Bill Thurman
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
After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area...
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Silverado
as CarterFour 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 PopperHigh school seniors and best friends, Sonny and Duane, live in a dying Texas town. The handsome...
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The Sugarland Express
as HunterMarried small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and...
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Tom Horn
as Ora HaleyA renowned former army scout is hired by ranchers to hunt down rustlers but finds himself on...
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Raggedy Man
as SheriffNita, a divorced mother of two boys, is stuck working as a telephone operator in a small Texas...
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Where the Red Fern Grows
as Sam BellingtonBilly Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two...
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Alamo Bay
as SheriffA despondent Vietnam veteran in danger of losing his livelihood is pushed to the edge when he...
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'Gator Bait
as Sheriff Joe Bob ThomasDesirée lives deep in the swamp and supports herself and her siblings by poaching. After an...
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Skyward
as Pilot #1Billie Dupree is a flight instructor at an old Texas airport. When a young girl in a wheelchair...
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Mountaintop Motel Massacre
as Reverend Bill McWileyAfter several years in an insane asylum, Evelyn, the keeper of the Mountaintop Motel, is...
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The Eye Creatures
as SergeantA teenager and his girlfriend must save the world from "eye" aliens after their attempts to...
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In the Year 2889
as Tim HendersonThe last seven survivors of a nuclear war barricade themselves against an attack by a mutant...
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Creature from Black Lake
as Sheriff Billy CarterTwo men exploring the Louisiana swamps run into a Bigfoot-type creature.
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Zontar: The Thing from Venus
as Sheriff Brad CrenshawA misguided scientist enables an alien from Venus named Zontar to come to earth in order to...
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It's Alive
as Greely / MonsterA farmer traps three people in a cave with his pet prehistoric monster.
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In Broad Daylight
as Virgil TeagueThe fanatically uncompromising Len Rowan and his family insult and terrorize the citizens of a...
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Mars Needs Women
as Drunk on PierTommy Kirk leads his fellow Martians to Earth on an interplanetary quest for females. Kirk...
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The Evictors
as Preacher HigginsA nice young couple move into an eerie house located in a small Louisiana town, unaware of its...
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The Beasts Are on the Streets
as Carl EvansPanic grips a small community after a tanker truck crashes through a fence at a wild animal...
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Painted Hero
as Old Man BolenVirgil Kidder hasn't been in Waco for quite a spell, but now that he's back in town clowning in...
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Encounter with the Unknown
as Second ManThree eerie tales based on actual events are enacted in this film. First, three college students...
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Keep My Grave Open
as HitchhikerA crazy woman who lives in an old mansion thinks she's with her brother/lover, who lures victims...
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Stormin' Home
as BailiffAn aging motor-cross racer, already having lost his wife and daughter to his footlooseness and...
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Hawken's Breed
as Jeb KlineHawken is a rugged drifter and loner who meets and comes to rescue a young Shawnee woman, named...
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A Bullet for Pretty Boy
as HuddyA biography of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, a gangster who started his career at a young age...
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The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald
as uncreditedThe bizarre story behind the man accused of assassinating John F. Kennedy and what might have...
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Night Fright
as Deputy Ben WhitfieldA government space experiment into the effects of cosmic rays on animal life goes horribly...
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Innocent Prey
as Jim GardnerA woman living in Dallas discovers that her husband, from New Zealand, is actually a crazed...
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Curse of the Swamp Creature
as Driscoll West / The Swamp CreatureWhile searching for oil in the deadly swamplands of the Florida Everglades, members of a...
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The Long Summer of George Adams
as FloydA middle-age man, in small-town Middle America, lives a momentous year in the mid-20th century.
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The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald
as WitnessThe Dallas trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy's alleged assassin, is enacted...
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The Florida Connection
as DekeDan Gordon arrives in town on the edge of the Florida Everglades, planning to take part in a...
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Slumber Party '57
as Mr. WillisIn 1957, a group of high school girls spending the night in a mansion tell each other about...
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High Yellow
as Major BatesCynthia Wood, a 17-year-old, light-skinned black girl, tries to pass off as white after getting...
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Hell Raiders
as TexIn Italy during World War II, an American headquarters is evacuated when German forces break...
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Fair Play
as Jed BartrumA young man arrives at the town of Fair Play to see his uncle. What he finds upon arriving is a...
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Hip Hot and 21
as Lt. LangThe story of the country virgin who became queen of the innersprings...
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The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde
as Policeman (uncredited)Quasi-documentay on Bonnie and Clyde... Larry Buchanan style!
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Charge of the Model T's
as Sgt. BondComedy - During WWI, the Germans try to encourage certain Mexican guerrillas to make trouble on...
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The Black Cat
as BartenderA mentally unbalanced man is obsessed with the idea that a black cat is possessed. He tortures...
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Spiked Heels and Black Nylons
as AbelA policeman's wife becomes a drug addict and goes to work at the dreaded "Club Lesbo;" an...
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Ride in a Pink Car
as BarlowA man, thought to be dead, returns to his hometown in Florida. He finds his wife re-married and...
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Hot-Blooded Woman
as Railroad ToughBackwoods bombshell Myrtle marries George, only to find out that George neither can nor wants to...
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Dallas
as Phil BradleyThe 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 HoustinWhen drifter Ben Quick arrives in a small Mississippi town, Will Varner, a family patriarch,...
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