Robert Hinkle was a Texas rodeo performer who worked as an actor and dialogue coach in popular films giant and Hood He passed away and wrote, directed, and produced his own Western. He was 95 years old.
Hinkle died on March 3 at a nursing home in Austin after suffering head, back and neck injuries in a fall in his driveway five days earlier, his daughter, Melody Hinkle, said. Hollywood Reporter.
Hinkle also appeared in Distant horizons (1955), starring Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston as explorers Lewis and Clark; in Conqueror (1956), with John Wayne as Genghis Khan; And in Texas first (1956), starring Joel McCrea as Sam Houston.
Off camera, he was the personal manager of actor Chill Wells and singer Marty Robbins and a promoter for the daredevil Evel Knievel.
After Hinkle briefly interviewed George Stevens to participate in a film giant (1956), the director asked him to return to his office at Warner Bros. In Burbank the next day. Instead of offering him a role, Stevens asked him, “Do you think you could teach Rock Hudson to talk like you?” Hinkle recalls in his 2009 book, Call Me Lucky: Texas in Hollywood.
For $500 a week, Hinkle got an office on the lot and worked as a dialogue coach on the sprawling film, also advising James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Mercedes McCambridge, Carroll Baker, and Dennis Hopper on how to talk like a Texan. He befriended the temperamental Brigadier, taught him the ropes and handled some uncredited stunts as well.
“Texans don’t just say the words, they stay at them like they’re old friends, deserving of a cup of coffee,” he wrote in his book. “It’s the journey, not the destination, that’s what’s important in the conversation.”
Hinkle also worked with Newman, Patricia Neal, Melvyn Douglas and others on Martin Ritt. Hood (1963) and directed the scene in which Newman’s character corners a greased pig.
In between those classics, he wrote, directed, produced and portrayed the sheriff in Texas Shootout Ole rex (1961), which is about a boy (Billy E. Hughes) who rescues a wounded dog and nurses him back to health.
The eldest of three children, Hinkle was born on July 25, 1930, in Brownfield, Texas. His father, Wesley, worked in a chemical plant, and his mother, Hattie, ran a local hotel. He said he was 10 years old when he knew he wanted to be a movie cowboy, when silent film star Tom Mix visited his hometown.
After graduating from Brownfield High School, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and helped deliver supplies at the Berlin Airlift during his two-and-a-half-year tour of duty in the Army until March 1950.
He competed in rodeos while still in the service and was riding in Pendleton, Oregon, when Universal’s Bronco buster (1952), starring John Lund, Scott Brady and Welles, arrives at the film’s scenes. He was hired to play a cowboy and perform stunts, and later, director Bud Botcher told him to look him up if he was ever in Hollywood.
A month later, Hinkle came to Los Angeles, infiltrated Republic Pictures and bumped into Welles. The actor brought it to Boetticher, who put it in the 3D film Falcon wings (1953).
Hinkle ended up doing stunts and/or acting in other films including All of America (1953), Bamboo prison (1954), Outlaw Treasure (1955), Andrew F. McLaglen Shoot the man (1956), Oklahoman (1957), Under fire (1957), There is no place for land (1958), All beautiful young cannibalsQ (1960) and Broken Earth (1962).
He also appeared on television on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Sheriff Cochise, Gun smoke, Tombstone area, Wells Fargo Stories, Dragnet And for his last credit, a 1994 episode of the TV series Walker, Texas Ranger.
Beginning in 1963, Hinkle wrote, directed and produced two-reel shorts for Paramount and a year later sponsored a series of shorts. Hollywood Jubilee Country music shows.
He also produced for the big screen Country music (1972), featuring Robbins; Produced and directed Atoka (1982), which saw Robbins, Willie Nelson, Larry Gatlin, Freddie Fender, Hoyt Axton and others perform at an Oklahoma country music festival; And produced Stranger’s guns (1973), starring Robbins and Welles.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his son, Brad; daughter-in-law Marlinda; granddaughters Jennifer and Kim; and grandchildren Brady and Taylor. Another son, Michael, a Vietnam veteran, died in 1991.
While competing in 1950 as a steer and bulldogger in Moses Lake, Washington, Hinkle met his future wife, Sandra, who was then the queen of the rodeo. They married in June 1952 and were together for 73 years until her death in July.
His family will place his ashes June 6 in Brownfield.
