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Stage actor William Pawley made his movie bow in 1931's Over the Hill. Especially busy in crime melodramas, Pawley essayed tough-guy roles in such films as I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), Bullets or Ballots (1936), San Quentin (1937), and a handful of two-reelers in MGM's Crime Does Not Pay series. He occasionally forsook double-breasted suits and snap-brim hats for the garb of a hillbilly (1934's Kentucky Kernels) or cowboy (he played a stage actor impersonating the recently deceased Jesse James in 1941's The Return of the Frank James). Active until 1942, William Pawley worked steadily for 20th Century Fox during the last months of his screen career.