Before becoming a Hollywood regular, Sam Elliott was in the National Guard. He also worked in construction. "It was great," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I really had some of the greatest times of my life doing that. I was out of home, I was on my own and I was really working for a living." Elliott also planned for another type of lifestyle by attending film workshops, as he moved from Portland, Oregon, to Los Angeles to be an actor in the first place.
In Los Angeles, Elliott fortuitously met a casting director while working on a home. He never cast Elliott, but helped him land a contract for his first screen role in the 1969 classic western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." For diehard fans of the film, it's understandable if you didn't catch Elliott's brief appearance. "The only reason my name was on the credits is because I was under contract to Fox," Elliott told the Seattle Times. He explained the film's director "threw me this bone, as 'Card Player No. 2,' but you literally can't see me. But it allowed me to be on a set for the first time." It must have been a huge moment for Elliott, who dreamed of being an actor since he was 9 years old. The movie also featured his future wife, Katharine Ross. All of this thanks to construction. "My big break — pouring cement," Elliott told WNYC.
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