Today, we are going to talk about actor Jack Elam and his net worth.
A lot of actors have graced both the small and big screens. The entertainment industry has existed for more than a century at this point. A lot of people from younger generations don’t really know these actors. Or, at the very least, haven’t seen the work that they made.
I honestly thought that having streaming services would incentivize media companies to put older titles onto their services. But I was kind of naïve to believe that. Despite the advancements in making remasters of older content, it’s still really expensive. It’s definitely a gamble to spend millions of dollars in restoring a title. And have no one watch them.
What I am getting at is that sometimes it’s hard to write certain actors who did a lot of stuff before the ’70s. Even though some of them have managed to find work just before the turn of the new millennia, a bulk of their work is still harder to find. Actors from the past fifty years or so have had a lot of their life written onto media that you can easily search for.
But there’s only so much that is written about actors from before that. You have a lot of people covering the lives of Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn. I guess the amount of focus given to certain actors depends on how big they were at the time.
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Jack Elam: Quick Details
- Full name: William Scott Elam
- Date of birth: November 13, 1920
- Place of birth: Miami, Arizona
- Occupation: Actor
- Years active: 1944–1995
- Estimated net worth: $3 million
Early Life
There really isn’t much that I could find about Jack Elam outside of the usual places like Wikipedia. Like I said, there’s definitely a gap with the amount of information you’d get based on an actor’s fame. It also has to do with people’s interest with that particular actor.
Jack Elam was born in Miami, Arizona. Prior to this, I didn’t really know there was another place called Miami in the United States outside of Florida. Miami, Arizona was primarily a mining town.
Jack’s mother died when he was just three years old. I guess his dad struggled a bit trying to take care of Jack and his older sister. But his dad managed to find love soon after. He spent most of his childhood living with his family along with his new stepmother.
Considering that Miami was mining town, I was kind of surprised to learn that Jack spent a bit of his childhood picking cotton. I guess there could be multiple industries in a single town. And it’s very reductive to think that one industry is the end-all-be-all.
It doesn’t really seem like he had an inkling to become an actor during his childhood. He studied in the local high school in Miami before moving to one in Phoenix. He eventually graduated and went on to study at a community college in California.
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His Life Before Acting
He spent most of his adulthood working in California. I am amazed that he managed to do work as a bookkeeper despite having a bit of a vision problem. During his childhood, he got stabbed in the eye by a fellow boy scout.
He did a bit of bookkeeping and auditing work for a bank and an oil company. Then he served two years at the Navy during World War II. After serving for the Navy, he continued his work as an auditor.
Given that his work was mainly around the Los Angeles area, it makes sense that he’d work with producers and the like. During his time as independent accountant, he managed to work with film producer Samuel Goldwyn.
(That last name was kind of familiar. Like I have seen it somewhere before. I was sort of right. The production company that he founded was acquired by a business man that then merged with another production company. The name of the merged company? Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.)
Lights, Camera, Action
It was in 1949 that Jack Elam managed to get his first ever acting gig. He starred in the role of Raymond in the film “Wild Weed.” Though, the title for that film is more commonly known as “She Shoulda Said No!” His career in film and television pretty much continued after that.
It made sense that Jack Elam would be part of a lot of Westerns during that era. I mean, there weren’t really a lot of movies you can do back then. Westerns were just really popular during that time, I guess?
The 1950 film “The Sundowners” was a film that Jack Elam was involved in both off-screen and on-. He helped finance the production of the film in exchange for a role in it. But considering that he already had some experience in acting, it didn’t seem like a bad deal?
His most memorable role came in the form of a tough guy in the 1951 film “Rawhide.” That basically lead him to getting supporting roles in other films soon after. I guess having such a specific look could only get you certain roles. But, whatever gets you work, I guess?
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What Was Next For Jack Elam?
Most of his life after that was spent playing roles in either television or film. If you look at his filmography, you would see that he had done a lot of roles in such a short amount of time. It’s like he jumped from one project to the next once the previous one wrapped.
He seems to have had a very consistent career despite not really getting a lot of lead roles. Though it doesn’t really seem much of a problem since he was getting a lot of roles every year. Like a lot of actors, he juggled between doing roles in television and film. Those were really the only two things you could in Hollywood.
Looking at the filmography again, I realize that I do not know any of them. I don’t recognize any of the titles listed. I have to be honest, I’m not really much of a film buff. So I don’t watch a lot of films. I try to see a few movies every now and then.
It’s amazing how he was to get work for about fifty years. You don’t really get a lot of actors who manage to find work for that long. The amount of work that one gets when they become older lessens.
So What Is Jack Elam’s Net Worth
Jack managed to get a bit of work through the ’70s all the way to the early ’90s. The early ’90s was definitely the period that he still did a bit of acting gigs. But you can definitely tell that he is bound to retire.
And it makes sense. It’s hard to commit to acting as you grow older. At that point, Jack Elam had earned an estimated net worth of $3 million dollars. After doing the made-for-TV movie “Bonanza: Under Attack,” Jack Elam didn’t have any roles after that.
Despite playing a lot of villain roles in films, a lot of Western fans do enjoy the work that Jack Elam does. I think there are conventions dedicated to Westerns that happen every now and then. But considering that a lot of actors who did Westerns are of age, it seems that it might be hard to invite those actors to the convention.
In 2003, Jack Elam passed away.
Some Thoughts About Jack Elam
Jack Elam has definitely done a lot work in the film and television throughout his fifty-year career in the industry. That’s nothing to scoff at. It’s hard to find work once you have reached a certain age in the industry. You are bound to do specific roles.
A lot of his work isn’t really available to watch in full. But there are still plenty of clips of his scenes on YouTube. The quality of those clips vary wildly. I guess there are ones on the website for Turner Classic Movies. Though it may be locked for people outside of the United States.
He didn’t really do a lot of interviews throughout his career, except when he promoted his sitcom on Late Night with David Letterman. In that interview, you can definitely see that he still has really good memories about the films he has made. Sometimes, when you do something a lot, it would feel like you’re just going through the motions.
Even though the sitcom he was promoting didn’t get another season made, that was the longest role he has played in his entire career. It’s interesting that he got to do a significant role for a television series like that. Esepcially since Westerns weren’t being made a lot at that point. Seeing a 22-episode season nowadays is rare. But in the 1980s, it was still the norm.
Judging from the interview, he definitely had really great timing when it comes to saying quips. I definitely see why they cast him in the sitcom. You do need to have good timing when it comes to comedy.
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