Hal Taliaferro(1895-1980)
- Actor
American actor who starred in silent Westerns under one name, then
moved into character roles and bit parts under another. Born Floyd
Taliaferro Alderson in Sheridan, Wyoming, and raised on a ranch in
Rosebud County, Montana, he became an expert horseman. He served in
World War I, then traveled to California. After getting work as a
wrangler for Universal Pictures, he entered films as an extra in 1915.
By the 1920s he was starring in silent Westerns under the stage name
Wally Wales. His career declined, and in the mid-1930s, he changed to a
new stage name, Hal Taliaferro, and worked in supporting roles and even
bit parts for the rest of his career, primarily in Westerns. In the
1950s, he retired to his family's property in Montana (then and now
known as the Bones Brothers Ranch). He devoted himself to landscape
painting until a series of strokes debilitated him. He died in a
nursing home in his birthplace, Sheridan, Wyoming, in 1980. His papers
are archived at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
