Paul Brinegar

Acting

Paul Brinegar

Born 1917-12-19 · Tucumcari, New Mexico, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Paul Brinegar (December 19, 1917 – March 27, 1995) was an American character actor best known for his roles in three western series: The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Rawhide, and Lancer. Brinegar's first credited appearance in a feature film was in Larceny (1948). From there, he launched a steady film career that slowed considerably in the late 1950s, after he began appearing on television but did not end until 1994, when Brinegar made his final screen appearance, as a stagecoach driver, in the 1994 film version of Maverick. Brinegar appeared more than 100 times between 1946 and 1994 in western films, often specializing in playing "feisty, grizzled cowboy sidekicks". On television, from 1956 to 1958, he played James H. "Dog" Kelley, the mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, in the ABC/Desilu western series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp starring Hugh O'Brian. Brinegar appeared in that series 33 times as Kelley and in one other episode in another role. In 1959 he played Ludwig, a bartender, in the episode "The Ringer" of the western series The Texan with Rory Calhoun. Brinegar, however, is best remembered as the cattle-drive cook George Washington Wishbone on the CBS series Rawhide from 1959 to 1966. Earlier he had played a similar role, one as the character Tom Jefferson Jeffrey, in the 1958 movie Cattle Empire upon which Rawhide was based. Brinegar also made two guest appearances on CBS's Perry Mason. His first appearance on that series, prior to Rawhide, was in 1958. He performed as Tom Sackett in the first-season episode titled "The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary". His second appearance on Perry Mason was during the series' ninth and final season. He played Jason Rohan in the 1966 episode "The Case of the Unwelcome Well". In the 1968-1970 CBS western series Lancer, Brinegar had the role of Jelly Hoskins; and in 1969 he appeared in the western film Charro! starring Elvis Presley. Then, in 1973, he played the barman in Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter. From 1982 to 1983, returning to television, Brinegar portrayed a humorous cowboy-like character, Lamar Pettybone, during the first season of the ABC series Matt Houston. Later he reprised a revised version of his Rawhide Wishbone character for the 1991 TV movie The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, in which he delivers a brief monologue that includes about a dozen references to old television western series.

Acting credits

High Plains Drifter poster
7.3

A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.

High Plains Drifter

1973

Maverick poster
6.9

Bret Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional $3k in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game beginning in a few days. He joins forces with a woman with a marvelous Southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.

Maverick

1994

Life Stinks poster
5.6

Affluent and arrogant businessman Goddard Bolt, feuding with rival Vance Crasswell over a land deal, makes a bet with Crasswell that he has the wits and street smarts to live penniless and anonymous on the rough streets of Los Angeles for thirty days. But Bolt has a rude awakening when the reality of homelessness hits him. Still, he finds a silver lining in a burgeoning romance with Molly, a former Broadway dancer who has fallen on hard times.

Life Stinks

1991

We're Not Married! poster
5.9

A Justice of the Peace performed weddings a few days before his license was valid. A few years later five couples learn they have never been legally married.

We're Not Married!

1952

A Star Is Born poster
7.1

A movie star helps a young singer-actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

A Star Is Born

1954

Human Desire poster
6.7

A Korean War vet returns to his job as a railroad engineer and becomes involved in a sordid affair with a co-worker's wife following a murder on a train.

Human Desire

1954

Pat and Mike poster
6.4

Pat Pemberton is a brilliant athlete, except when her domineering fiancé is around. The ladies golf championship is in her reach until she gets flustered by his presence at the final holes. He wants them to get married and forget the whole thing, but she cannot give up on herself that easily. She enlists the help of Mike Conovan, a slightly shady sports promoter. Together they face mobsters, a jealous boxer, and a growing mutual attraction.

Pat and Mike

1952

Take One False Step poster
5.4

Catherine Sykes disappears after a midnight drive with Professor Andrew Gentling . When she's presumed murdered, his friend Martha convinces him that he's a prime suspect and should investigate before he's arrested.

Take One False Step

1949

Young Man with a Horn poster
6.4

Taken in by the musical world as a young orphan, Rick Martin grows up with a desire to play pure jazz instead of the commercial gigs he lands, whilst also coping with the problems caused by his tempestuous marriage to an aloof heiress.

Young Man with a Horn

1950

The Silver Chalice poster
4.4

A Greek artisan is commissioned to cast the cup of Christ in silver and sculpt around its rim the faces of the disciples and Jesus himself. He travels to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome to complete the task. Meanwhile, a nefarious interloper is trying to convince the crowds that he is the new Messiah by using nothing more than cheap parlor tricks.

The Silver Chalice

1954

The Spirit of St. Louis poster
6.7

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh struggles to finance and design an airplane that will make his New York to Paris flight the first solo transatlantic crossing.

The Spirit of St. Louis

1957

Charro! poster
5.4

Vince Hackett's gang steals a prized victory canon from Mexico and blames the deed on ex-member Jess Wade, who wants to go straight.

Charro!

1969

Storm Warning poster
6.6

A fashion model witnesses the brutal assassination of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling to a small town to visit her sister.

Storm Warning

1951

The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw poster
4.8

Hawkes, Jones and Cassidy are on their way to the biggest poker game in history. But a few folks want to see them fold before they even get there.

The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw

1991

Pinky poster
7.1

Pinky, a light skinned black woman, returns to her grandmother's house in the South after graduating from a Northern nursing school. Pinky tells her grandmother that she has been "passing" for white while at school in the North. In addition, she has fallen in love with a young white doctor, who knows nothing about her black heritage.

Pinky

1949

The Vampire poster
6.2

A small town doctor mistakenly ingests an experimental drug made from the blood of vampire bats which transforms the kindly medic into a bloodthirsty monster.

The Vampire

1957

Phantom of the Rue Morgue poster
6.2

When several women are found mutilated and murdered, the Paris police are baffled as to who the killer may be. All evidence points to Dupin, but soon it becomes apparent that it is someone (or something) stronger and deadlier than a human.

Phantom of the Rue Morgue

1954

Dawn at Socorro poster
7.2

Brett Wade, gambler, gunslinger, and classical pianist, is wounded in a gunfight with the Ferris clan; the doctor finds signs of tuberculosis. En route to Colorado for his health, Brett stops in Socorro, New Mexico along with Ferris gunfighter Jimmy Rapp. Sheriff Couthen fears another shootout, but what Brett has in mind is saving waif-with-a-past Rannah Hayes from a life as one of Dick Braden's saloon girls.

Dawn at Socorro

1954

Rails Into Laramie poster
6.5

A federal agent arrives in Laramie to try to find out who is behind the efforts to stop the construction of a new railroad track.

Rails Into Laramie

1954

World Without End poster
5.7

Four astronauts returning from man's first mission to Mars enter a time warp and crash on a 26th-century Earth devastated by atomic war. At first unaware where they are, but finding the atmosphere safe to breathe, they start exploring and find themselves in a divided future where disfigured mutants living like cavemen inhabit the surface, while the normals live comfortably below the surface but are dying as a race from lack of natural water, air and sunlight.

World Without End

1956

I Died a Thousand Times poster
6.2

After aging criminal Roy Earle is released from prison he decides to pull one last heist before retiring — by robbing a resort hotel.

I Died a Thousand Times

1955

Ransom! poster
7.2

A wealthy business man stuns his wife and town with a televised response to his son's kidnappers.

Ransom!

1956

Spaceship poster
3.9

A farce satirizing extraterrestrial horror movies such as Alien. Alternate titles include "The Creature Wasn't Nice" and "Naked Space" (1999 re-release trying to capitalize on Nielsen's "Naked Gun" success).

Spaceship

1983

A Ticket to Tomahawk poster
6.0

A cowboy is hired by a stagecoach boss to stop the railroad reaching his territory and putting him out of business. He uses everything from Indians to dancehall girls to try to thwart the plan. But the railroad workers, led by a female sharpshooter and an ambitious salesman, prove tough customers.

A Ticket to Tomahawk

1950