Samuel Pack Elliott (born August 9, 1944) is an American actor. He is the recipient of several accolades, including a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a National Board of Review Award, and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Emmy Awards.
Elliott is known for his distinctive lanky physique, full mustache, and a deep, sonorous voice. He began his film career with minor appearances in The Way West (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), season five of Mission: Impossible and guest-starred on television in the Western Gunsmoke (1972) and the television films Murder in Texas (1981) and The Shadow Riders (1982). He starred in Frogs (1972). His film breakthrough was in the drama Lifeguard (1976). He then appeared in several Louis L'Amour adaptations such as The Quick and the Dead (1987) and Conagher (1991), the latter of which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. He received his second Golden Globe and first Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Buffalo Girls (1995). Other film credits from the early 1990s include as John Buford in the historical drama Gettysburg (1993) and as Virgil Earp in the Western Tombstone (also 1993). In 1998 he played the Stranger in The Big Lebowski.
In the 2000s, Elliott appeared in supporting roles in the drama We Were Soldiers (2002), and the superhero films Hulk (2003), and Ghost Rider (2007). In 2015, he guest-starred on the series Justified, which earned him a Critics' Choice Television Award, and in 2016 began starring in the Netflix series The Ranch. He subsequently had a lead role in the comedy-drama The Hero (2017). The following year, Elliott was cast in the musical drama A Star Is Born (2018), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, and won a National Board of Review Award. Elliott starred as Shea Brennan in the American drama miniseries 1883 (2021–2022), for which he won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie.
Early life
Samuel Pack Elliott was born August 9, 1944, at the Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento, California, the son of Glynn Mamie (née Sparks), a physical training instructor and high school teacher, and Henry Nelson Elliott (1911–1966), who worked as a predator control specialist for the Department of the Interior. His parents were originally from El Paso, Texas, and Elliott has an ancestor who served as a surgeon at the Battle of San Jacinto. He moved from California to Portland, Oregon, with his family when he was 13 years old.
Elliott spent his teenage years living in northeast Portland, and graduated from David Douglas High School in 1962. After graduating from high school, Elliott attended college at the University of Oregon as an English and psychology major for two terms before dropping out. He returned to Portland and attended Clark College in nearby Vancouver, Washington, where he completed a two-year program and was cast as Big Jule in a stage production of Guys and Dolls. The Vancouver Columbian newspaper suggested that Elliott should be a professional actor. After his graduation from Clark in 1965, Elliott re-enrolled at the University of Oregon and pledged at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He dropped out again after his father died of a heart attack.
In the late 1960s, Elliott relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting, which his father had dissuaded him from doing, instead urging him to obtain a college degree. "He gave me that proverbial line, 'You've got a snowball's chance in hell of having a career in (Hollywood),'" Elliott recalled. "He was a realist, my dad. He was a hard worker. He had a work ethic that I've fashioned mine after, and I thank him for that every day." Elliott worked in construction while studying acting and served in the California Air National Guard's 146th Airlift Wing (the Hollywood Guard) at Van Nuys Airport before the unit moved to Channel Islands Air National Guard Station.
