When Louis Lindley Jr. dropped out of high school at 16 to join a rodeo, he called himself “Slim Pickens” so his father wouldn’t see his name on the entry lists. In 1950, after 20 years of getting gored by bulls, thrown by horses and suffering injuries that included a crushed chest and a twice-broken back, Pickens was spotted at a rodeo by Director William Keighley, who offered the cowboy a screen test that began his career in
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