John Bond was a gruff and burly American character actor, born in 1903 in Benkelman, Nebraska, as confirmed by Social Security records, and not in 1905 or Denver, Colorado, as some sources mistakenly stated.
Growing up in Denver, Bond was the son of a lumberyard worker and attended the University of Southern California, where he secured work as an extra through a football teammate who would later become one of cinema's biggest stars, John Wayne. Director John Ford discovered Bond's talent and promoted him from extra to supporting player in the film Salute (1929),forming a lasting friendship.
Bond was an arrogant individual with little tact, yet he was also known for his fun-loving nature. He was either loved or hated by those who knew him, and his face and personality fit perfectly into almost any type of film. Throughout his over 30-year career, Bond appeared in hundreds of pictures, both in bit parts and major supporting roles.
In the films of Wayne and Ford, particularly, Bond was nearly always present, and some of his most memorable roles include John L. Sullivan in Gentleman Jim (1942),Det. Tom Polhaus in The Maltese Falcon (1941),and the Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnson Clayton in The Searchers (1956).
Bond was an ardent but anti-intellectual patriot, and he was perhaps the most vehement proponent of blacklisting in the witch hunts of the 1950s. He served as the president of the ultra-right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, known for its unwavering stance against communism.
In the mid-1950s, Bond gained his greatest fame as the star of TV's Wagon Train (1957),and during its production, he traveled to Dallas, Texas, to attend a football game, where he tragically died in his hotel room from a massive heart attack.
