Actor
Bill Thurman
21 credited titles on WatchWise
Character actor Bill Thurman was born on November 4, 1920 in Texas. A large, rugged, stocky man with a hard, lined, puffy face, a deep, twangy, amicable voice, a strong, bulky build and a charmingly low-key and down-to-earth unaffected natural screen presence, Thurman often portrayed police officers and assorted scruffy redneck types in a huge number of entertainingly cheap'n'cheesy Southern-fried fright flicks and delightfully down'n'dirty drive-in fare made throughout the 60s and 70s. Bill frequently acted in features for legendary Grade Z low-budget independent filmmaker Larry Buchanan; said movies include "The Eye Creatures," "High Yellow," "Zontar the Thing from Venus," "Mars Needs Women," "Curse of the Swamp Creature," "In the Year 2889," the especially atrocious "It's Alive!," and "A Bullet for Pretty Boy." Moreover, Thurman had bit parts in two Steven Spielberg films: he's a hillbilly hunter in "The Sugerland Express" and an air traffic controller in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Bill's other memorable roles include the abusive Coach Popper in Peter Bogdanovich's magnificent "The Last Picture Show," a doomed hitchhiker in "Keep My Grave Open," a corrupt sheriff in t
Associated performance by genre
Worldwide gross by tagged contribution — US$.
Filmography cards
Each title carries role, budget, worldwide gross and commercial verdict.
Based on 2 of 21 catalogued titles with reported budget and worldwide gross — figures from TMDB and Wikipedia (reused under CC BY-SA), shown in US$. Coverage varies by title; figures are estimates, not audited trade data.
Acted in (21)
Titles are ones WatchWise has catalogued so far — not necessarily a complete filmography.
