Sam Elliott

Early life

Elliott was born in Sacramento, California, to a mother who was a physical training instructor and a father who worked for the Department of the Interior. He moved to Portland, Oregon, with his family during his teenage years, graduating from David Douglas High School. He attended Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, where he completed a two-year program and was cast as one of the leads in Guys and Dolls. The local newspaper suggested that Elliott should be a professional actor. Soon after, Elliott declared he was going to Hollywood to become a star.

Elliott is a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at California State University, Los Angeles. He worked in construction while studying acting and served in the California Army National Guard. He also lived for a short time in Princeton, West Virginia. He has said that he has heritage from the west, specifically the state of Texas, with a relative who was in the Battle of the Alamo.

Acting

Elliott began his career as a character actor; his appearance, voice, and bearing were well-suited to Westerns. One of his first film roles was as a card player in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). In the 1970–1971 television season, Elliott starred as Doug Robert in the hit series Mission: Impossible, and played the lead character Sam Damon in Once an Eagle, an NBC miniseries during the 1976–1977 season. He played Tom Keating in the mini-series Aspen in 1977. He had the starring role as Rick Carlson in the summer hit sleeper Lifeguard (1976). In 1979, he played the oldest brother in the made-for-TV miniseries The Sacketts. He later played a wife killer in the miniseries Murder in Texas (1981) and A Death in California (1985).

Elliott's breakthrough came with his supporting role in Mask (1985). He has made guest appearances on shows such as Felony Squad, Gunsmoke, Lancer, and Hawaii Five-O, and has been featured in many TV movies, including Prancer (1989) and Buffalo Girls (1995), in which he played Wild Bill Hickok. In 1986, he starred in TV movie Gone to Texas, based on a biography of Sam Houston. The role allowed him to play Houston as both fighter and a man who grew into a skillful political leader; the film depicted his disgrace as Governor of Tennessee, his return to his Cherokee Nation friends, and his pivotal role in the liberation of Texas from Mexico in 1836. Elliott played Wade Garrett in Road House (1989) and Virgil Earp in Tombstone (1993).

In 1998, Elliot was named the grand marshal of the Calgary Stampede parade and rode in the procession before an estimated 300,000 spectators. He co-starred in We Were Soldiers, which is based on the book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, portraying Sgt. Maj. Basil L. Plumley. He portrayed General John Buford in the 1993 film Gettysburg. He played General Thunderbolt Ross in the 2003 film Hulk. Elliott played The Stranger, a character narrating the story of The Big Lebowski (1998). In 2005, he appeared in Thank You for Smoking, as a former Marlboro Man advertisement cowboy who has developed lung cancer. In 2007, Elliott joined the comic book adaptation Ghost Rider and The Golden Compass as Lee Scoresby. In 2009, Elliott had a small role in Up In The Air in which he portrayed the Chief Pilot of American Airlines. He has appeared three times on Parks and Recreation as Ron Dunn, the Eagleton equivalent of Ron Swanson; Dunn is a hippie, compared to Swanson's staunch survivalist and Libertarian personality. He has a supporting role in the film The Company You Keep and played a college football coach in 2014's Draft Day.

In 2015, Elliott played Karl in Paul Weitz's film Grandma, appeared in the romance I'll See You in My Dreams, and had a role in the independent film Digging for Fire. In 2015, he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for best guest performer in a drama for his role in the FX Network's show Justified.

In 2015, it was confirmed that Elliot would appear in the new Netflix series The Ranch. He plays Phil Millstein in the second season of Netflix's Grace and Frankie.

In 2017 it was confirmed that Elliott will appear in the upcoming movie The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot.

Voice acting

Elliott has performed voice-over narration for various commercials. He has lent his voice to campaigns for Dodge, IBM, Kinney Drugs, Union Pacific, and, most notably, the American Beef Council, succeeding Robert Mitchum in the latter. Since late 2007, Elliott has done voice-overs for Coors beer, bringing his deep, rich voice and "western" appeal to the brand brewed in Colorado. In 2010, Ram Trucks hired Elliott to do the voice-over for their Ram Heavy Duty truck commercial; he has been voicing their commercials since. Starting in 2008, he has voiced Smokey Bear, and shares the mascot's birth date (August 9, 1944). For animated films, Elliott lent his voice to Ben the Cow in Barnyard, Buster (a.k.a. Chupadogra) in Marmaduke, and Butch in The Good Dinosaur. He also narrated the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers team introductions to Super Bowl XLV, played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas at the conclusion of the 2010 NFL season for NFL on Fox.

Personal life

Elliott married actress Katharine Ross in 1984. Ross starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which Elliott had a very small role, but the two did not meet and begin dating until 1978, when they both starred in The Legacy. They have a daughter, Cleo Rose Elliott (born 1984), who is now a musician in Malibu, California.