Actor. He began his career at age 18, as a stage perform in vaudeville and is best known as the first star of the Western film genre. As the character “Bronco Billy”, he was the first silent screen cowboy star appearing in “The Great Train Robbery” (1903). As “Bronco Billy”, he played the first real movie cowboy hero in a series of 148 western shorts. He also was a producer with a series of shorts films with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in the 1920s. In 1957, he won an Academy Award as a motion picture pioneer for his contribution to film art and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was honored posthumously with his image on a U.S. postage stamp in 1998 and was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 2002. (bio by: John “J-Cat” Griffith)