Tex Cooper

In films from at least 1918, when he billed himself "Texas Cooper," this busy bit-part player/B-Western extra looked for all the world like "Buffalo" Bill Cody, whom he finally got to play in his last film, the Lash LaRue Western King of the Bullwhip (1951). Hardly ever receiving onscreen billing, Cooper appeared in literally hundreds of B-Westerns -- genre historian Les Adams has counted 116 appearances in Westerns and serials in the sound era alone -- -- usually just hanging around in the background. If a group of spectators gathered to watch a shootout in the street, a saloon girl's performance, or a skirmish outside the sheriff's office, Cooper was almost always included, easily spotted by his long white hair and florid mustache. Few knew him by name, but almost every kid in the audience cheered when he appeared. His wife Nona was reputedly one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.