Top Western Bad-asses (movie & TV)

Cafe Society
1

Piggy-backing off of this thread: Your Top 5 All-Time Westerns Stars - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board

For example, I’m not a John Wayne fan. He was a draft dodger and (IMHO) his acting was wooden. Some of the “singing cowboys” don’t really do it for me either. That’s not to say some of my own picks won’t suffer some of the same criticisms. Anyhoo, I’m talking about western characters who defined “tough guy” as you define it.

Peter Breck - Nick Barkley
Steve McQueen - Josh Randall
Clint - Bill Munny (and really, Gene for Little Bill) and Angel Eyes
Chuck Connors - Lucas McCain

Special mention - Eric Fleming as Gil Favor

What cha got?

2

How about James West?

3

Pa Cartwright had some steel in his belly. :wink: Lorne Greene did a good job with that role. Especially the episodes where he was alone in some town and didn’t have his kids to help him. He knew how to kick butt.

James Arness in the early seasons of Gunsmoke. Really tough guy in those early seasons. They watered it down after the anti-violence campaigns in tv took hold.

4

I saw a really funny thing on TV once that showed the before and after Gunsmoke. He used to shoot first.

5

Val Kilmer - Doc Holiday

6

How about Johnny Yuma and his sawed off double barrel shotgun, played by Nick Adams?

7

Anson Mount as Cullen Bohannon in Hell on Wheels.

Yul Brunner as “the Gunslinger” in Westworld.

8

William S. Hart, the original cowboy badass.

9

Robert Redford - The Sundance Kid

Rod Taylor - Hank Brackett, “Powderkeg” (TV movie, pilot for Bearcats! TV series)

10

Jimmy Stewart surprised a lot of people in Winchester '73. He showed some acting range in his Westerns. His aw shucks, nice guy persona went away. Dan Duryea was really good as the villain, Waco Johnny Dean.

I don’t think Stewart ever played a villain? I don’t recall any roles like that.

Audie Murphy Westerns are really fun to watch. A real, highly decorated WWII soldier that went into acting. His Westerns are hard to find. They never came out on VHS. Not sure about DVD.

11

Jack Palance-Shane?

I dunno if Clu Gulager has played any Western heavies, but I bet he was very sinister if he did.

12

Paul Newman in Hombre
Charles Bronson in Breakheart Pass
Burt Lancaster in Ulzana’s Raid

13

John Wayne - The OP is flawed.

14

I regret not suggesting Dan Duryea in the original cowboy actor thread. I’d forgotten just how good he was. He played slightly psychotic smiling and affable villains. Smiling one minute and choking somebody out or shooting them in the back, the next. He played in Film Noir and Westerns. Ride Clear of Diablo with Audie Murphy is really good. Russell Johnson, The Professor is in that one too.

15

Gary Cooper. Does it get any better than High Noon? Is not every Western a descendant of The Virginian?

16

All I know is that Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West was the coldest and steeliest bad guy I ever saw in a western. Eastwood as Bill Munny is closest after that.

17

Depending on how you define badass the ones near the top of my own list are:

Ultra-macho take-no-shit tough guy: Kurt Russell in Tombstone (1993)

Sleazy scum-sucking can’t wait-for-him-to-get-killed: Ben Foster in 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Going way back, the guy who set the mold for me was Jack Elam in Rawhide (1951)

Or the other extreme, both Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove (1989)

18

Chris Adams in the Magnificent Seven.

19

Why, Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday of course. And Ian McShane as Al Swearengen.

20

Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West, starting with the opening scene, one of the best ever in a Western.

Charlie made a pretty badass Indian in Cato’s Land too.