--- name: "Levon Helm" canonical: "https://film.one/person/levon-helm" roles: ["Actor"] born: "26 May 1940" died: "19 April 2012" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 84 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T06:16:40.648874+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Levon Helm Actor. Born 26 May 1940 in Elaine, Arkansas, USA. Died 19 April 2012. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 26 May 1940, Elaine, Arkansas, USA - **Died:** 19 April 2012 - **Active:** 1980–1983 - **Average Fi1m score:** 84, as actor, over 2 titles - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levon_Helm, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q356986, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0375629/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/76136 ## Fi1m on Levon Helm > Levon Helm acted the way he made music, without asking to be noticed. His films are a handful of fathers and old men in other people's stories, and the best of them, in *Coal Miner's Daughter*, is the truest thing on screen. The scene we keep coming back to lasts about a minute. In *Coal Miner's Daughter* (1980), Loretta is on the bus that will take her and Mooney to Washington state, and her father Ted has walked down the hill to say goodbye. He stands with his hands in his pockets and cannot get the words out. Helm does nothing with it. He fails to speak, Sissy Spacek watches him fail from the window, and in a film full of concert halls that was the moment that moved us most. It is because he is not playing a man who cannot speak. He is a man who has run out of the thing he came to say. It was his first film. He was forty, had spent the best part of two decades as the drummer and a singer in The Band, and had been filmed before only as himself, in *The Last Waltz* (1978). He had never trained as an actor and did not pretend otherwise. What he had was an Arkansas boyhood and the habit, from years behind a drum kit, of holding a thing together without being the centre of it. Michael Apted's film puts him next to Spacek and lets that habit do the work. The parts that followed were mostly of a kind. In *The Right Stuff* (1983) he is Jack Ridley, and he also narrates, so the whole film arrives in his slow Arkansas voice. In *Smooth Talk* (1985) he is Laura Dern's father. By *The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada* (2005) he is billed as Old Man with Radio, and in *Shooter* (2007) he has a few minutes as Mr Rate, a man who knows about guns, and it is the part of that film people mention. Tommy Lee Jones, who directed *Three Burials*, worked with him three times, which tells you how a certain kind of director regarded him. We should be plain about the size of all this. Acting was the second job and the filmography is a modest one: supporting parts, a few scenes each, spread across nearly thirty years. He never carried a film and it is not obvious he wanted to. The parts also sit close together, fathers and old men and local men who have been where they are a long while, and we suspect a suit and a city would have undone him. He said as much himself in 1980: "You can't just laugh your way through it, but if you can entertain people by singin' or playin' an instrument, you can modulate yourself into the film situation." That is a musician talking about acting as a matter of tempo, and it is exactly how he did it. Start with *Coal Miner's Daughter* and wait for the bus. Then *The Right Stuff*, where he is on screen less than you want and on the soundtrack more than you expect. After that it is a question of sitting through other people's films for the ten minutes when he walks in, says very little, and makes wherever he is standing feel lived in before he goes. ## Biography Levon Helm was an American actor and musician. He played Ted Webb, the father of Loretta Lynn, in the 1980 film *Coal Miner's Daughter*. Helm appeared in other films including *The Right Stuff* (1983) as Jack Ridley, *Smooth Talk* (1985), *The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada* (2005), *Shooter* (2007) and *In the Electric Mist* (2009). He was born in Elaine, Arkansas, on 26 May 1940 and died on 19 April 2012. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, theguardian.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *The Right Stuff* (1983), Fi1m 86, as Jack Ridley / Narrator — [page](https://film.one/film/the-right-stuff.md) - *Coal Miner's Daughter* (1980), Fi1m 81, as Ted Webb — [page](https://film.one/film/coal-miners-daughter.md) ## Complete filmography (21) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Band: Stage Fright (50th Anniversery Ed.)* (2021), Actor - *The Band - Live At The Academy Of Music 1971* (2013), as Batteria Mandolino voce - *Levon Helm: Ramble At The Ryman* (2009), Executive Producer - *In the Electric Mist* (2009), as General John Bell Hood - *Shooter* (2007), as Mr. Rate - *The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada* (2005), as Old Man with Radio - *The Band - The Band Is Back* (2003), as Vokals, mandolin and Drums - *The Adventures of Sebastian Cole* (1998), as Juvie Bob - *Fire Down Below* (1997), as Reverend Bob Goodall - *Feeling Minnesota* (1996), as Bible Salesman - *Martin Scorsese Directs* (1990), Music - *Staying Together* (1989), as Denny Stockton - *The Man Outside* (1987), as Sheriff Leland Laughlin - *End of the Line* (1987), as Leo Pickett - *Smooth Talk* (1985), as Harry Wyatt - *Best Revenge* (1984), as Bo - *The Dollmaker* (1984), as Clovis - *The Right Stuff* (1983), as Jack Ridley / Narrator — Fi1m 86, [page](https://film.one/film/the-right-stuff.md) - *American Playhouse* (1982), series, as Harry - *Coal Miner's Daughter* (1980), as Ted Webb — Fi1m 81, [page](https://film.one/film/coal-miners-daughter.md) - *The Band: The Authorized Biography*, Actor ## Gallery - ![Levon Helm performing with The Band. Hamburg, May 1971. (2010)](https://film.one/media/person/364983/gallery-261beb30e141.jpg) Levon Helm performing with The Band. Hamburg, May 1971. (2010) — Heinrich Klaffs, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Levon_Helm%2C_1971.jpg/1280px-Levon_Helm%2C_1971.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Levon looks to sky during his performance in Canton, MA at the Life is Good Festival in 2011.](https://film.one/media/person/364983/gallery-f3da67aacd5f.jpg) Levon looks to sky during his performance in Canton, MA at the Life is Good Festival in 2011. — Parkerjh “Please attribute Parker Harrington as the creator of this work,”, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Levon_Helm_at_%22life_is_Good_Festival%22_in_2011.jpg/1280px-Levon_Helm_at_%22life_is_Good_Festival%22_in_2011.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Levon Helm](https://film.one/media/person/364983/gallery-ee63f9f7009e.jpg) Levon Helm — Photo by Jaime Martorano, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/LevonHelmWoodstockNY2004.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![The Band, Hamburg, May 1971. Left to right: Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Richard Manuel. (2010)](https://film.one/media/person/364983/gallery-204f7c0c22d2.jpg) The Band, Hamburg, May 1971. Left to right: Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Richard Manuel. (2010) — Heinrich Klaffs, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/The_Band_in_Hamburg%2C_1971.jpg/1280px-The_Band_in_Hamburg%2C_1971.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Levon Helm](https://film.one/media/person/364983/gallery-947a56d37cdf.jpg) Levon Helm — Image via TMDB - ![Levon Helm](https://film.one/media/person/364983/gallery-298568aa19e6.jpg) Levon Helm — Image via TMDB - ![Levon Helm in Central Park, New York, 2007](https://film.one/media/person/364983/gallery-840b9de76ac2.jpg) Levon Helm in Central Park, New York, 2007 — daniel arnold from brooklyn, usa, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Levon_Helm_2007.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) ## Awards ### Other awards — 2 won - Americana Award for Artist of the Year 2008: Americana Award for Artist of the Year (won) - Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance 2003: Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/levon-helm