Biography
Slim Pickens, born Louis Burton Lindley Jr., was an American actor and rodeo performer. He began competing in rodeos as a teenager and worked for two decades as a rodeo clown and bullfighter before making his film debut in Rocky Mountain (1950).
For much of his career Pickens played cowboy roles in Westerns and other films. He appeared in dozens of movies and television series, including One-Eyed Jacks (1961), The Getaway (1972), The Cowboys (1972), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and The Howling (1981). He is known for his comic performances as Major 'King' Kong in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Taggart in Blazing Saddles (1974) and Hollis P. Wood in 1941 (1979), as well as voice work in The Black Hole (1979).
Pickens died in 1983.
