Remembering Slim Pickens

Born Louis Burton Lindley, Jr. on June 29, 1919 in Kingsburg, California. He was an excellent horse rider since the age of 4 and dropped out of school at 12 to join the rodeo circuit. He was told that riding in rodeos would provide him with “slim pickings” which he took as his name Slim Pickens and became a well known rodeo clown. After twenty years of rodeo he became and actor appearing in “Rocky Mountain” starring Errol Flynn in 1950. He appeared in many westerns after this and was for a time sidekick to Rex Allen. He probably has two of the most memorable deaths in film history. One in “Dr. Strangelove” and the other in Sam Peckinpah’s “Billy the Kid”. Slim was inducted into both the Western Performers Hall of Fame and National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Slim's only Euro-western was "The Deserter" (1971). He died in Modesto, California on December 8, 1983 after an operation to remover a brain tumor. Today we remember Slim Pickens on what would have been his 90th birthday.