ELLISON, James “Jimmy”

(1910–1993)

   Born James Ellison Smith, Jimmy Ellison is usually associated with William Boyd’s Hopalong Cassidy films. He starred with Boyd in Hop-Along Cassidy (1935), the first film in the series, and continued until 1937. Ellison played Johnny Nelson, a character from the popular Clarence Mulford Hopalong Cassidy novels. Johnny is a high-strung, handsome cowboy, ever loyal to Hoppy, and quick on the draw. Because William Boyd was somewhat older than the character from the novel, Jimmy Ellison’s Johnny inevitably took on all the romantic roles in the series.

   While B Western fans primarily remember Jimmy Ellison from the Hopalong Cassidy days, he later played Buffalo Bill beside Gary Cooper, as Wild Bill Hickock, and Jean Arthur,as Calamity Jane, in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman (1936), a picture far out of the Hopalong Cassidy league. While Ellison played his part competently, he evidently displeased DeMille and only sporadically reached that level of Hollywood stardom thereafter, and never again in highbudget Westerns. His dashing, college-boy good looks typed him in youthful romantic roles, which he eventually outgrew.