Happy Birthday: Slim Pickens (1919–1983)

Happy Birthday actor Slim Pickens (1919–1983)

Born: June 29, 1919 in Kingsburg, California, USA

Died: December 8, 1983 (age 64) in Modesto, California, USA

Married to: Margaret Elizabeth Harmon (1950 – 8 December 1983) (his death) (3 children)

QUOTES:

Ever remembered as the Air Force major from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), it is interesting that Pickens’ nephew, Jim “Slim” Pickens, became a career officer in the US Navy.

Before becoming an actor, Slim was riding on the rodeo circuit. Someone told him that he should take up another line of work because all he would ever get in the rodeo was “Slim Pickin’s.”

Brother of Easy Pickens.

Dedicatee of Howard Waldrop’s story “Night of the Cooters,” whose protagonist is Sheriff Bert Lindley.

Well, there was this big, lanky, fourteen-year-old California ranch kid, and he went into the rodeo manager’s office…