Bo Hopkins
Actor
THE ACTOR Bo Hopkins, who has died at 80, was familiar from such Hollywood classics as American Graffiti, The Wild Bunch, Midnight Express and The Getaway.
Born William Hopkins in Greenville, South Carolina, in February 1942, he acquired his stage name from the young cowboy character he played in William Inge’s off-Broadway play Bus Stop.
It was Hopkins’ first major role, following experience in summer stock productions – the American equivalent of British repertory companies.
Billy, as he was known, endured a difficult upbringing. He watched his father, a mill worker, die of a heart attack on the family’s front porch.
His mother and her parents cared for him but when she remarried, he rebelled against his new stepfather.
It was around this time he learned he was adopted and would only later meet his birth
parents and his half-siblings. In the meantime, he was persistently in trouble with the law, with numerous instances of truancy, minor crimes and a stay in a reform school.
He dropped out of school just before his 17th birthday and joined the US Army, which eventually shipped him off to Korea for nine months.
After military service he began dating Norma Woodle, whom he married at 21, and they had a daughter in July 1960. It was around that time that he decided to pursue an acting career – despite the disapproval of his wife, who left and took their daughter with her.
Hopkins persevered and
received a scholarship to study stage production at the Pioneer Playhouse in Kentucky. From there he made his way to New York and then Hollywood.
He studied at the renowned Actors’ Studio, learning method acting alongside such future stars as Martin Landau, while parking cars to earn a living.
His first TV role came in 1966 on The Phyllis Diller Show, followed by three westerns and The Andy Griffith Show ,a long-running sitcom co-starring the child actor Ronny Howard, with whom he would be reunited in American Graffiti.
His breakthrough came in 1969 as Crazy Lee in Sam Peckinpah’s epic revisionist western The Wild Bunch. Peckinpah hired him again to play a bank robber in The Getaway three years later. He became a familiar supporting character in big studio films of the 1970s and his dozens of credits included White Lightning, Posse, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing and The Bounty Hunter.
He also guest starred in The Rockford Files, Charlie’s Angels, The A-Team and Dynasty.
He evolved into softer roles as he got older. His final role, two years ago, was in Hillbilly Elegy, directed by his old colleague Ron Howard.
He is survived by Sian Eleanor Green, his wife of 32 years, and by a son and daughter.