If you had to sit down and name 30 actors, would you be able to do it? There are many actors out there, but many of them just tend to blend in to the background when they appear on the screen. Other actors, on the other hand, appear almost anywhere and if you watch a movie, you could bet that it’s a good chance you will see them. Sam Elliott is one of those actors and he is well known for appearing in some top movies as well as many other smaller roles over the years.
Like many celebrities, Sam likes to keep his privacy whenever possible. In interviews, he may give some information but he is going to hold a lot of it back for the most part. Every once in a while, however, he lets down his guard and we get to find out what is really going on behind the scenes. It is in those moments that we learn more than we thought we would ever know.
Sam Elliott is a Hollywood actor unlike like any other. He has a bushy mustache and a deep voice and when he appears on the screen, he makes an impact. He also is very private about his personal life.
Sam is often identified with being a Texan but he was born in California. Many of his family members do live in Texas and he even had an ancestor who fought at the Alamo.
Sam was interested in being in show business from the time he was younger. His parents, who were not actors did not approve of his choice but when he was in college, he decided to try.
He was the lead in Guys and Dolls and the production got great reviews in the local press. He hoped that this would make his parents understand his career choice but his dad told him that acting was only a dead end.
Unfortunately, Sam’s father never believed in his dream and he died of a heart attack in 1966. Sam had not yet become the actor that he is today. When his father died, he reconsidered his acting.
Sam decided that he would follow his dream and moved to Los Angeles. He later said: “I think on some levels that was either hard on me or made me more focused in my resolve to have a career.”
Job offers were few and far between at first so he worked construction to get by. He ended up working on the house of an assistant director and was introduced to contacts at Universal Pictures.
In 1969, he made his first appearance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but it was a smaller role. He also admired the female lead, Katharine Ross but they never ended up meeting during the filming of that movie.
Sam also had a number of TV credits and he became a familiar face to audiences in movies, such as Mission Impossible. He still was looking for something more.
Elliott was looking for a lead role and he found it in Lifeguard, a 1976 drama. It didn’t make the big lists but it did raise his status, as well as bringing an old figure back into his life.
During the production of The Legacy in 1978, he came back into contact with Katharine Ross. Even though they had been together on Butch Cassidy, they were much closer in The Legacy.
Sam and Katherine felt romantic feelings for each other but it was a difficult situation. She was married to an assistant director and she needed to make a choice.
In the end, she divorced her husband at the time in 1979 as she entered into a relationship with Elliott. They were married in 1984. It was the first time that he tied the knot but it was her fifth marriage.
As it turns out, the fifth time was the right time for Ross. Not only did the marriage last, they welcomed Cleo Rose, their daughter into the world that year. Sam’s career was also building up.
One of the biggest movies of his career was Mask, which he played with Cher. He showed that he was able to play many different roles, rather than being typecast into a single role.
Perhaps it was because of his natural cowboy flare but he managed to get into a number of Westerns. Some of them were big hits, such as Tombstone, but he still felt frustrated in his career.
Perhaps he was wondering if all of this is what he risked his father’s disapproval for so he tried to get involved in many other projects. For example, fans loved him in The Big Lebowski.
Sam realized that he was committed to his own goals and he played roles, such as in Hulk but eventually, left the Marvel films.
Elliott now found himself on the other side of 70 but he still felt that he had a lot to offer.
When he appeared with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born, critics loved what they saw and he won an Oscar nomination for best-supporting actor.
He ended up not getting the statue but he was still happy with the nomination, his wife and his daughter.
He also has a lot of stories from what happened behind the scene in The Star Is Born. Bradley Cooper studied Sam’s voice to nail down the country twang.
No wonder that Elliott was attracted to playing a part in A Star Is Born.
So now we know the rest of the story.