By PDX People

Bon in 1944, in Sacramento, California, Sam Elliott, moved to Portland, Oregon, with his family, during his teenage years and went to school at David Douglas High School while his father worked for the Department of the Interior and his mother worked in a job as a physical training instructor.

After high school, Elliott bounced around the United States, including a brief stint at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, before settling in Los Angeles where he started his acting career.

A Face for Westerns

During his long career in Hollywood, Sam Elliott has often been cast in Westerns over the year including The Quick and the Dead (1987), Tombstone (1993) and Buffalo Girls (1995) because he has an iconic look that has often been described as a “face for westerns” and he’s been able to have crossover appeal over the years when he’s acted in blockbuster movies like Road House (1989), The Big Lebowski (1998), and Hulk (2003).

One of The Hardest Working Actors That You Don’t See in Hollywood

Once he reached his sixties, Sam Elliott didn’t slow down like most actors in Hollywood do, his services were more in demand than ever before, behind the camera, once he started doing voice over work and commercials for companies like Coors, Ram Trucks, Dodge, IBM and the American Beef Council.

His commercial success has kept him in the homes of millions of Americans each night and he’s also been successful as a voice actor for cartoons like Ben the Cow, Marmaduke, and Smokey Bear.

Now at the age of 72, Sam Elliott joins a list of other Baby Boomer celebrities like Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, and Tom Selleck who are in their 70’s and continue acting long after other actors from their generation have retired.