Clyde McLeod

Clyde McLeod has been a movie extra since 1938. He's been directed by Charles Chaplin, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille. He's been a stand in for such actors as Anthony Quinn, Ronald Reagan, Rock Hudson, Tex Ritter, among others. Becoming a principal actor has never been his goal. "I got into the business because it was what my mother wanted me to do," said McLeod in 1985. For McLeod, show business is a family tradition that dates back to the 18th Century, when his ancestors, the Stickneys, played Shakespearean jesters on the stage. His grandmother was a bareback rider in traveling circuses. His mother, Emily Stickney, was a bareback rider with the Barnum & Bailey Circus and starred in the original stage version of "Polly of the Circus" in 1900. McLeod's father, Tex, worked in "cheap" vaudeville shows in the early '20s. For ten years, he commuted from his ranch in Fallbrook to Los Angeles, totaling 130 miles each way. He later spent his life living with Patricia Enns, another extra who worked in various films during the 1950s and 60s, such as "Artist and Models."