Robert Hinkle, Who Taught Rock Hudson and Paul Newman to
Talk Like a Texan, Dies at 95
After working as a dialogue coach on ‘Giant’ and ‘Hud,’
the actor and stunt performer managed the careers of Chill Wills and Marty
Robbins and directed and produced films, too.
The Hollywood Reporter
By Mike Barnes
March 30, 2026
Robert Hinkle, a onetime rodeo performer from Texas who
served as a stunt performer and dialogue coach on the acclaimed films Giant and
Hud and wrote, directed and produced a Western of his own, has died. He was 95.
Hinkle died March 3 in hospice care in Austin after
suffering head, back and neck injuries in a fall in his driveway five days
earlier, his daughter, Melody Hinkle, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Hinkle also showed up in The Far Horizons (1955),
starring Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston as the explorers Lewis & Clark;
in The Conqueror (1956), with John Wayne as Genghis Khan; and in The First
Texan (1956), starring Joel McCrea as Sam Houston.
Away from the camera, he was the personal manager for
actor Chill Wills and singer Marty Robbins and a promoter for daredevil Evel
Knievel.
After Hinkle had briefly interviewed with George Stevens
for a part in Giant (1956), the director asked him to return to his Warner
Bros. office in Burbank the next day. Instead of offering him a role, Stevens
asked him, “Do you think you could teach Rock Hudson to talk like you?” Hinkle
recalled in his 2009 book, Call Me Lucky: A Texan in Hollywood.
For $500 a week, Hinkle got an office on the lot and
worked as a dialogue coach on the sprawling film, also advising James Dean,
Elizabeth Taylor, Mercedes McCambridge, Carroll Baker and Dennis Hopper on how
to talk like a Texan. He got to be friends with the moody Dean, taught him rope
tricks and handled some uncredited stunt work as well.
“Texans don’t just say the words, they linger over them
like they’re old friends, worthy of a cup of coffee,” he wrote in his book.
“It’s the journey, not the destination, that’s important in a conversation.”
Hinkle also worked with Newman, Patricia Neal, Melvyn
Douglas and others on Martin Ritt’s Hud (1963) and directed the scene in which
Newman’s character corrals a greased pig.
In between those classics, he wrote, helmed, produced and
portrayed a sheriff in the Texas-shot Ole Rex (1961), which revolves around a
boy (Billy E. Hughes) who rescues a wounded dog and nurses him back to health.
The oldest of three kids, Hinkle was born on July 25,
1930, in Brownfield, Texas. His father, Wesley, worked in a chemical plant, and
his mother, Hattie, ran a local hotel. He said he was 10 when he knew he wanted
to be a movie cowboy — that’s when silent-film star Tom Mix visited his
hometown.
After graduating from Brownfield High School, he enlisted
in the U.S. Air Force and helped deliver supplies in the Berlin Airlift during
his 2 1/2-year stint in the military through March 1950.
He competed in rodeos while still in the service and was
riding in Pendleton, Oregon, when Universal’s Bronco Buster (1952), starring
John Lund, Scott Brady and Wills, arrived to film scenes. He was hired to play
a cowhand and perform stunts, and afterward, director Budd Boetticher told him
to look him up if he were ever in Hollywood.
A month later, Hinkle came to Los Angeles, sneaked on the
lot at Republic Pictures and bumped into Wills. The actor brought him to
Boetticher, who put him in the 3-D movie Wings of the Hawk (1953).
Hinkle wound up doing stunts and/or acting in other films
including All American (1953), The Bamboo Prison (1954), Outlaw Treasure
(1955), Andrew V. McLaglen’s Gun the Man Down (1956), The Oklahoman (1957),
Under Fire (1957), No Place to Land (1958), All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960)
and The Broken Land (1962).
He also appeared on TV on The Life and Legend of Wyatt
Earp, Annie Oakley, The Sheriff of Cochise, Gunsmoke, Tombstone Territory,
Tales of Wells Fargo, Dragnet and, for his final credit, a 1994 episode of
Walker, Texas Ranger.
Starting in 1963, Hinkle wrote, directed and produced
two-reel shorts for Paramount and a year later shepherded a series of Hollywood
Jubilee country music specials.
He also produced for the big screen Country Music (1972),
featuring Robbins; produced and directed Atoka (1982), which saw Robbins,
Willie Nelson, Larry Gatlin, Freddy Fender, Hoyt Axton and others performing at
a country music festival in Oklahoma; and produced Guns of a Stranger (1973),
starring Robbins and Wills.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his son,
Brad; daughter-in-law Marlinda; granddaughters Jennifer and Kim; and
great-grandchildren Brady and Taylor. Another son, Michael, a Vietnam veteran,
died in 1991.
While competing in 1950 as a calf-roper and bulldogger in
Moses Lake, Washington, Hinkle met his future wife, Sandra, then the Queen of
the Rodeo. They married in June 1952 and were together for 73 years until her
death in July.
His family will put his ashes to rest on June 6 in
Brownfield.
HINKLE, Robert (Robert Daryl Hinkle)
Born: 7/25/1930, Brownfield, Texas, U.S.A.
Died: 3/3/2026, Round Rock, Texas, U.S.A.
Robert Hinkle’s westerns – producer, director, writer,
stuntman, actor:
Bronco Buster – 1952 (Bob) [stunts]
The Far Horizons – 1955 (Jake)
Outlaw Treasure – 1955 (Frank James)
Dakota Incident – 1956 (Joe)
Giant – 1956 [stunts]
The First Texan – 1956 (Lieutenant Hargrove)
The First Traveling Saleslady – 1956 (Pete)
Gun the Man Down – 1956 (deputy)
The Badge of Marshal Brennan – 1957 [stunts]
The Oklahoman – 1957 (Ken)
Annie Oakley (TV) - 1957 (Reno)
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp – (TV) 1956, 1957,
1958, 1959 (cowboy, Don Burkett, rider)
The Sheriff of Cochise (TV) – 1957 (Bronco)
Tombstone Territory (TV) - 1957 (gang member)
Tales of Wells Fargo (TV) – 1958 (Mac)
The Gunfight at Dodge City – 1959 (Rafe)
Ole Rex – 1961 [producer, director, writer]
The Broken Land – 1962 (Dave) [stunts]
Young Guns of Texas – 1962 (Sheriff Simon)
Frontier Circus (TV) – 1962 (Dave)
Gunsmoke (TV) – 1962 (cowboy, rider)
Hud – 1963 (Frank)
The Rounders (TV) – 1966 (cowboy)
Guna of a Stranger – 1973 [producer, director]
Walker, Texas Ranger (TV) – 1994 (judge)
