Arch Hall Sr.

Hall was born in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in South Dakota as a genuine cowboy. Hall spoke the Sioux language and had a Sioux name, "Waa-toe-gala Oak-Shilla" (translation: Wild Boy).

Hall graduated from the University of South Dakota, wrote for radio, interviewing elderly Native Americans on KOTA, and was a pilot in the United States Army Air Forces.

Hall then worked as a stuntman in Hollywood in the 1930s, a job which expanded into small acting roles in various films, usually Westerns. Hall formed his own movie studio, Fairway Productions, in Burbank, California. In the early 1960s, Fairway Productions made a series of B-films targeted towards the drive-in market, and were later hailed as some of the worst films ever made. They starred himself, his son Arch Jr., and his wife Addalyn, who would appear as a background extra or character actor. The sound was handled by Arch Jr. and his friend from high school, Alan O'Day, who later rose to notoriety as a writer of hit pop songs in the 1970s.

Hall's experience in the Air Force was satirized in The Last Time I Saw Archie, a 1961 film written by Bill Bowers (Hall's real-life platoon mate). The film starred Robert Mitchum as Archie Hall, alongside Jack Webb and France Nuyen, and was loosely based on Hall's experience in the army after being declared to be too old to fly fighters, but too inexperienced to fly bombers, leaving his only option to fly troop transport gliders. Hall allegedly sued the makers of the film for the unauthorized use of his name, leading to an out-of-court settlement. This was later reported to have merely been a publicity stunt engineered to give the film more newspaper coverage.

Hall married Addalyn Faye Pollitt (born June 5, 1906) who worked with Hall as a staff writer in Hall's radio days. During World War II, Addalyn was a Navy Inspector at Lockheed Aircraft. They had one child, Arch Hall Jr., born in 1943.

Hall died of a heart attack on April 28, 1978, in Los Angeles, and was buried with honors in a Sioux funeral in Philip, South Dakota. The service was presided over by the Lakota Sioux spiritual leader Frank Fools Crow.

Hall's life and times are extensively discussed in the 51-page interview with Arch Hall Jr. that appears in the 2005 book Earth vs. the Sci-Fi Filmmakers, by Tom Weaver, which was published by McFarland & Co. in North Carolina.

Earth vs. the Sci-Fi Filmmakers, a book by Tom Weaver, published by McFarland & Co. in North Carolina. {{ISBN|9780786422104|0786422106}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=93154 Arch Hall Sr. biography & filmography]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930201441/http://www.tcmdb.com/title/article.jsp?contentId=149245 Behind the Scenes: It Stars With a Cowboy]

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Category:1908 births

Category:1978 deaths

Category:American male film actors

Category:Film producers from California

Category:Film directors from Missouri

Category:American male screenwriters

Category:Male actors from St. Louis

Category:Male actors from Los Angeles

Category:United States Army Air Forces officers

Category:University of South Dakota alumni

Category:Male Western (genre) film actors

Category:United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II

Category:20th-century American male actors

Category:20th-century American businesspeople

Category:Screenwriters from Missouri

Category:Screenwriters from California

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American screenwriters