There's something of the resolute pioneer about the tall and steely actor Sam Elliott, with his slow drawl and even gaze. Elliott is the kind of guy who chews tobacco with the crew, remembers their names, and doesn't forget where he came from.
At last the journeyman actor is enjoying a peak in his career, personified by his role in the blockbuster hit "The Hulk." He plays Gen. Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, complete with ramrod posture and unyielding determination.
He has high expectation for the film, which casts him as the military antagonist who uncovers the mystery of the Hulk.
"This is the one thing that had eluded me for my entire career, that bankability factor," says Elliott, relaxing in his temporary trailer on the Universal Studios lot. "It's cold, hard numbers. The guys that are on the list that get all those big parts have major, major blockbusters behind them — whether they had anything to do with them or not doesn't matter. So maybe I'll suffer some of that fallout because of the 'Hulk.'
He admits that he has loved "this niche I've carved" playing character parts. From "Lifeguard," to "We Were Soldiers," "Tombstone," "Mask," "Conagher," Elliott has always played the stalwart American, a guy whose word was his bond. Elliott lives his life that way too, and admits it's getting harder to conduct business on that basis.
"I got into this business in the late '60s," he says. "I was a contract player to 20th Century Fox and saw the whole end of that studio thing happen. It was mind-boggling. Now it's all about how young everybody is, how smooth they are."
Smooth, he's not. His parents hailed from Texas, children of the Depression. He just spent two weeks with his mother, who still lives in the family home they bought in 1957 in Portland, Ore.
"To mom, I can't get across to her it's OK to spend some money," he says with a grin. "I've got more money than all of us can ever spend in our family because it's been taken care of.
"It's not that I make huge sums of money when I work, because I don't. When you make that big crossover, that's when the huge money comes."
Elliott's father died of a heart attack when Sam was 18. "He was like one of those guys, a man's man. My dad worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service and I grew up with a fly rod in my hand in Sacramento, fishing the Sierras before people discovered them.
"They were pristine and amazing, and I've continued through my life to enjoy the outdoors and do all that stuff.
He says that his family gave him an appreciation for hard work and the rewards of working on the land. Yet Elliott shakes his head when he talks about when his father died.
"He went to the grave thinking I was nuts for wanting to be an actor, and didn't see the other side of it, any of my success. It just kills me to talk about it.
"I see friends of my dad's, the few who are still alive, and they tell me how proud he would've been of me. And it just kills me."
Elliott, 58, is married to actress Katharine Ross ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid") and they have an 18-year-old daughter, Cleo, who also dreams of becoming an actress.
In his spare time Elliott works his 2.9 acres in Malibu, planting vegetables and fruit and caring for their cats, dogs, horses and chickens.
A loner and a daydreamer as a kid, he wasn't a good student and still has to strain at memorizing his script, he says.
"I go out in the yard and read it over and over again," he says. "By the end my script is filled with dirt and blood and bugs."
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