He was big, he was bald and, maybe because he snarled so much, he appeared ugly.
Don “Hard-Boiled” Haggerty, a wrestler and stuntman who made his memorable film-acting debut in “Paint Your Wagon” with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, has died. He was 78.
Mr. Haggerty died of natural causes Jan. 27 in Malibu.
At 6-foot-2 and 255 pounds, Mr. Haggerty was difficult to ignore, whatever he did.
In the 1969 musical of the California Gold Rush, “Paint Your Wagon,” he stood out as horse doctor, blacksmith and dentist Steve Bull.
Under the name H.B. Haggerty, he went on to perform in 22 motion pictures and more than 100 television shows.
The names of his characters pretty much describe what he was hired to do: the Turk, a sadistic bouncer bashing Anthony Quinn in “A Dream of Kings” in 1969; Redneck in “Who Is Killing the Stuntmen?” in 1977; Tigerman in “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” in 1979; and Awful Abdul in “Million Dollar Mystery” in 1987.
He portrayed any menacing character a director needed–bartender, pool player, masseur, jailer, lumberjack, cop.
On television series such as “The Incredible Hulk” and “Mr. Belvedere,” he played a wrestler, a role he had rehearsed thoroughly before paying crowds.
Born Don Stansauk in Los Angeles, he took drama classes in high school. During World War II, he served aboard the battleship New Jersey.
He studied drama at Denver University, Texas Christian University and John Muir College and had a short run with the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions. Next came pro wrestling, in which he starred during the 1950s and ’60s.
