Fans of TV westerns will remember the Oklahoma-born actor for The Tall Man and The Virginian.
The C&I crew wants to extend condolences and warm wishes to the family and friends of Clu Gulager, who passed away Friday in Los Angeles at age 93.
A native of Holdenville, Oklahoma, Gulager is best remembered by fans of TV westerns for The Tall Man (1960-62), in which he played a charismatic Billy the Kid opposite his frenemy Pat Garrett (Barry Sullivan), and The Virginian, which had him cast from 1963 to 1968 as lawman Emmett Ryker. He also guested on Wagon Train, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Have Gun — Will Travel, The Rebel, Bonanza and several other series, and had continuing roles in the short-lived dramas San Francisco International Airport (1970) and The MacKenzies of Paradise Cove (1979).
Gulager made his big-screen debut in director Don Siegel’s The Killers, a violent 1964 cult favorite in which he and Lee Marvin play hit men determined to find out why a corrupt businessman (Ronald Reagan in his last movie role) paid them a hefty sum to murder a former race-car driver (John Cassavetes).
Other films on his resume include The Last Picture Show (1971), McQ (1974), The Other Side of Midnight (1977), the 1985 horror films A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and The Return of the Living Dead, and My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1991). More recently, Gulager — who was an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma —played a supporting role as a character identified as The Cherokee in director Sean Baker’s well-received indie drama Tangerine (2015). He gave his final performance as the owner of a bookstore visited by Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).
Diane Goldner, Gulager’s daughter-in-law, released the family’s statement on Facebook: