Character actor John Quade died of natural causes on 9 August 2009. Born John William Saunders III on 1 April 1938, in Kansas City, Kansas, he didn’t start out to be an actor. His wife told the Los Angeles Times that he moved to California in 1964, and “got involved in missile and aerospace for awhile. He built parts that are still on the moon.”
He only got into acting, his wife said, because “He was sitting in a restaurant with a bunch of guys [one day] and this man noticed him and said, ‘Have you thought about acting?'” She added, “It had to be his face; it wasn’t anything else.”
His first role was in a 1968 episode of Bonanza, and he often played the heavy, although his wife noted “he was one of the nicest men you’d ever want to know, but he looked mean and nasty. He looked like he could do murder and mayhem at any moment, but he was a big teddy bear—the kind that he just loved little kids, but they were always afraid of him.”
He may be best known for playing the motorcycle gang leader in the Clint Eastwood films Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980), as well as Sheriff Biggs in the television miniseries Roots (1977).
His genre roles include And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird (1991), Werewolf (1987), Manimal (1983), Galactica 1980 (1980), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), The Bionic Woman (1977), Planet Earth (1974), and The Wild Wild West (1968).
At the time of his death, he was retired from acting. His last appearance came in Lucky Luke (1993). He is survived by his wife, Gwen Saunders (they married in 1971), his mother, four siblings, six children, and ten grandchildren.