Biography
Roscoe Ates (also credited as Rosco Ates) was an American actor, vaudeville performer, comedian and musician. Born in Grange, Mississippi, he overcame a childhood speech impediment and began his career accompanying silent films on the violin before turning to vaudeville comedy. He made his film debut in 1929 and appeared in more than 150 films and numerous television episodes, primarily in westerns.
Ates is best known for playing the stuttering western sidekick Soapy Jones in a series of B-westerns from the mid-1940s. Among his other screen roles were the Press Photographer in King Kong (1933), a character in Freaks (1932), a convalescent soldier in Gone with the Wind (1939), and parts in Cimarron (1931), The Palm Beach Story (1942) and The Ladies Man (1961). He also appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and other television series.
Ates died in Los Angeles on 1 March 1962.
