Bill Elliott

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Wild Bill Elliott (October 16, 1904 – November 26, 1965) was an American film actor. He specialized in playing the rugged heroes of B Westerns, particularly the Red Ryder series of films. By 1925, he was getting occasional extra work in films. He took classes at the Pasadena Playhouse and appeared in a few stage roles there. By 1927, he had made his first Western, The Arizona Wildcat, playing his first featured role. Several co-starring roles followed, and he renamed himself Gordon Elliott. But as the studios made the transition to sound films, he slipped back into roles as an extra and bit parts, as in Broadway Scandals, in 1929. For the next eight years, he appeared in over a hundred films for various studios, but almost always in unbilled parts as an extra.

Elliott began to be noticed in some minor B Westerns, enough so that Columbia Pictures offered him the title role in a serial, The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938). The serial was so successful, and Elliott so personable, that Columbia promoted him to starring in his own series of Western features, replacing Columbia's number-two cowboy star Robert "Tex" Allen. Henceforth Gordon Elliott would be known as Bill Elliott. Within two years, he was among the Motion Picture Herald's Top Ten Western Stars, where he would remain for the next 15 years.

In 1943, Elliott signed with Republic Pictures, which cast him in a series of Westerns alongside George "Gabby" Hayes. The first of these, Calling Wild Bill Elliott, gave Elliott the name by which he would be best known and by which he would be billed almost exclusively for the rest of his career.

Following several films in which both actor and character shared the name Wild Bill Elliott, he took the role for which he would be best remembered, that of Red Ryder in a series of sixteen movies about the famous comic strip cowboy and his young Indian companion, Little Beaver (played in Elliott's films by Bobby Blake). Elliott played the role for only two years but would forever be associated with it. Elliott's trademark was a pair of six guns worn butt-forward in their holsters.

Elliott's career thrived during and after the Red Ryder films, and he continued making B Westerns into the early 1950s. He also had his own radio show during the late 1940s. His final contract as a Western star was with Monogram Pictures, where budgets declined as the B Western lost its audience to television. When Monogram became Allied Artists Pictures Corporation in 1953, it phased out its Western productions, and Elliott finished out his contract playing a homicide detective in a series of five modern police dramas, his first non-Westerns since 1938.

Elliott retired from films (except for a couple of TV Western pilots which were not picked up). He worked for a time as a spokesman for Viceroy cigarettes and hosted a local TV program in Las Vegas, Nevada, which featured many of his Western films.

ISFJ personality types are the people-centric doers, using their considerable organisational ability to make sure people are taken care of and protected. They are extremely conscientious, hardworking, loyal and dedicated, to people, organisations, groups. Once they are allied to the cause they take their roles very seriously. They have incredibly clear and precise memories and are scarily accurate with facts, figures, names, faces - oh and any person who has slighted them! The ISFJ gathers facts and data and are painstakingly accurate with incredible attention to detail, and extremely methodical in their approach.

It may be possible to overlook the value of an ISFJ as they are the behind-the-scenes 'glue' for organisations and groups. Unlike the ESFJ who will be more outspoken, the ISFJ will work steadily and quietly to ensure all the routine details are taken care of, and that people are happy. Rarely will they share their own values, preferring to keep their own counsel and make their focus the needs of others. It would be a mistake to underestimate the ISFJ as, although they may give very little out in terms of articulating their feelings, their 'S' detailed type memory stores everything of relevance, they will quietly know everything that is going on and has gone on. Because they don't necessarily share their feelings this does not mean they don't have any. It is easy to transgress the values of an ISFJ without ever knowing you have done it. Their values are so intrinsic to them, such a part of who they are, and they therefore share them with very few people. In the team the ISFJ will be the quiet one getting things done, almost invisible at times, but the strong glue holding the team together.

Loyal, shy, devoted to the cause, the ISFJ has an intense need to belong and will work tirelessly for the cause and will channel their considerable energies into their work, or indeed anything which has been asked of them. They have incredibly clear and precise memories and are scarily accurate with facts, figures, names and faces. Detailed and methodical, everything is stored up, in perfect order, in pristine grey filing cabinets in their heads, and may come out later in a tirade of facts and evidence dating back a very long way.

Although generally shy and reserved, the ISFJ takes work, indeed anything they do, seriously and much prefer it when others do the same. They are caring, sympathetic and want to help, but do not need the kudos, indeed they may be suspicious of those who try to bestow compliments on them especially in the early stages of a relationship. The ISFJ exists only in the present (and the past!) and will use actual, real concrete past experiences to deal with present problems. This means they may struggle with concepts or trying to imagine a future indeed the future may appear scary as it is full of the unknown and the ISFJ prefers the known. This means that change and the new and untried can worry the ISFJ as they fear looking foolish and being ‘in the spotlight.’ The ISFJ loves to be appreciated but does not like constant scrutiny, expecting others to let them get on with it. Although private and shy ISFJs are often sociable and characterised above all by their desire to support others, the ‘need to be needed.’ In extreme cases, this need is so strong that standard give-and-take relationships can be deeply unsatisfying to them, however most ISFJs find more than enough with which to occupy themselves within the framework of a normal life. Since ISFJs, like all SJs, are very much bound by the prevailing social conventions, their form of ‘service’ is likely to exclude any elements of moral or political controversy; they specialise in the local, the personal, the obvious and the practical all in the here and now.

Although private and shy ISFJs are often sociable and characterised above all by their desire to support others, the ‘need to be needed.’ Conservative and dutiful, ISFJs like rules, protocols and conventions so that have clear groundrules within which to work. They would not like to wing it and like to be in possession of all the facts before they proceed as they have an underlying fear of getting it wrong. This means they will check and check again and so it is rare that an ISFJ will actually get it wrong, so worried are they about that happening.

Being SJs, they place a strong emphasis on conventional behaviour (although, unlike STJs), they are usually as concerned with being friendly, kind and sympathetic.