Randolph Scott.

Wealthy parents George Grant Scott and Lucy Crane had Randolph Scott during a visit to Orange County, Virginia, on January 23, 1898. He grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. After serving with the U.S. Army in France during World War I, he attended Georgia Institute of Technology. A football injury forced him to transfer to the University of North Carolina, where he graduated with a degree in textile engineering and manufacturing. He soon discovered acting and moved to California.

Scott’s first film role was an uncredited bit part in Half Marriage 1929. Howard Hughes got him an audition for Cecil B. DeMille, which launched his Hollywood start. Victor Fleming hired him to coach Gary Cooper in a Virginia dialect for The Virginian 1929. Paramount scouts offered him a contract after seeing him in a play. He met Cary Grant on the set of Hot Saturday 1932. They soon lived together in a beach house called Bachelor Hall. Through the 1930s, Scott played easy-going leads in comedies and dramas. His career pivoted in the late 1940s when he focused on Westerns. His persona hardened into a stoic, craggy hero. He became among the top box-office stars of the 1950s, collaborating with director Budd Boetticher on films like 7 Men from Now 1956, The Tall T 1957, and Ride Lonesome 1959. He retired after starring in Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country 1962.

Scott married wealthy heiress Mariana duPont Somerville in 1936; they divorced in 1942. He married Patricia Stillman in 1944; she remained his wife until his death. The couple adopted two children, Christopher and Sandra, in 1950. Scott’s closest friendship was with Cary Grant; they shared a beach house from 1932 to 1942, leading to persistent rumors of a romantic relationship. He also counted Fred Astaire and Reverend Billy Graham as best friends. A conservative Republican, Scott campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and supported Ronald Reagan for governor of California.

Scott’s stoic Western persona influenced the genre for decades. His collaborations with Budd Boetticher represent high-water marks of the Western art form. The Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum inducted him in 1975. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in 1999. Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles 1974 parodied his image. The Statler Brothers scored a top-20 country hit with Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott? in 1973. He is remembered as a definitive Western hero in cinema history.