The veteran film and TV actor notched several westerns on his resume.
For TV viewers of a certain age, Michael Parks — the veteran character actor who passed away Tuesday at age 77 in Los Angeles — will always be best remembered as the broodingly hunky star of Then Came Bronson, the 1969 – 70 NBC series about a disillusioned ex-reporter who roamed America like some modern-day cowboy on his motorcycle.
But younger folks are more likely to recognize him for his appearances in movies directed by Kevin Smith (Tusk, Red State), Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn) — and Quentin Tarantino, who cast Parks in both Kill Bill movies, Grindhouse and, most recently, Django Unchained.
Long before he saddled up for Tarantino’s 2012 western, Parks earned his spurs in such films as Stranger on the Run (1967), The Last Hard Man (1976), The Return of Josey Wales (a 1986 drama that employed him as director and star), Billy the Kid (1989), Miracle at Sage Creek (2005), and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007). He also guest starred in episodes of Zane Grey Theater, Gunsmoke, Stoney Burke, Wagon Train, and McCloud.
Among Parks’ final credits are two westerns slated for release later this year: Hostiles, starring Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Adam Beach and Wes Studi; and Boone, in which he appears alongside Lorenzo Lamas and Kevin Sorbo.