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Denver Dell Pyle (May 11, 1920 – December 25, 1997) was an American film and television actor and director. He was well known for a number of television roles from the 1960s through the 1980s, including his portrayal of Briscoe Darling in several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, as Jesse Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard from 1979 to 1985, as Mad Jack in the NBC television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and as the main character's father, Buck Webb, in CBS's The Doris Day Show. In many of his roles, he portrayed either authority figures, or gruff, demanding father figures, often as comic relief. Perhaps his most memorable film role was that of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in the movie Bonnie and Clyde (1967), as the lawman who relentlessly chased down and finally killed the notorious duo in an ambush.
After graduating from high school, Pyle briefly attended Colorado State University, but dropped out to pursue a career as a drummer. Later, he worked the oil fields in Oklahoma and Texas. In 1940, Pyle moved to Los Angeles, where his brother and sister were working. His sister helped him land a job as a page at NBC. When the United States entered World War II, he began working at Lockheed as a riveter.
His military service is unclear, and he possibly enlisted in the U.S. Navy or Merchant Marines, or both. Denver Pyle Hollywood Walk of Fame. Retrieved September 14, 2021.Wiester, Emery. "Everybody's Seen Ol' Denver Pyle", The Charlotte News, Charlotte, North Carolina, volume 82, number 22, February 1, 1969, Green Section, page 1C.Kyle, Clason. "A Coloradan from Bethune", The Sunday Ledger-Enquirer, Columbus, Georgia, volume 40, number 18, October 5, 1969, Magazine section, page 14.
After the war, Pyle returned to work at Lockheed and married his first wife, Marilee.
In 1953, Pyle appeared on The Roy Rogers Show (season two, "Loaded Guns") as the wrongly accused killer, ranch hand Tom Larrabee. Also in 1953, Pyle played Emil Hatch in episode 46 of The Adventures of Superman entitled "Beware the Wrecker". He had a part in the 1955 Audie Murphy film To Hell and Back, and appeared twice on NBC's 1955–1956 Western anthology series Frontier (in "Mother of the Brave" and in "The Voyage of Captain Castle").
Pyle was twice cast on CBS's The Public Defender in the role of George Hansen, and three times on the religious anthology series, Crossroads on ABC. He acted the part of a police detective in the 1956 film noir Please Murder Me, starring Raymond Burr.
Pyle was cast as Carter in the 1955 episode "Joey's Father" on Fury. Three years later, he played an arsonist in the episode "The Fire Watchers" of the same series. In 1956, Pyle appeared as Vance Kiley in the episode called "Quicksand" in the TV Western series The Lone Ranger. That same year, he played "Willie Calhoun", a lovestruck, and soon-to-be murderer, in season 2's "Poor Pearl" on Gunsmoke.
He appeared as a professor in the syndicated Men into Space series' 1959 episode "Moonquake". In an episode of Ripcord, he played a suicidal parachutist. Also in 1959, he returned to Gunsmoke, playing the lead character Mike Blocker in the episode "The Bear". He was cast as Big Red in the 1959 episode "Woman in the River" of the detective series Bourbon Street Beat, starring Andrew Duggan and Richard Long.
Pyle appeared twice each on the CBS Western series My Friend Flicka and NBC's The Restless Gun with John Payne. He guest-starred with Grant Withers in the 1959 episode "Tumbleweed Ranger" of Tris Coffin's syndicated Western series 26 Men, billed as true stories of the Arizona Rangers. He appeared seven times on Richard Boone's CBS Western Have Gun – Will Travel; his final appearance was on the show in 1960 as the character Croft in "The Puppeteer". He guest-starred in 1960 in several other Westerns, including Pony Express, The Man from Blackhawk, and Tombstone Territory. He made several appearances as Briscoe Darling, on The Andy Griffith Show.
Pyle was cast in a number of Western movies by John Ford, including The Horse Soldiers with William Holden and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He played a Tennessee soldier (called Thimblerig) in John Wayne's The Alamo (1960). He portrayed Sam Houston in several episodes of CBS's The Adventures of Jim Bowie. He guest-starred as a law-enforcement officer in Jim Davis' other syndicated series, Rescue 8, and also appeared in an episode of the ABC sitcom, The Real McCoys with Walter Brennan.
Pyle was cast in the 1960 episode "Three Wise Men" of ABC's Stagecoach West as an outlaw who promises to turn himself into the authorities if he can spend Christmas with his family. About this time, Pyle appeared in the segment "Lawyer in Petticoats" of William Bendix's 1960 NBC Western series Overland Trail with Doug McClure, and thereafter in 1961 in "Hand of Vengeance" in the syndicated Western series Two Faces West. Pyle was cast as Jed Corrigan in the 1961 episode "The Tramp" of the NBC family drama series National Velvet.
In 1961, Pyle made the first of eight separate appearances on Bonanza, in the third season episode "Springtime". He also appeared in the fourth season episodes "A Hot Day for a Hanging" (1962), "The Boss" (1963), and "Little Man - Ten Feet Tall" (1963); the fifth season's "Bullet for a Bride" (1964), the tenth season's "The Passing of a King" (1968), the twelfth season's "The Wagon" (1970), and finally in "Riot" (1972) in the fourteenth season.
Pyle guest-starred twice on the CBS series Route 66 with Martin Milner and George Maharis, first in 1961 in the episode "The Newborn" and again in 1962 in "A Long Piece of Mischief". He appeared as the father of the doomed family in the dystopian episode "Black Leather Jackets" of The Twilight Zone.
In 1963, Pyle guest-starred on The Dick Van Dyke Show as Uncle George in the episode "Uncle George".
He appeared twice in Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker. He played Sergeant Tripp in the episode "The Enemy" of the James Arness ABC series How the West Was Won. Pyle also had guest-starring roles on The Rifleman.
He also is known for portraying both the suspect and the murder victim on the last original Perry Mason TV episode, "The Case of the Final Fadeout", in 1966. He was one of 11 actors to hit the Perry Mason trifecta, portraying a victim, a defendant, and the actual murderer (in previous episodes) on the series, which he did in five appearances. Among his other appearances, he played defendant Robert Crane in "The Case of the Deadly Double" in 1958, Tom Quincy in "The Case of the Ominous Outcast" in 1960, Tilden Stuart in "The Case of the Jealous Journalist", Emery Fillmore in "The Case of the Renegade Refugee" (both in 1961), and Frank Honer in "The Case of the Shifty Shoebox" in 1963.
Pyle portrayed Grandpa Tarleton in all 26 episodes of Tammy in the 1965–1966 season. Pyle portrayed the vengeful Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde. He also appeared in an episode of The High Chaparral as a general who had lost his son.
In 1968, he appeared as Titus Purcell, patriarch of a family of homesteaders, in the episode "The Price of Tomatoes" in the sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Working for the first time with Jim Nabors playing Gomer Pyle, spun-off from The Andy Griffith Show, he used a screen persona similar to Briscoe Darling Jr. In 1968, he also directed "The Great Diamond Mines" on Death Valley Days.
Pyle had a guest-starring role in 1973 on The Streets of San Francisco. In 1975, Walt Disney Productions released a film based on the novel Escape to Witch Mountain. In this film, Tony and Tia were played by Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards, Lucas Deranian by Donald Pleasence, and the children's Uncle Bené by Pyle. In 1976, he appeared on Barnaby Jones in an episode titled "Stalking Horse". He appeared as a mayor residing in the town of Purgatory in the first-season episode of Kung Fu, titled "Ancient Warrior". He also appeared in second-season episode "Crossties" as a doctor. In 1985 (season 9, episode 8), Pyle made a guest appearance on The Love Boat.
Pyle played the role of Mad Jack in 36 episodes of the NBC series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1977–1978). He played Buck Webb (Doris Day's television series father) during the first two seasons of CBS's The Doris Day Show (1968–1970). In real life, Pyle was only two years older than Day. Pyle said in 1968 that he based his acting in that role on his father's personality.
Pyle's best-known and longest-running television role was that of Uncle Jesse Duke in the CBS series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–1985) (146 episodes).
In 1991, the Texas Senate passed a resolution honoring Pyle and his wife for their work with Special Olympics and the Denver Pyle's Children's Charities.
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| 1953 | Death Valley Days (8 episodes) | Art Crowley | S1E12, "Swamper Ike" |
| 1955–1958 | The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (10 episodes) | Ben Thompson | 7 episodes |
| 1959 | Rev. Oliver Tittle | S4E17, "A Good Man" | |
| 1960 | Dobie Jenner | S5E19, "A Murderer’s Return" | |
| Hoss Mackey | S6E10, "The Too Perfect Crime" | ||
| 1956 | The Millionaire | Arthur Darner | S2E21, "The Arthur Darner Story" |
| Gunsmoke (14 episodes) | Willie Calhoun | S2E13, "Poor Pearl" | |
| 1957 | Hank Shinn | S2E38, "Liar From Blackhawk" | |
| Have Gun – Will Travel (7 episodes) | Clay Sommers | S1E11, "The Colonel and the Lady" | |
| The Restless Gun (2 episodes) | Sheriff Jay | S1E4, "Rink" | |
| 1959 | Jeb | S2E27, "The Pawn" | |
| Gunsmoke (14 episodes) | Mike Blocker | S4E25, "The Bear" | |
| Bat Masterson (2 episodes) | Dan Morgan | S1E21, "Marked Deck" | |
| The Rifleman (5 episodes) | Henry Tumble | S2E2, "Bloodlines" | |
| Seth Mitchell | S2E11, "The Legacy" | ||
| 1960 | Harold Tenner | S2E36, "The Hangman" | |
| 1961 | George Tanner | S3E28, "The Clarence Bibs Story" | |
| Frank Hazlitt | S4E6, "The Decision" | ||
| 1960 | Perry Mason (6 episodes) | Tom Quincy | S3E24, "The Case of the Ominous Outcast" |
| The Tall Man | Marshal Dave Leggert | S1E1, "Garrett and the Kid" | |
| Have Gun Will Travel (7 episodes) | Colonel Celine | S3E37, "Ransom" | |
| Advent | S4E6, "The Calf" | ||
| General George ‘Pawnee’ Croft | S4E15, "The Puppeteer" | ||
| 1961 | Bonanza (8 episodes) | Theodore 'Ted' Hackett | S3E2, "Springtime" |
| 1962 | Sheriff Tom Stedman | S4E4, "A Hot Day for a Hanging" | |
| 1963 | Sheriff Ed | 2 episodes | |
| 1964 | Marcus Caldwell | S5E20, "Bullet for a Bride" | |
| 1968 | Claude Roman | S10E5, "The Passing of a King" | |
| 1970 | Price Buchanan | S12E4, "The Wagon" | |
| 1972 | Warden | S14E4, "Riot" | |
| 1963 | The Dick Van Dyke Show | Uncle George | S3E8, "Uncle George" |
| 1963–66 | The Andy Griffith Show | Briscoe Darling | 6 episodes |
| 1965–66 | Tammy | Grandpa Mordecai Tarleton | All 26 episodes |
| 1965 | Gunsmoke (14 episodes) | Cousin Claudius | S10E17, "Deputy Festus" |
| 1966 | Caleb Nash | S12E2, "The Goldtakers" | |
| 1967 | Dr. Henry S. Rand | S12E17, "Mad Dog" | |
| 1968–1970 | The Doris Day Show | Buck Webb | Credited in 53 episodes, but only appeared in 48 |
| 1977–1978 | The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams | Mad Jack | All 37 episodes |
| 1979–1985 | The Dukes of Hazzard | Uncle Jesse Duke | All 146 episodes |
| 1980 | Enos | 2 episodes | |
| 1983 | The Dukes | All 20 episodes (voice) | |
| 1986 | Return to Mayberry | Briscoe Darling | made-for-television movie |
| 1997 | Uncle Jesse Duke |
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