Wilford Brimley Biography

Before his career in entertainment industry, he worked as cowboy, wrangler, blacksmith, and even a body guard for Howard Hughes to support his family. His first exposure to show business was shoeing horses for stables that furnished animals for movie and TV western. Wilford Brimley entered films in the mid 1960s as a cowboy stunt man in westerns. At that time he used the name Anthony (Tony) Brimley. He developed lasting friendship with the up-and-coming actor Robert Duvall who urged the cowboy to pursue acting as a career. Brimley became famous later in life for appearing in films such as “The Hotel New Hampshire”, John Carpenters “The Thing” and “Cocoon”. His first characterization was in “Absence of Malice” in which he plays a small but key role as a U.S. Assistant Attorney General.

Brimley is a diabetes patient and had made a series of commercials for the diabetes testing supplies company Liberty Medical. Through the commercials Brimley give advice to viewers to check their blood sugar regularly. Outside films and advertisements, Brimley is also known as a controversial activist, who paid with his own funds for advertisements to have Utah allow horse-race gambling and he was actively opposed the banning of cockfighting. He has campaign in Arizona and New Mexico against laws banning cockfighting.