Jack Buetel

Jack Buetel (September 5, 1915 – June 27, 1989) was an American film and television actor best known for portraying Billy the Kid in Howard Hughes’s controversial Western The Outlaw.

Early life Buetel was born John Alexander Beutel in Dallas, Texas. Production took place in 1940–41, but troubles with the Production Code and local bans delayed general exhibition for years. The film had a 1943 premiere and piecemeal engagements, but wider releases followed in 1946–47 after further edits and highly publicized marketing.

Television Buetel co-starred as deputy Jeff Taggert in the syndicated color Western series Judge Roy Bean (1955–56), which ran 39 episodes and was set in Langtry, Texas. He also made guest appearances on 26 Men (1958), Maverick (1959), Hawaiian Eye (1960), Wagon Train (1959–61), and Lawman (1961).

Personal life An early marriage to Cereatha Browning was reported in 1941. He later married Joann Jensen Crawford (also credited as Joann Jensen Beutel). Buetel relocated to Portland, Oregon, by the 1970s.

Legacy and reception The Outlaw’s stop-start release pattern and censorship battles have been widely studied; the AFI Catalog documents the film’s staggered openings (1943, 1946, 1947), bans, and edited rereleases, as well as contemporaneous critical reaction.