Louis Burton Lindley Jr. was born in Kingsburg, CA on a dairy farm. He began riding broncs and roping steers in his teens to make extra money. His father hated that. Louis asked a rodeo manager how much money he could make joining a rodeo. The manager said, “It would be slim pickenings.”

Louis signed up for the rodeo as Slim Pickens because he thought he would ride only once and to keep his father from knowing about it. Slim won $400. That’s $7,500 today’s value.

He joined the rodeo full time under the name Slim Pickens and eventually became a famous rodeo clown, the most dangerous job. He could hide under the makeup, one suspects.

Enlisting in the Army for WWll, the recruiter asked his previous employment. Slim said “Rodeo.” But the recruiter thought he said ‘Radio’, so he spent his entire enlistment in at a Army radio station in America’s Midwest.

After 20 years of rodeo work, with his tough face and western drawl, he got his first movie part in Rocky Mountain with Errol Flynn.

For Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove Peter Sellers was set to play Major King Kong, but strained his ankle and wasn’t able to get into the cockpit of the B-52, so Slim was hired because of his drawl. He said he did over 100 takes of him riding the bomb out of the plane.

Slim made 172 film & TV appearances. He had a net-worth of 2.7 million dollars.