Ruggedly Handsome Star of Westerns Was 60 : Movie Tough Guy Scott Brady Dies

Scott Brady, the ruggedly handsome tough guy who appeared in dozens of Hollywood westerns at the height of that film genre’s popularity, has died of a lung ailment. He was 60 when he died Tuesday at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills.

Brady was a menacingly attractive, former Navy light-heavyweight boxer who came to Los Angeles after World War II to join his brother, Lawrence, a film actor best known for his portrayal of “Dillinger.”

Scott Brady told columnist Hedda Hopper in a 1952 interview that he had decided to take the last $700 he had left in his pocket and simply enjoy Hollywood for six months. Then a scout for producer Hal Wallis saw him at a restaurant. A subsequent screen test proved less than successful but prompted Brady to enroll at the Bliss-Hayden (drama) School in Beverly Hills.

He was seen in a play there and was given a major part in “Canon City,” a low-budget 1948 production about a prison break. His work in that film led to a featured role in “He Walked by Night,” a crime thriller. Brady spent much of the next 30 years on screen either dodging police bullets or losing gunfights and saloon brawls as the Bad Guy in westerns. He made nearly 50 motion pictures.

Born in Brooklyn

Brady was born Gerald Kenneth Tierney in Brooklyn and worked variously in a lumber yard and as a taxi driver before entering the movies.

Over the years he was under contract to Allied Artists, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal and Twentieth Century Fox appearing in “Johnny Guitar,” “The Restless Breed,” “The Model and the Marriage Broker,” “Gentlemen Marry Brunettes,” “Cain’s Way” and “Dollars.” His more recent films included “The China Syndrome” and “Gremlins,” in which he played a policeman trying to fathom the strange creatures.

From 1959 to 1961 he starred in a syndicated television series, “Shotgun Slade” where Brady portrayed a private detective on horseback. The series was unique in that it utilized well-known sports and entertainment figures in supporting roles.

Brady also did guest roles on television’s “The Untouchables” and the “Celebrity Playhouse” series.

On New York Stage

He performed both on the New York stage in “Destry Rides Again” with Andy Griffith, and in touring companies, appearing in Los Angeles in the 1950s in “The Moon Is Blue” with Diana Lynn and with Ralph Morgan in “Heaven Can Wait.”

His survivors include his wife Lisa, two sons, Timothy and Terence, and his brother, Lawrence.

A funeral service has been scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at St. John Baptist de la Salle in Granada Hills, with burial at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.