Bill Thurman

Born: 1920-11-04

Character actor Bill Thurman was born on November 4, 1920 in Texas. A large, rugged, stocky man with a hard, lined, puffy face, a deep, twangy, amicable voice, a strong, bulky build and a charmingly low-key and down-to-earth unaffected natural screen presence, Thurman often portrayed police officers and assorted scruffy redneck types in a huge number of entertainingly cheap'n'cheesy Southern-fried fright flicks and delightfully down'n'dirty drive-in fare made throughout the 60s and 70s. Bill frequently acted in features for legendary Grade Z low-budget independent filmmaker Larry Buchanan; said movies include "The Eye Creatures," "High Yellow," "Zontar the Thing from Venus," "Mars Needs Women," "Curse of the Swamp Creature," "In the Year 2889," the especially atrocious "It's Alive!," and "A Bullet for Pretty Boy." Moreover, Thurman had bit parts in two Steven Spielberg films: he's a hillbilly hunter in "The Sugerland Express" and an air traffic controller in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Bill's other memorable roles include the abusive Coach Popper in Peter Bogdanovich's magnificent "The Last Picture Show," a doomed hitchhiker in "Keep My Grave Open," a corrupt sheriff in the Claudia Jennings exploitation classic "'Gatorbait," a mean small town deputy in "Ride in A Pink Car," a more amiable sheriff in the fantastic Bigfoot winner "Creature from Black Lake," Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith's father in "Slumber Party '57," a priest in "The Evictors," and the boozy, dissolute Reverend Bill McWiley in the enjoyably crummy "Mountaintop Motel Massacre." Bill Thurman died in Dallas, Texas on April 13, 1995. - IMDb Mini Biography By: woodyanders


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as Air Traffic
Released: 1977-12-14

After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area...

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Silverado

as Carter
Released: 1985-07-10

Four unwitting heroes cross paths on their journey to the sleepy town of Silverado. Little do...

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The Last Picture Show

as Coach Popper
Released: 1971-10-03

High school seniors and best friends, Sonny and Duane, live in a dying Texas town. The handsome...

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Tom Horn

as Ora Haley
Released: 1980-03-28

A renowned former army scout is hired by ranchers to hunt down rustlers but finds himself on...

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The Sugarland Express

as Hunter
Released: 1974-03-31

Married small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and...

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Zontar: The Thing from Venus

as Sheriff Brad Crenshaw
Released: 1967-12-01

A misguided scientist enables an alien from Venus named Zontar to come to earth in order to...

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In the Year 2889

as Tim Henderson
Released: 1969-01-19

The last seven survivors of a nuclear war barricade themselves against an attack by a mutant...

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Raggedy Man

as Sheriff
Released: 1981-09-18

Nita, a divorced mother of two boys, is stuck working as a telephone operator in a small Texas...

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The Eye Creatures

as Sergeant
Released: 1967-10-20

A teenager and his girlfriend must save the world from "eye" aliens after their attempts to...

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Where the Red Fern Grows

as Sam Bellington
Released: 1974-06-21

Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two...

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Alamo Bay

as Sheriff
Released: 1985-04-03

A despondent Vietnam veteran in danger of losing his livelihood is pushed to the edge when he...

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The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald

as uncredited
Released: 1977-09-30

The bizarre story behind the man accused of assassinating John F. Kennedy and what might have...

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The Evictors

as Preacher Higgins
Released: 1979-04-17

A nice young couple move into an eerie house located in a small Louisiana town, unaware of its...

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It's Alive

as Greely / Monster
Released: 1969-10-30

A farmer traps three people in a cave with his pet prehistoric monster.

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Mountaintop Motel Massacre

as Reverend Bill McWiley
Released: 1983-07-15

After several years in an insane asylum, Evelyn, the keeper of the Mountaintop Motel, is...

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Night Fright

as Deputy Ben Whitfield
Released: 1967-11-01

A government space experiment into the effects of cosmic rays on animal life goes horribly...

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In Broad Daylight

as Virgil Teague
Released: 1991-02-03

The fanatically uncompromising Len Rowan and his family insult and terrorize the citizens of a...

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Encounter with the Unknown

as Second Man
Released: 1972-11-15

Three eerie tales based on actual events are enacted in this film. First, three college students...

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Mars Needs Women

as Drunk on Pier
Released: 1968-08-24

Tommy Kirk leads his fellow Martians to Earth on an interplanetary quest for females. Kirk...

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'Gator Bait

as Sheriff Joe Bob Thomas
Released: 1974-10-12

Desirée lives deep in the swamp and supports herself and her siblings by poaching. After an...

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The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald

as Witness
Released: 1964-04-22

The Dallas trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy's alleged assassin, is enacted...

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Creature from Black Lake

as Sheriff Billy Carter
Released: 1976-03-01

Two men exploring the Louisiana swamps run into a Bigfoot-type creature.

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Painted Hero

as Old Man Bolen
Released: 1997-09-16

Virgil Kidder hasn't been in Waco for quite a spell, but now that he's back in town clowning in...

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The Black Cat

as Bartender
Released: 1966-05-01

A mentally unbalanced man is obsessed with the idea that a black cat is possessed. He tortures...

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Hawken's Breed

as Jeb Kline
Released: 1987-01-01

Hawken is a rugged drifter and loner who meets and comes to rescue a young Shawnee woman, named...

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Curse of the Swamp Creature

as Driscoll West / The Swamp Creature
Released: 1968-02-01

While searching for oil in the deadly swamplands of the Florida Everglades, members of a...

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A Bullet for Pretty Boy

as Huddy
Released: 1970-07-15

A biography of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, a gangster who started his career at a young age...

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The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde

as Policeman (uncredited)
Released: 1968-08-22

Quasi-documentay on Bonnie and Clyde... Larry Buchanan style!

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Hell Raiders

as Tex
Released: 1969-06-01

In Italy during World War II, an American headquarters is evacuated when German forces break...

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Slumber Party '57

as Mr. Willis
Released: 1976-08-31

In 1957, a group of high school girls spending the night in a mansion tell each other about...

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The Beasts Are on the Streets

as Carl Evans
Released: 1978-05-18

Panic grips a small community after a tanker truck crashes through a fence at a wild animal...

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Keep My Grave Open

as Hitchhiker
Released: 1977-12-17

A crazy woman who lives in an old mansion thinks she's with her brother/lover, who lures victims...

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High Yellow

as Major Bates
Released: 1965-08-04

Cynthia Wood, a 17-year-old, light-skinned black girl, tries to pass off as white after getting...

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Innocent Prey

as Jim Gardner
Released: 1989-06-15

A woman living in Dallas discovers that her husband, from New Zealand, is actually a crazed...

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Ride in a Pink Car

as Barlow
Released: 1974-06-21

A man, thought to be dead, returns to his hometown in Florida. He finds his wife re-married and...

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Fair Play

as Jed Bartrum
Released: 1972-01-01

A young man arrives at the town of Fair Play to see his uncle. What he finds upon arriving is a...

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Hot-Blooded Woman

as Railroad Tough
Released: 1965-10-01

Backwoods bombshell Myrtle marries George, only to find out that George neither can nor wants to...

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Skyward

as Pilot #1
Released: 1980-11-20

Billie Dupree is a flight instructor at an old Texas airport. When a young girl in a wheelchair...

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The Long Summer of George Adams

as Floyd
Released: 1982-01-18

A middle-age man, in small-town Middle America, lives a momentous year in the mid-20th century.

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Charge of the Model T's

as Sgt. Bond
Released: 1977-11-04

During WWI, the Germans try to encourages and hires a band of certain Mexican guerrillas and...

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Stormin' Home

as Bailiff
Released: 1985-04-05

An aging motor-cross racer, already having lost his wife and daughter to his footlooseness and...

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Hip Hot and 21

as Lt. Lang
Released: 1967-03-01

The story of the country virgin who became queen of the innersprings...

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The Sky Trap

as Sheriff
Released: 1979-05-13

A young man in Arizona, in trying to save his mother’s business, takes off in a sailplane and...

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The Florida Connection

as Deke
Released: 1975-11-21

Dan Gordon arrives in town on the edge of the Florida Everglades, planning to take part in a...

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Spiked Heels and Black Nylons

as Abel
Released: 1967-01-01

A policeman's wife becomes a drug addict and goes to work at the dreaded "Club Lesbo;" an...

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Dallas

as Phil Bradley
First aired: 1978-04-02

The world's first mega-soap, and one of the most popular ever produced, Dallas had it all....

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The Long Hot Summer

as Houstin
First aired: 1985-10-06

When drifter Ben Quick arrives in a small Mississippi town, Will Varner, a family patriarch,...

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