floyd in the ABC telefilm The Kansas City Massacre.

As a go-to guy for lawmen, he portrayed sheriffs in A Small Town in Texas (1976), Sweet Sixteen (1983), Mutant (1984), Trapper County War (1989), The Bounty Hunter (1989), The Final Alliance (1990), Fertilize the Blaspheming Bombshell (1992), Texas Payback (1995) and A Crack in the Floor (2001).

Hopkins’ other features included The Moonshine War (1970), Monte Walsh (1970), The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973), Posse (1975), Tentacles (1977), The Fifth Floor (1978), Big Bad John (1990), Radioland Murders (1994) and U Turn (1997).

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1968      Dayton's Devils Taxi Driver          

1969      The Thousand Plane Raid              Captain Douglass             

The Wild Bunch                 Clarence "Crazy" Lee      

The Bridge at Remagen Corporal Grebs

1970      The Moonshine War       Bud Blackwell   

Macho Callahan                Yancy   

Monte Walsh     "Jumpin" Joe Joslin         

1972      The Culpepper Cattle Co.              Dixie Brick          

The Getaway     Frank Jackson   

1973      The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing              Billy Bowen        

American Graffiti              "Little" Joe Young            

White Lightning                Roy Boone         

1974      The Nickel Ride Turner

1975      The Day of the Locust     Earle Shoop       

Posse    Wesley

The Killer Elite   Jerome Miller   

1976      A Small Town in Texas    Sheriff Duke      

1977      Tentacles             Will Gleason      

1978      Midnight Express             Tex        

The Fifth Floor   Carl       

1979      More American Graffiti "Little" Joe Young            

1983      Sweet Sixteen   Sheriff Dan Burke            

1984      Mutant                 Sheriff Will Stewart        

1988      Nightmare at Noon          Reilly    

1990      Big Bad John       Lester   

1992      Inside Monkey Zetterland            Mike Zetterland               

1993      The Ballad of Little Jo      Frank Badger     

1994      Radioland Murders          Billy's Father      

1996      Uncle Sam           Sergeant Twining            

1997      U Turn Ed          

Fever Lake           Sheriff Harris      Direct-to-video

1998      Phantoms            FBI Agent Hawthorne    

The Newton Boys             FBI Agent K.P. Aldrich    

1999      From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money          Sheriff Otis Lawson          Direct-to-video

2000      South of Heaven, West of Hell    "Doc" Angus Fries           

2001      A Crack in the Floor         Sheriff Talmidge              

Cowboy Up         Ray Drupp          

2002      Don't Let Go       The Boss             

City of Ghosts    Teddy    Uncredited

2003      The Road Home                Coach Jimmy Stangel     

Shade    Lieutenant Scarne           

2020      Hillbilly Elegy      Papaw Vance    

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1966      The Phyllis Diller Show   Chub      1 episode

1967      The Virginian      Will        1 episode

1967      Gunsmoke          Harper Haggen 1 episode

1967      The Wild Wild West        Zack Garrison     1 episode

1967      The Andy Griffith Show George 1 episode

1968      Judd, for the Defense     Ned Sims             1 episode

1968      The Rat Patrol    Bo Randall           1 episode

1968      The Guns of Will Sonnett              Wes Redford/Ben Merceen         2 episodes

1969      Bonanza               Stretch Logan     1 episode

1969-1970          The Mod Squad                 Tom Styles/Arnie             2 episodes

1972      Ironside                Gregg Hewitt      1 episode

1972      Nichols Kansas 1 episode

1973      Hawaii Five-O    Jeb         1 episode

1973-1974          Doc Elliot             Eldred McCoy    Main role, 10 episodes

1974      Friends and Lovers           Guest    1 episode

1974      The Manhunter                Sonny Welch      1 episode

1974      The Rookies        Wayne Shipley   1 episode

1975      The Kansas City Massacre             Pretty Boy Floyd               Television film

1975      Barnaby Jones   Ken Morley         1 episode

1976; 1979          Charlie's Angels                 Beau Creel/Wes Anderson           2 episodes

1976      Jigsaw John         Jimmy Franks     1 episode

1976      Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway    Swan     Television film

1978      Julie Farr, M.D. Hollis McAfee    1 episode

1978-1979          The Rockford Files            John Cooper       4 episodes

1979      Supertrain           O'Toole                1 episode

1979      The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang               Billy Doolin         Television film

1980      Casino   Stoney Television film

1981-1987          Dynasty                Matthew Blaisdel             Main role, 18 episodes

1982      Fantasy Island    Harry     1 episode

1983      Matt Houston    Reverend Noah Sunday 1 episode

1984      The A-Team        Charles Drew     1 episode

1984      Hotel     Walter Solanski 1 episode

1984      Finder of Lost Loves        William Davis/Drew Gilbert          1 episode

1985      The Hitchhiker   Lew Bridgeman 1 episode

1985; 1992          Murder, She Wrote         Lt. Ray Jenkins/Scott Larkin          2 episodes

1985      Scarecrow and Mrs. King               Nick Cross           1 episode

1986      The Fall Guy        Sheriff Phil Talbot             1 episode

1986      Crazy Like a Fox                 Lowell   1 episode

1986      Gone to Texas    Sidney Sherman                Television film

1986      A Smoky Mountain Christmas     Sheriff John Jensen         Television film

1987      Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer                Ted Sharpe         1 episode

1991      Matlock                Sheriff   1 episode

1994      Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone            "Rattlesnake" Reynolds Television film

1994      Cheyenne Warrior           Jack Andrews     Television film

1995      Tom Clancy's Op Center                Dan McCaskey   Miniseries, 2 episodes

1999      Time Served       Jimmy   Television film

2000      The Angry Beavers           Huttin   Voice role, 1 episode