Bob Steele

As I recently watched the Bob Steele film Cavarly, and not being up on 1930's B Westerns, I wanted to find out more about the actor.

Born Robert Adrian Bradbury in 1907 (some sources say 1906), in Portland, Oregon. His family was a Vaudville family, and in the 1910s had settled in Hollywood. His father, Robert N. Bradbury, became a screenwriter and director, who hired Bob and his twin brother Bill in a series of films called The Adventures of Bob And Bill.

In 1927, he was hired to play in Westerns by the Film Booking Office of America (FBO), who changed his name to Bob Steele. From there, he made B Westerns for most of the Poverty Row studios in the '20s, '30s, and '40s. He also played in some major motion pictures such as Of Mice and Men, and The Big Sleep.

In the 1950s and '60s, he made several guest appearances of TV, as well as movies such as Rio Bravo, The Comancheros, Island in the Sky, Pork Chop Hill, and Hang 'em High. He also played the role of Trooper Duffy on F-Troop (who claimed he fought shoulder to shoulder with Davy Crockett at the Alamo, perhaps an allusion to his role in Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo in 1926).

He died of emphysema in 1988.