Bill Thurman

Bill Thurman (November 4, 1920 – April 13, 1995) was an American film and television actor. From the early 1960s until his death in 1995, he frequently appeared in B movies and independent films, often playing "redneck types" or sheriffs. He worked with low-budget-director Larry Buchanan on numerous films, for example In the Year 2889 and It's Alive!. Thurman was one of those Southern actors who specialized in "regional" pictures, films made exclusively for distribution in the Southern States.[1]

However, Thurman also appeared in two movies by Hollywood star director Steven Spielberg and played Coach Popper, the apparently homosexual husband of Cloris Leachman, in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971). The character actor also appeared in popular television shows like Dallas and Centennial. One of his later roles was Reverend McWiley in the horror film Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986).