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Chill Theodore Wills (July 18, 1902 – December 15, 1978) was an American film actor, and a singer in the Avalon Boys Quartet.
He was a performer from early childhood, forming and leading the Avalon Boys singing group in the 1930s. After appearing in a few westerns he disbanded the group in 1938, and struck out on a solo acting career.
One of his more memorable roles was that of the distinctive voice of Francis the Mule in a series of popular films. Wills’ deep, rough voice, with its Western twang, was matched to the personality of the cynical, sardonic mule. As was customary at the time, Wills was given no billing for his vocal work, though he was featured prominently on-screen as blustery General Ben Kaye in the fourth entry, Francis Joins the WACS. He provided the deep voice for Stan Laurel’s performance of “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine” in Way Out West (1937), in which the Avalon Boys Quartet appeared.
Wills was cast in numerous serious film roles, including as “the city of Chicago” as personified by a phantom police sergeant in the film noir City That Never Sleeps (1953), and that of Uncle Bawley in Giant (1956), which also features Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Wills was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as Davy Crockett’s companion “Beekeeper” in the film The Alamo (1960). However, his aggressive campaign for the award was considered tasteless by many, including the film’s star/director/producer John Wayne, who publicly apologized for Wills. Wills’ publicity agent, W.S. “Bow-Wow” Wojciechowicz, accepted blame for the ill-advised effort, claiming that Wills had known nothing about it. The Oscar was instead won by Peter Ustinov for his role as Lentulus Batiatus in Spartacus.
In Rory Calhoun’s CBS western series The Texan, Wills appeared in the lead role in the 1960 episode entitled “The Eyes of Captain Wylie”.
Wills starred in the short-run series Frontier Circus which aired for only one season (1961–62) on CBS. In 1966, he was cast in the role of a shady Texas rancher, Jim Ed Love, in the short-lived ABC comedy/western series The Rounders (reprising his role in the 1965 film The Rounders, starring Henry Fonda), with co-stars Ron Hayes, Patrick Wayne and Walker Edmiston.
in 1963-64, Wills joined William Lundigan, Walter Brennan and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in making appearances on behalf of U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee in the campaign against U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
In 1968, Wills refused to support Richard Nixon for the presidency and served as master of ceremonies for George C. Wallace, former governor of Alabama, for the California campaign stops in Wallace’s presidential campaign.[5] Wills was among the few Hollywood celebrities to endorse Wallace’s bid against Nixon and Hubert H. Humphrey; another was Walter Brennan.
Also in 1968, he starred in the Gunsmoke episode “A Noose for Dobie Price”, where he played Elihu Gorman, a former outlaw who joins forces with Marshal Matt Dillon, played by James Arness, to track down a member of his former gang who has escaped jail. His last role was in 1978, as a janitor in Stubby Pringle’s Christmas. CLR
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Chill Wills Biography / Wiki
| Name | Chill Wills |
| Also Know | |
| Gender | Male |
| Known For | Acting |
| Place of Birth | Seagoville, Texas, USA |
| Date of Birth | 1902-07-18 |
| Age(as in 2022) | 76 |
| Deathday | 1978-12-15 |
Chill Wills Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| The Grass Is Always Greener | Windy | 1950-01-07 | Oscar nominated short Western film… |
| Kentucky Rifle | Tobias Taylor | 1956-07-01 | A man escorts a wagon load of Kentucky rifles through Indian territory and must find a way to get through without losing the rifles to the Indians. Un… |
| Poco… Little Dog Lost | Big Burt | 1977-11-23 | It looks like the end of the line for Poco and Kim when they are separated following a car accident. Poco’s relentless search takes him through the de… |
| High Lonesome | Boatwhistle | 1950-09-01 | When a sudden spurt of murders occurs in the Big Bend country, suspicion immediately falls on a young drifter who just moved to the area…. |
| The Sad Horse | Capt. Connors | 1959-03-01 | A lonely boy finds companionship with a horse…. |
| Timber Stampede | Whopper Hatch | 1939-06-29 | Cattlemen fight corrupt railroad men out to destroy the forest…. |
| Guns of a Stranger | Tom Duncan | 1973-05-01 | Forced to kill a young Abilene gunman in the line of duty, Sheriff Matthew Roberts, torn by anguish takes off his badge and leaves Kansas. Roberts bec… |
| Ricochet Romance | Tom Williams | 1954-11-01 | Marjorie Main is the whole show in the Universal programmer Ricochet Romance. Playing the outspoken new cook at a rundown dude ranch, Marjorie forces … |
| New York Premiere Telecast ‘Giant’ | Host | 1956-10-09 | Star studded charity New York premiere of the film Giant… |
| Racketeers of the Range | Whopper Hatch | 1939-05-26 | A large packing company is trying to obtain a monopoly by taking over the last small independent meat packer. Barney O’Dell, owner of the largest ranc… |
| The Sundowners | Sam Beers | 1950-02-02 | Brother is pitted against brother in this tale of fueding ranchers in the old west…. |
| The Man from the Alamo | John Gage | 1953-08-07 | During the war for Texas independence, one man leaves the Alamo before the end (chosen by lot to help others’ families) but is too late to accomplish … |
| From Hell to Texas | Amos Bradley | 1958-04-29 | The naive cowboy Tod Lohman accidentally kills the son of the powerful land baron Hunter Boyd. Tod runs for his life, pursued by the dead man’s vengef… |
| The Little Shepherd Of Kingdom Come | Major Buford | 1961-06-01 | Director Andrew V. McLaglen’s 1961 drama, based on John William Fox’s novel, is the tale of a young man returning home after fighting in the Civil War… |
| Cattle Drive | Dallas | 1951-08-01 | The spoilt young son of a wealthy railroad owner manages to get himself lost in the middle of nowhere. He is found by a cowboy on a cattle drive and t… |
| Gun Glory | Preacher | 1957-07-19 | An ex-gunslinger (Stewart Granger) shunned by townsfolk is the only one who knows how to stop a ruthless cattleman…. |
| Heartaches | ‘Breezie’ Mann | 1947-06-28 | Up-and-coming Hollywood actor/crooner, Vic Morton, has a secret. He starts receiving death threats in the mail and an attempt on his life is made. Soo… |
| Loaded Pistols | Sheriff Cramer | 1948-12-15 | A singing cowboy clears a boy accused of murder by finding the real killer…. |
| The Steagle | Tall Guy McCoy | 1971-09-15 | In the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, a mild-mannered professor decides to live out all of his daydreams, travelling across the country and adopti… |
| Big Daddy | 1969-06-11 | A visitor to the Everglades swamps in Florida encounters and falls in love with an uneducated girl. But he finds competition for her affections from t… | |
| Tumbleweed | Sheriff Murchoree | 1953-12-01 | Jim Harvey is hired to guard a small wagon train as it makes its way west. The train is attacked by Indians and Harvey, hoping to persuade Aguila, the… |
| The Rounders | Jim Ed Love | 1965-01-08 | Ben (Glenn Ford) and Marion (Henry Fonda) are two cowboys who make a meager living breaking wild horses. Their frequent employer Jim (Chill Wills), wh… |
| The Wheeler Dealers | Jay Ray Spinelby | 1963-11-14 | Henry J. Tyroone leaves Texas, where his oil wells are drying up, and arrives in New York with a lot of oil money to play with in the stock market. H… |
| The Deadly Companions | Turk | 1961-06-06 | Ex-army officer accidentally kills a woman’s son, tries to make up for it by escorting the funeral procession through dangerous Indian territory…. |
| The Yearling | Buck Forrester | 1946-12-18 | Jody convinces his parents to allow him to adopt a young deer, but what will happen if the deer misbehaves?… |
| Fireball 500 | Big Jaw | 1966-06-07 | Stock car racer Dave Owens plays into the hands of whiskey runners by agreeing to drive in a cross-country road race…. |
| The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again | Gentleman George Agnew | 1970-11-16 | Walter Brennan is back as the clever and funny over the hill Texas Ranger Nash Crawford. This time the gang must face corruption in their own home tow… |
| Santiago | Captain ‘Sidewheel’ Jones | 1956-07-13 | Two American gun runners at odds with each other and looking to sell guns to the rebels during the Cuban War of Independence navigate a boat to Cuba. … |
| What Next, Corporal Hargrove? | Sgt. Cramp | 1945-11-21 | An Army corporal and his con-man sidekick take a shortcut to heroism in World War II France…. |
| Young Guns of Texas | Preacher Sam Shelby | 1962-11-30 | A man searching for a stolen army payroll is joined by several men after the reward money. One of the pursuers, after killing a ranch foreman, elopes … |
| Bronco Buster | Dan Bream | 1952-05-01 | A veteran rodeo rider takes on a young apprentice in order to “teach him the ropes”, and winds up competing against him…. |
| Gallant Bess | Chief Petty Officer | 1946-12-05 | Marshall Thompson stars in this MGM drama about a young soldier’s devotion to a horse he rescues during WWII. (Not to be confused with “Adventures of … |
| Oh! Susanna | Sgt. Barhydt | 1951-03-01 | Unable to keep peace between frontier Indians and the US Cavalry, a heroic Captain risks court-martial to prevent bloodshed…. |
| Northwest Stampede | Mileaway | 1948-07-28 | In this romantic western, the real stars are a mustang and a police dog. The human aspect of the story centers on a rodeo rider whose late father bequ… |
| Arizona Legion | Whopper Hatch | 1939-01-20 | A federal agent infiltrates an outlaw band that’s taken over a western town…. |
| Trouble in Sundown | Whopper | 1939-03-23 | The bank has been robbed, the night watchman killed and the safe opened. The townspeople want John as he was the only one with the combination. Clint … |
| Hell’s Outpost | Kevin Russell | 1954-12-15 | A returning Korean War vet becomes embroiled in a fight over possession of a tungsten mine…. |
| Gun for a Coward | Loving | 1956-12-30 | A young cowboy, whose dedication to the principles of peace and reason has earned him a reputation for cowardice, overcomes his psychological aversion… |
| The Sea Hornet | Swede | 1951-11-06 | “The Sea Hornet” was a merchant ship sunk, supposedly by a torpedo, less than a mile off the California Coast during World War Two. Six years later wh… |
| Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid | Lemuel | 1973-05-23 | Pat Garrett is hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid…. |
| City That Never Sleeps | Sgt. Joe, the ‘Voice of Chicago’ | 1953-06-12 | Chicago cop Johnny Kelly, dissatisfied with his job and marriage, would like to run away with his stripper girlfriend Angel Face, but keeps getting co… |
| Tulsa | Pinky Jimpson (Narrator) | 1949-04-13 | It’s Tulsa, Oklahoma at the start of the oil boom and Cherokee Lansing’s rancher father is killed in a fight with the Tanner Oil Company. Cherokee pla… |
| Gold of the Seven Saints | Doc Wilson Gates, M.D. | 1961-02-18 | Fur-trapping partners stumble across a cache of gold, but their discovery quickly attracts every greedy villain in the territory…. |
| Rock Island Trail | Hogger McCoy | 1950-05-18 | A greedy businessman tries to block the building of a new railroad in his area…. |
| The Omaha Trail | Henry Hawkins | 1942-09-01 | The coming of the railroad to the West triggers an Indian war…. |
| Stand by for Action | Mate Jenks, Chef-Bootsmann | 1942-12-31 | U. S. Navy Lieutenant Gregg Masterman, of The Harvard and Boston Back Bay Mastermans, learned about the sea while winning silver cups sailing his yach… |
| Mister Gardenia Jones | Hotel Employee | 1942-05-29 | Documentary short film depicting the work of the United Service Organizations (USO) in providing recreational and morale-boosting services for America… |
| Giant | Uncle Bawley | 1956-11-08 | Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She m… |
| Rio Grande | Dr. Wilkins | 1950-11-15 | Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke is posted on the Texas frontier to defend settlers against depredations of marauding Apaches. Col. Yorke is under considerable st… |
| McLintock! | Drago | 1963-11-12 | Ageing, wealthy, rancher and self-made man, George Washington McLintock is forced to deal with numerous personal and professional problems. Seemingly … |
| Western Union | Homer Kettle | 1941-02-21 | When Edward Creighton leads the construction of the Western Union to unite East with West, he hires a Western reformed outlaw and a tenderfoot Eastern… |
| Mr. Billion | Col. Clayton T. Winkle | 1977-03-03 | A fortuneless auto mechanic inherits a billion dollar financial empire when his uncle dies. However, there is one stipulation. In order to claim his f… |
| Belle Starr | Blue Duck | 1941-09-12 | After her family’s mansion is burned down by Yankee soldiers for hiding the rebel leader Captain Sam Starr (Scott) Belle Shirley (Tierney) vows to tak… |
| Her Cardboard Lover | Judge | 1942-07-16 | A flirt tries to make her fiancée jealous by hiring a gigolo…. |
| Red Canyon | Brackton | 1949-04-27 | A former outlaw goes straight and is determined to catch and tame a wild stallion. Western…. |
| Sunday Dinner for a Soldier | Mr. York | 1944-12-08 | A poor family in Florida saves all the money they can in order to plan something special for the soldier they’ve invited to Sunday dinner. They don’t … |
| Timberjack | Steve Riika | 1955-02-18 | A young man seeks his father’s killers among lumberjacks, and discovers that they are actually timber barons who also seek to control lumber mills. Ba… |
| Barbary Coast Gent | Sheriff Hightower | 1944-09-01 | Honest Plush Brannon is a con-man thrown out of the Barbary Coast in San Francisco in the 1880s and headed for the gold rush region of Nevada. He disc… |
| Apache Trail | ‘Pike’ Skelton | 1942-09-01 | The brother of a notorious outlaw is put in a charge of a stagecoach line way station in dangerous Apache territory. A stagecoach arrives at the stati… |
| Way Out West | Lead Singer of the Avalon Boys / Stan’s Bass Singing (uncredited) | 1937-04-16 | Stan and Ollie try to deliver the deed to a valuable gold mine to the daughter of a dead prospector. Unfortunately, the daughter’s evil guardian is de… |
| Ride the Man Down | Ike Adams | 1952-11-25 | After Celia’s father dies, a war erupts over control of his land…. |
| Stubby Pringle’s Christmas | The Janitor | 1978-12-17 | Ranch hand Stubby Pringle journeys to a Christmas dance, hoping to find his true love, and learns a valuable lesson about the spirit of the holiday al… |
| See Here, Private Hargrove | First Sgt. Cramp | 1944-03-18 | Journalist Marion Hargrove enters the Army intending to supplement his income by writing about his training experiences. He muddles through basic trai… |
| I’ll Be Seeing You | Swanson | 1944-12-31 | Mary Marshall, serving a six year term for accidental manslaughter, is given a Christmas furlough from prison to visit her closest relatives, her uncl… |
| Tarzan’s New York Adventure | Manchester Montford | 1942-05-01 | Circus owner Buck Rand kidnaps Boy to perform in his show. He forces a pilot to fly him, Boy and his animal trainer out of the jungle. Tarzan and Jane… |
| The Westerner | Southeast | 1940-09-18 | Drifter Cole Harden is accused of stealing a horse and faces hanging by self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, but Harden manages to talk his way out of it by… |
| Where the Boys Are | Police Captain | 1960-12-28 | Good girls Merritt, Melanie, Tuggle and Angie – all students at mid-western Penmore University – are planning on going to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for… |
| Boom Town | Harmony Jones | 1940-08-30 | McMasters and Sand come to oil towns to get rich. Betsy comes West intending to marry Sand but marries McMasters instead. Getting rich and losing it a… |
| The Sainted Sisters | Will Twitchell | 1948-04-30 | Two female con artists from New York City, fleeing the law with loot from their latest scam, hide out in a small Maine town, near the Canadian border…. |
| The Bugle Sounds | Sgt. Larry Dillon | 1942-01-30 | An old-time cavalry sergeant’s resistance to change could cost him his post…. |
| The Alamo | Beekeeper | 1960-10-23 | The legendary true story of a small band of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant… |
| Honky Tonk | The Sniper | 1941-10-01 | Fast-talking con-man and grifter Candy Johnson rises to be the corrupt boss of Yellow Creek, but his wife’s alcoholic father tries to set things right… |
| The Bad Man | ‘Red’ Giddings | 1941-03-28 | Lopez is a bandit who has stolen the herd at Gil’s ranch, so Hardy is about to foreclose. But Lucia has come back from New York and Gil is happy until… |
| The Saxon Charm | Captain Chatham | 1948-09-28 | In order to get his way, New York producer Matt Saxon manipulates and controls everyone around him but his latest protégé, novelist Eric Busch, fina… |
| Family Honeymoon | Fred | 1948-12-06 | Grant Jordan, bachelor botany professor, marries Katie, a widow with three kids, despite the machinations of Grant’s former girlfriend Minna. But on t… |
| Tugboat Annie Sails Again | Shiftless | 1940-10-26 | Two rival tugboat captains compete for local business…. |
| Lawless Valley | Deputy Speedy McGow | 1938-11-03 | After doing time for a crime he didn’t commit, a cowboy tries to find the men who framed him…. |
| The Liberation of L.B. Jones | Mr. Ike | 1970-03-18 | Undertaker L.B. Jones, the richest black man in his county of Tennessee, is divorcing his wife for infidelity with a white policeman. Taking a stand a… |
| The Harvey Girls | H.H. Hartsey | 1946-01-18 | On a train trip West to become a mail-order bride, Susan Bradley meets a cheery crew of young women traveling out to open a “Harvey House” restaurant … |
| The Over-the-Hill Gang | Gentleman George Agnew | 1969-07-06 | Capt. Oren Hayes, a retired Texas Ranger, while visiting his daughter, finds that her husband is running for mayor against corrupt town boss, Nard Lun… |
| Francis Goes to the Races | Francis The Talking Mule (as Francis the Talking Mule) | 1951-05-01 | In this funny sequel to the popular Francis the Talking Mule, the talkative Mule and his pal Peter get a job working on a horse-breeder’s ranch. They … |
| Allegheny Uprising | M’Cammon | 1939-11-10 | South western Pennsylvania area of colonial America, 1760s. Colonial distaste and disapproval of the British government is starting to surface. Many l… |
| Sky Murder | Sheriff Beckwith | 1940-09-27 | This final Carter film is a lot of fun, with Nick (unwillingly, at first) taking on a ring of Fifth Columnists (since this was filmed before the US en… |
| Leave Her to Heaven | Leick Thome | 1945-12-25 | A young novelist, Richard Harland, meets beautiful Ellen Berent on a train where they fall in love and are soon married. When tragedies take first his… |
| Best Foot Forward | Chester Short | 1943-10-08 | Bud Hooper, a cadet at Winsocki Military Academy, sends an invitation to movie star Lucille Ball to come to Winsocki’s big dance. Ball’s publicity-hun… |
| Stella | Chief Clark | 1950-07-20 | Screwball black comedy about a wacky family that forgets where they’ve buried a corpse…. |
| Francis Goes to West Point | Francis (as Francis the Talking Mule) | 1952-07-01 | Francis the talking mule gets his owner in and out of trouble while he is taking basic training at West Point…. |
| A Stranger in Town | Charles Craig | 1943-04-01 | In the small town of Crownport local attorney Bill Adams is trying to break up the ring of corrupt town officials by running for mayor. The cards seem… |
| Drive-In Movie Memories | 2001-08-31 | A nostalgic, informative history of drive-in movie theaters, featuring extensive archival photographs and interviews with Leonard Maltin, John Bloom, … | |
| That Wonderful Urge | Homer Beggs | 1948-11-20 | When an heiress finds out that the friendly young man she’s met at Sun Valley is really an investigative reporter, she ruins his career by falsely cla… |
| At Sea Ashore | Leader of The Avalon Four (uncredited) | 1936-04-04 | Patsy’s working at Rumplemeyer’s Donut Shop in Brooklyn. By accident she catches Mr. Rumplemeyer’s trousers in the donut machine as he’s leaving to pi… |
| Sorority House | Mr. Johnson | 1939-05-05 | A young girl begins to wonder if she really fits into the upper-class sorority she’s trying to join…. |
| Francis Covers the Big Town | Francis (as Franis the Talking Mule) | 1953-06-10 | A man who has a talking mule gets a job on a newspaper, and both get mixed up in a murder trial…. |
| Call of the Prairie | Singing Cowhand | 1936-03-06 | Hoppy returns to find Johnny in trouble. Buck Peters has been shot by Porter who made it look like Johnny did it. When Johnny flees he runs into Linda… |
| Francis Joins the WACS | Francis (as Francis the Talking Muke) | 1954-07-30 | Peter Stirling (with his old friend the talking mule) is recalled to active duty…in the WACs!… |
| Meet Me in St. Louis | Mr. Neely | 1944-11-28 | In the year before the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move… |
| Francis in the Navy | Francis (voice) (uncredited) | 1955-08-24 | In the U. S. Army intelligence office, bumbling lieutenant Peter Stirling receives a coded message from his friend, Francis, a talking mule. The note … |
| Bar 20 Rides Again | Henchman | 1935-12-06 | Cattle rustler Nevada dreams of living like an emperor in the West. Hoppy and the Bar 20 boys aim to put an end to his dream…. |
| Francis | Francis the Talking Mule (voice) | 1950-02-08 | The truthful soldier Stirling didn’t know how to lie about his source of information, the talking army Mule, Francis, so he was treated as a lunatic a… |
| Nobody’s Baby | Amateur Hour Lead Quartet Singer (as The Avalon Boys) | 1937-04-23 | Kitty Reily (Patsy Kelly) and Lena Marchetti (Lyda Roberti) meet each other at an amateur Radio Show. Kitty quickly learns to greatly dislike incompet… |
| Francis in the Haunted House | Francis (as Francis the Talking Mule) | 1956-07-09 | A Ha-Ha-Haunted House Has Got ‘Em! …and it’s every ghost for himself!… |
| The Cardinal | Monsignor | 1963-12-12 | A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal…. |
| Billy the Kid | Tom Patterson | 1941-05-30 | Billy Bonney is a hot-headed gunslinger who narrowly skirts a life of crime by being befriended and hired by a peaceful rancher, Eric Keating. When Ke… |
| John Wayne’s ‘The Alamo’ | Beekeeper | 1992-06-06 | Documentary about the making of the John Wayne film The Alamo (1960). Included are behind-the-scenes photos and footage of the actual production of th… |
| Wyoming | Lafe | 1940-09-13 | With the army after him and his partner deserting, Reb decides that a change of scenery would be nice so he heads for Wyoming with Dave…. |
| The Day the Bookies Wept | Man on Bus (uncredited) | 1939-09-13 | A pigeon breeder is hired to train a racehorse that wins only when it drinks beer…. |
| Sam Peckinpah’s West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade | Self (archive footage) | 2004-07-25 | An account of the life and work of American film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), a tortured artist whose genius and inner demons changed the Western… |
| It’s Showtime | Self (archive footage) | 1976-03-31 | A collection of film clips profiling animal actors…. |
| Disneyland ’59 | Self | 1959-06-15 | Walt Disney and Art Linkletter co-host a live celebration of Disneyland’s 1959 expansion that consisted of the debuts of Matterhorn Bobsleds, the Disn… |
| That’s Entertainment! III | (archive footage) | 1994-07-01 | Some of MGM’S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to G… |
Credit: TMDB
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