Gregory Walcott
Encyclopedia
Gregory Walcott is an American television and film actor. He is perhaps best known for having appeared in the 1959 Ed Wood film, the cult classic Plan 9 from Outer Space
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Plan 9 from Outer Space is a 1959 science fiction film written and directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. The film features Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson and Maila "Vampira" Nurmi...

.

Early life and career

Born Bernard Mattox in Wendell, North Carolina
Wendell, North Carolina
Wendell is a town in Wake County, North Carolina United States. It is a satellite town of Raleigh, the state capital. The population was 4,247 at the 2000 census-History:...

, Walcott was raised in Wilson, North Carolina
Wilson, North Carolina
Wilson is a city and the county seat of Wilson County in the Coastal Plain region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. The 18th largest city in the state, Wilson had a population of 49,167 according to the 2010 census.- Geography :...

. While serving in the Army, he appeared as a drill instructor in the film Battle Cry
Battle Cry (film)
Battle Cry is a 1955 CinemaScope film, starring Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Anne Francis, Dorothy Malone, Raymond Massey, and Mona Freeman...

, then as a military policeman in 1955's war-themed classic Mister Roberts with Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...

, as the drill instructor with Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

 in The Outsider
The Outsider (1961 film)
The Outsider is a 1961 biopic film about Ira Hayes, who was a Native American who fought in World War II in the United States Marine Corps and was one of the Marines who Raised the Flag on Iwo Jima. The film stars Tony Curtis as Hayes.-Cast:*Tony Curtis...

, and later Midway
Midway (film)
Midway is a 1976 war film directed by Jack Smight and produced byWalter Mirisch from a screenplay by Donald S. Sanford. The music score was by John Williams and the cinematography by Harry Stradling, Jr...

as Capt. Elliott Buckmaster.

Walcott had roles in many television series, often in Westerns like Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...

(on which he appeared seven times), Maverick
Maverick (TV series)
Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...

, Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...

, 26 Men
26 Men
26 Men is a syndicated American western television series about the Arizona Rangers, an elite group commissioned in 1901 by the legislature of the Arizona Territory and limited, for financial reasons, to twenty-six active members. Russell Hayden was the producer of the series and the co-composer of...

, Laramie
Laramie (TV series)
Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. Laramie was a Revue Studios production which originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert Crawford, Jr...

, The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...

and in several episodes of Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...

, where he began a long collaboration with Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

. Walcott had featured roles in Eastwood's films Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a 1974 American crime film written and directed by Michael Cimino and starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, and Geoffrey Lewis.-Plot:...

, The Eiger Sanction
The Eiger Sanction (film)
The Eiger Sanction is a 1975 American action thriller based on the novel The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, a pseudonym for the American author, Dr. Rodney William Whitaker. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood, who also starred as Dr. Jonathan Hemlock.-Plot:Dr...

, Joe Kidd
Joe Kidd
Joe Kidd is a 1972 American western film starring Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall, written by Elmore Leonard and directed by John Sturges....

and Every Which Way But Loose.

He also was one of the stars of a 1961–62 NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 television series, 87th Precinct
87th Precinct
The 87th Precinct is a series of police procedural novels and stories written by Ed McBain. McBain's 87th Precinct works have been adapted, sometimes loosely, into movies and television on several occasions.-Setting:...

, as Detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...

 Roger Havilland. Walcott went on to guest roles on many popular TV series including recurring ones in Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...

, Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...

, and appeared as Capt. Diggs on the '70s series
Land Of The Lost
Land of the Lost
Land of the Lost may refer to:* Land of the Lost , the original 1974 children's television series* Land of the Lost , the 1991 remake of the 1974 series...

.

His other film work also includes the comedy On the Double alongside Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...

, the violent drama Prime Cut
Prime Cut
Prime Cut is a 1972 American film produced by Joe Wizan and directed by Michael Ritchie, with a screenplay written by Robert Dillon. The movie stars Lee Marvin as a mob enforcer from Chicago sent to Kansas to collect a debt from a meatpacker boss played by Gene Hackman...

with Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...

 and in the chase film The Sugarland Express
The Sugarland Express
The Sugarland Express is a 1974 American drama film starring Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, William Atherton, and Michael Sacks. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, his first film to be intended as a theatrical release .It is about a husband and wife trying to outrun the law and was based on a...

directed by a 24-year-old Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

. Walcott played a sheriff in the 1979 film Norma Rae
Norma Rae
Norma Rae is a 1979 American drama film that tells the story of a factory worker from a small town in North Carolina, who becomes involved in the labor union activities at the textile factory where she works...

, the film that won an Oscar for star Sally Field
Sally Field
Sally Margaret Field is an American actress, singer, producer, director, and screenwriter. In each decade of her career, she has been known for major roles in American TV/film culture, including: in the 1960s, for Gidget or Sister Bertrille on The Flying Nun ; in the 1970s, for Sybil , Smokey and...

. He also agreeably made a cameo appearance in the 1994 Ed Wood
Ed Wood (film)
Ed Wood is a 1994 American comedy-drama biopic directed and produced by Tim Burton, and starring Johnny Depp as cult filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr. The film concerns the period in Wood's life when he made his best-known films as well as his relationship with actor Bela Lugosi, played by Martin Landau...

bio-pic starring Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...

, directed by Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...

.

Walcott long regretted having anything to do with Plan 9, but in a Sept. 10, 2000 Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

interview, he said, "It's better to be remembered for something than for nothing, don't you think?"

Walcott also served as interim pastor for the First Southern Baptist Church in Oxnard, CA, during the 1960s. He was said to be a good preacher, but several promises he made to the congregation there, he later, apparently, recanted in his film work.

External links

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