Bill Edwards; Western Film Star and Artist

Bill Edwards, who pursued his love of the Old West during a career as a rodeo broncobuster, motion picture star and artist, has died at the age of 81.

Edwards died Dec. 21 in Newport Beach, where he had lived since 1972, said his wife of 54 years, Hazel Allen Edwards.

The strapping 6-foot, 5-inch Edwards never limited himself to western films or paintings, although he might have preferred to do so.

During the 1940s he appeared not only in westerns but also in such films as “Hail the Conquering Hero,” with Eddie Bracken as a fake war hero, and “Miss Susie Slagle’s,” a movie about a turn-of-the-century boardinghouse that starred Veronica Lake and Lillian Gish.

The blond, blue-eyed Edwards also had a major role in the 1944 “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay,” starring Gale Russell and Diana Lynn and based on writer Cornelia Otis Skinner’s book about her European travels with author Emily Kimbrough in the 1920s.

Born in New Jersey, Edwards began drawing horses as a child. He spent time as a teenager on a Wyoming ranch, working with cattle and sketching. He next tackled the rodeo circuit, riding broncos and Brahma bulls until a series of broken bones forced him to seek his fortune elsewhere.

Edwards worked his way through the Art Students League in New York as a model for the Conover Agency, posing for magazines and catalogs. An agent who was impressed with those photos brought him to Hollywood.

In the early 1950s, Edwards abandoned acting to return to art. He became a commercial illustrator, creating hundreds of covers for paperback books and designing paper dolls of movie stars.

Working in oil and acrylic, Edwards also painted fine art scenes of the West.

The Air Force Art Program commissioned paintings from Edwards and a few other artists. The canvases remain in the service’s permanent collection and have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, the Pentagon and elsewhere.

In addition to his wife, Edwards is survived by the couple’s daughter, Linda Edwards, also of Newport Beach.

Private services are planned for next week.