Bob Steele

Bob Steele (born Robert Adrian Bradbury; January 23, 1907 – December 21, 1988) was an American actor. He also was billed as Bob Bradbury Jr.. Early life Steele was born in Portland, Oregon, into a vaudeville family. His parents were Robert North Bradbury and the former Nieta Quinn. He had a twin brother, Bill, also an actor. After years of touring, the family settled in Hollywood in the late 1910s, where his father soon found work in the movies, first as an actor, later as a director. By 1920, Robert Bradbury hired his son Bob and Bob's twin brother, Bill (1907–1971), as juvenile leads for a series of adventure movies titled The Adventures of Bill and Bob. Steele attended Glendale High School but left before graduation. Career Steele's career began to take off in 1927, when he was hired by production company Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) to star in a series of Westerns. Renamed Bob Steele at FBO, he soon made a name for himself, and in the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s starred in B-Westerns for almost every minor film studio, including Monogram, Supreme, Tiffany, Syndicate, Republic (including several films of The Three Mesquiteers series) and Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) (including the initial films of their "Billy the Kid" series), plus he had the occasional role in an A-movie, as in the adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men in 1939.