![]() ![]() Bikes were used by comedians such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin to make people laugh. Since the early days of films, motorcycles have played an important role. Here are excerpts freom an article Joe wrote for us last year:īill’s profession as an actor and his early association with motorcycles catapulted him to biker stardom for several reasons, but the basic explanation is that there simply wasn’t anyone like him. He wrote about Smiths life in his 168-page biography, The Words and Images of a Hollywood Legend: William Smith. ![]() It got to a point that if you were watching a biker movie in the early part of the 1970s, then most likely, William Smith was in it, says American freelance writer Joe Zimmerman. With a rumoured budget of around $85,000 and a two-week production schedule, Run, Angel, Run! grossed an estimated $13 million at the box office, solidifying Bill as the go-to biker guy. However, his claim to fame as the king of the biker films began with the first of many biker films with Run, Angel, Run! in 1969. His film credits included Conan’s father, Corin, in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie Conan The Barbarian and Clint Eastwood’s fighting revival in Any Which Way You Can. He has performed in TV series such as Perry Mason, Combat, Batman, Hawaii Five-0, I Dream of Jeannie, The Rockford Files, CHiPS, Hunter and Rich Man, Poor Man. They were part of an impressive list of nearly 300 film and television appearances. He had a successful career in television as Joe Riley, on the western comedy TV series Laredo where he rode horses, along with his appearances on Wagon Train and The Virginian. When his family moved to California, the 17-year-old started riding motorcycles which served him well in his career as an actor. By the time he reached his teens he was a skilled rider. The “king of biker films”, William Smith, has died of natural causes, aged 86, after a long battle with alzheimers disease.īorn on 24 March 24 1933, in Columbia, Missouri, on his family’s ranch, Bill was riding horses before he could walk.
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