Actor. He was a B western cowboy star of silents and early talkies. Cody’s diminutive stature gave him a likable, underdog quality, and he was pitted against much bigger bad guys in such oaters as “Cold Nerve” (1925), “King of the Saddle” (1926),  “Born to Battle” (1927),  “Slim Fingers” (1929),  “The Montana Kid” (1931),  “Frontier Days” (1934),  and “The Texas Rambler” (1935).  William Joseph Cody was born in Winnipeg,  Manitoba,  Canada.  He entered films as a stuntman in 1922 after some stage and rodeo experience.  Cody had his own production company in the late 1920s,  releasing through Pathe,  but he spent most of his career working for the most impoverished Poverty Row studios,  with hack scripts and starvation budgets.  Aficionados of the genre have cited Cody’s “The Border Menace” (1934) as “the worst B western ever made” (and the competition is pretty stiff in that area).  By the late 1930s Cody’s starring days were over and he was doing bits in “Stagecoach” (1939) and the Republic serial “The Masked Marvel” (1943).  He was not related to the legendary “Buffalo Bill” Cody.   (bio by: Bobb Edwards)