Warren Mercer Oates (July 5, 1928 – April 3, 1982) was an American actor. He was best known for his roles in Western and crime films, most notably in collaboration with directors Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman. He had starring roles in Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Other of his most acclaimed performances was as officer Sam Wood in Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night (1967) and as Mr. Sargis in Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973).
Associated with the New Hollywood movement of the 1960s and '70s, Oates starred in numerous films during the early 1970s that have since achieved cult status, such as The Hired Hand and Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Cockfighter (1974), and Race with the Devil (1975). Oates also portrayed John Dillinger in the biopic Dillinger (1973) and as the supporting character U.S. Army Sergeant Hulka in the military comedy Stripes (1981). Another notable appearance of his was in the classic New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs (1977), in which he played the commander of the American forces in the country.
Contents
Early life
Warren Oates was born and reared in Depoy, a tiny rural community in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, located just a few miles west of Greenville, the county seat. According to the federal census of 1940, he was the younger of two sons born to Sarah Alice (née Mercer) and Bayless Earle Oates, who owned a general store. His brother, Gordon, was five years his senior.
On his father's side, Warren was of English, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. He attended Louisville Male High School in Louisville, Kentucky, until 1945, but did not graduate from that institution. He later earned a high-school equivalency diploma. After high school, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for two years (1946–1948), serving in its air wing as an aircraft mechanic and reaching the rank of corporal.
Oates became interested in theater while attending the University of Louisville, where in 1953, he starred in several plays produced by the school's Little Theater Company. Four years later, in New York City, he got an opportunity to star in a live production of the television series Studio One.
Career
Oates moved to Los Angeles, where in the 1950s, he began to establish himself in guest roles in weekly television Westerns, including Wagon Train, Tombstone Territory, Buckskin, Rawhide, Trackdown, Tate, The Rebel, Wanted Dead or Alive, The Virginian, Have Gun – Will Travel, Lawman, The Big Valley, Bat Masterson, and Gunsmoke.
In the episode "Subterranean City" (October 14, 1958) of the syndicated Rescue 8, Oates played a gang member, Pete, who is the nephew of series character Skip Johnson (Lang Jeffries). In the story line, rescuers Johnson and Wes Cameron (Jim Davis) search for a lost girl in the sewer tunnels and encounter three criminals hiding out underground. Pete soon breaks with his gang companions and joins the firemen Wes and Skip in locating the missing child.
In 1961, Oates guest-starred in the episode "Artie Moon" in NBC's The Lawless Years crime drama about the 1920s. In 1962, he appeared as Ves Painter in the short-lived ABC series Stoney Burke, co-starring Jack Lord, a program about rodeo contestants.
Oates also played in a number of guest roles on The Twilight Zone (in "The Purple Testament" and "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" (1963), in which he costarred with Randy Boone and Ron Foster), The Outer Limits ("The Mutant" [1964]), Combat! ("The Pillbox" [1964]) and Lost in Space ("Welcome Stranger" [1965]). During the 1960s and 1970s, he guest-starred on such shows as Twelve O'Clock High ("The Hotshot" [1965]), Lancer, and The Virginian. While making a guest appearance on a segment of the Western television series Dundee and the Culhane, Oates managed to steal the show with his off-camera antics and bloopers that had everyone on the set rolling. After a long day of filming, he headed over and set his footprints in concrete along with all the other stars who appeared at Apacheland Movie Ranch.
"There were 40 [Western] series, and I went from one to the other. I started out playing the third bad guy on a horse and worked my way up to the number-one bad guy," Oates once quipped. Oates did play the good guy once as Deke Bassop in the title role of the episode “The Bassops” on Gunsmoke in 1964.
Oates first met Peckinpah when he played a variety of guest roles in The Rifleman (1958–1963), a popular television series co-created and sometimes directed by Peckinpah. He also played a supporting role in Peckinpah's short-lived series The Westerner in 1960. The collaboration continued as he worked in Peckinpah's early films Ride the High Country (1962) and Major Dundee (1965) and resulted in two of his most famous film roles.
Death
Oates was ill with influenza in the weeks before his death. On April 3, 1982, at the age of 53, he died of a heart attack while taking an afternoon nap at his home in Los Angeles, after having experienced chest pains and shortness of breath earlier that day. An autopsy determined that he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. After his funeral, in accordance with Oates' wishes, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at his ranch in Montana.
Legacy
Oates has a dedicated cult following because of his performances in Peckinpah's studio films and television shows, Monte Hellman's independent works, his films with Peter Fonda, and in a number of B movies from the 1970s. During a screening of Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop, Richard Linklater introduced the film, and gave 16 reasons why viewers should love it. The sixth was: "Because there was once a god who walked the Earth named Warren Oates."
On the occasion of a retrospective dedicated to the actor, the Lincoln Center wrote, "With his rough-hewn face and gruff demeanor, Warren Oates had the kind of offbeat, chameleon-like screen presence that could only have belonged to a star of the freewheeling New Hollywood of the 1960s and ’70s."
The documentary film Warren Oates: Across the Border was produced by Tom Thurman in 1993 as a tribute to the actor's career.
Oates was the subject of a 2009 biography, Warren Oates: A Wild Life, written by Susan Compo.
