CLU GULAGER

(16 November 1928 – 5 August 2022)

The American actor and director Clu Gulager, who has died of natural causes aged 93, appeared in films for over 55 years and had a TV career that lasted four decades. His first breaks came as Billy the Kid in the NBC series The Tall Man (1960-62) and then as Emmett Ryker in The Virginian from 1963. A stocky fellow, the actor was built to play cowboys and was around during the heyday of the now past TV Western series.

Clu Gulager was born William Martin Gulager in Holdenville, Oklahoma, the son of the actor-turned-lawyer John Gulager. He was enrolled as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, for which his father had dubbed him Clu after the clu-clu birds that were around at the time. After serving in the US Marine Corps, he studied at universities in Oklahoma and Waco, Texas, and then went to Paris to train under the actor Jean-Louis Barrault. On his return to the US, he was contracted to Universal Studios, appearing in the likes of Have Gun, Will Travel, Wagon Train, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Untouchables, etc.

Gulager’s first film part was on The Killers, Don Siegel’s 1964 thriller with Lee Marvin and Ronald Reagan. Considered too violent for TV, it was released to cinemas. Among the good films he made were James Goldstone's Winning with Paul Newman, Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show , John Sturges' McQ with John Wayne, and John Landis' Into the Night with Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer.

He was then cast in several horror movies such as The Return of the Living Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, The Hidden and Uninvited. Never at a loss for a job, Gulager played a Cherokee in Sean Baker's trans-drama Tangerine (shot on an iPhone in 2015) and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In 2019 he played himself in his last film, the documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street. He directed two films, A Day with the Boys (which was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1970), and Moments with his son Tom in 2012. Clu Gulager was married to the actress Miriam Byrd-Nethery from 1952 to her death in 2003. They have two sons, the cinematographer John and the actor-director Tom

MICHAEL DARVELL