Robert J. Wilke

Robert J. Wilke (born 18 May 1914 in Cincinnati, Ohio; died 28 March 1989 in Los Angeles) was a prolific American film actor noted primarily for his villainous roles, mainly in westerns.

Wilke started as a stuntman in the 1930s and his first appearance on screen was in "San Francisco" (1936). He soon began to acquire regular character parts, mainly as a heavy, and made his mark when, along with Lee Van Cleef and Sheb Wooley, he played one of the "three men waiting at the station" in "High Noon" (1952).

He became a prominent western "bad guy" after this but unfortunately he was one of those actors who fall into the "man with no name" category. His face was instantly recognisable but few cinemagoers actually knew his name. Unlike Van Cleef, Wilke never got the "big break".

Outside of westerns, Wilke appeared in such films as "From Here to Eternity" (1953) and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), in which he was the first mate of the "Nautilus".

He had a good role as a hitman in "The Far Country" (1954) and continued to work steadily in films and TV over the next twenty years. More western credits followed in "Man of the West" (1958) and numerous lesser known films but he was most active in TV during the 1950s and 1960s.

He appeared in many of the best known TV series, mainly westerns, several times in some of them: "Maverick", "Bonanza", "Tarzan", "Gunsmoke", "The Monroes", "Tales of Wells Fargo", "Death Valley Days", "The Virginian", "Perry Mason", "Wagon Train", "Laramie", "77 Sunset Strip", "Rawhide", "Have Gun - Will Travel", "The Untouchables", "Bronco", "Daniel Boone", "The Westerner", "Cheyenne", "Overland Trail", "Lawman", "", "Zorro" and "The Rifleman" were all among his credits.

Another good film cameo came his way in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), playing the railroad bully Wallace, who was quickly killed off by James Coburn in the famous "gun v knife" fight.

He had an unusually sympathetic (and large) role in "Days of Heaven" (1978) as Farmer Sam Shepard's ally, The Farm Foreman.

Away from the film set, Wilke was an expert golfer and, according to IMDb, he was said by his friend Claude Akins to have "earned more money on the golf course than he ever did in movies".

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