Roy Engel

Roy Engel was a 20th-century character actor who appeared in a remarkably even balance of 101 television shows and 101 films over his prolific career, though most of the latter roles were without on-screen credit. Engel began his career in film, with two barely registering roles in the 1940s, and from the early '50s to the later '70s he was frequently cast as cops, sheriffs, or detectives. A later role, as a prison guard captain in Woody Allen's 1969 comedy, "Take the Money and Run," exemplified his lot as a journeyman on the big screen. One of his few intriguing film projects was a key supporting part in Dennis Hopper's 1971 Peru-based drama, "The Last Movie," a film that was a tremendous bomb for Hopper at the time but has more recently become something of a cult favorite. Television was a far more productive venue for Engel: from the late '50s into the '70s, he hit every major Western, from "Death Valley Days" to "Gunsmoke." He played Doc Martin over 18 episodes of "Bonanza," and appeared as Barney Wingate and other less distinguished characters on 18 episodes of "The Virginian," with James Drury in the title role. In 1977, his final year of acting, Engel played Mayor Connors in the William Shatner-starring horror flick "Kingdom of the Spiders," a movie both beloved and hated, and as a production manager in the Tommy Lee Jones-starring TV biopic, "The Amazing Howard Hughes." Engle passed away at the age of 67.