Arthur Hunnicutt

Arthur Lee Hunnicutt (February 17, 1910 – September 26, 1979) was an American actor born in Gravelly, Arkansas, who built a career playing old, grizzled rural characters, frequently portraying figures considerably older than his actual age. He attended the University of Central Arkansas and Arkansas State Teachers College before financial difficulties forced him to leave school.

Hunnicutt accumulated years of experience in stock theatre and traveling medicine shows across Kentucky, Illinois, Georgia, Indiana, and Mississippi before enrolling in a Cleveland drama school in 1936 to study theatrical technique for one year. A 1940 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted the breadth of his presence on programs throughout those states during that period. He subsequently joined a theatre company on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, then relocated to New York City, where he worked in the laundry of the Algonquin Hotel for seventeen months before securing roles on Broadway. A touring stint as the lead in Tobacco Road proved formative, allowing him to develop the rural character type that would define much of his later career.

His Broadway work spanned 1940 to 1946 and included Mr. Peebles and Mr. Hooker, Apple of His Eye, Beggars Are Coming to Town, the comedy Too Hot for Maneuvers, and the melodrama Dark Hammock, among other productions. His first film credit was Wildcat in 1942, and he appeared in several additional films during the early 1940s before returning to the stage. In 1949 he went back to Hollywood and resumed his screen career in earnest.

Hunnicutt went on to appear in a long succession of supporting roles in film, including The Red Badge of Courage (1951), The Lusty Men (1952), The Kettles in the Ozarks (1955), The Last Command (1955), in which he played Davy Crockett, The Tall T (1957), Cat Ballou (1965), in which he portrayed Butch Cassidy, El Dorado (1966), and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin. His performance in Howard Hawks's The Big Sky (1952) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In Moonrunners (1975), a precursor to the television series The Dukes of Hazzard, he played the original Uncle Jesse.

On television, Hunnicutt made nearly forty guest appearances across American programs throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He held a recurring role in the Western series Sugarfoot from 1957 to 1961 and made two appearances on Perry Mason in 1963, playing orange grower Amos Kennesaw Mountain Keller in "The Case of the Golden Oranges" and prospector Sandy Bowen in "The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito." His other television credits included Bonanza, Cheyenne, Gunsmoke, The Outer Limits, The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Andy Griffith Show, My Three Sons, The Wild Wild West, Adam-12, and The Twilight Zone.

In his later years Hunnicutt served as honorary mayor of Northridge, California, and developed tongue cancer. He died of cancer on September 27, 1979, at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital at the age of 69, and was buried at Coop Prairie Cemetery in Mansfield, Arkansas.