Jack Elam height - How tall is Jack Elam?

Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1994.

Interviewed in "Bad at the Bijou" by William R. Horner (McFarland, 1982).

In a "making of" documentary about the film Rio Lobo (1970), actor David Huddleston used costar Elam as an example of the five stages of the career of a character actor: "Who is Jack Elam?": "Get me Jack Elam." "I want a Jack Elam type.""I want a younger Jack Elam." "Who is Jack Elam?".

While working on Rawhide (1951), star Tyrone Power took a liking to novice actor Elam and convinced 20th Century-Fox studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck to sign him to a contract and had him cast in American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950).

After World War II he worked as a bookkeeper for Samuel Goldwyn Studios and then as controller for William Boyd's Hopalong Cassidy production company. Staring at small figures on ledger sheets for hours on end strained his good eye and doctors told him he risked losing his sight if he continued his lucrative accounting business. When a movie director friend was having trouble getting financing for three western scripts, Elam told him he would arrange the financing in exchange for roles as a "heavy" in all three pictures. The first was The Sundowners (1950), starring Robert Preston, which helped launch his career.