William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy

(Courtesy of Minard Coons)

Above is William Boyd and his hoss Topper. The story is that Boyd's wife, Grace Bradley Boyd, selected the horse's name because she liked the TOPPER books (or films) that were authored by Thorne Smith.

(Courtesy of Dale Crawford and Jim Sorensen)

Above is the marker for Hoppy's horse Topper, who is buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas, California. The park is called S.O.P.H.I.E. (Save Our Pets' History in Eternity).

(Courtesy of Minard Coons)

Left is a publicity shot of Boyd during his Hoppy TV series days, circa 1950.

As a wrap-up, the basic Hopalong Cassidy statistics and trivia are:

66 feature films from 1935-1948 (67 films if you count the Boyd/Hoppy guest appearance in Cecil B. deMille's circus extravaganza, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH). In subsequent pages, you'll find a complete Hopalong Cassidy filmography listing the sidekicks, etc.
52 half-hour television shows - 12 half-hour programs were created (condensed) from the later United Artists films with Andy Clyde and Rand Brooks; and 40 new half-hour shows were filmed featuring Edgar Buchanan as 'Red Connors'.
104 radio shows, initially with Joe DuVal and later, with Andy Clyde as Hoppy's sidekick; 105 shows if you include the early 'audition' show, and there's more details about the Hoppy radio program on subsequent webpages.
A long running comic book series, and more details are provided in later pages.
Boyd's portrayal of Hoppy in 66/67 films is among the longest of an actor portraying a movie character (this wasn't the longest run as Gene Autry played himself in more films, and Al St. John did his 'Fuzzy Q. Jones' in 80+ movies).
Boyd never was the #1 rated cowboy in the polls, but he was in the range of number 2 through 5. Poll results comparing Boyd to Autry and Rogers can be found under the 'Hoppy, Gene & Roy' menu item on the Old Corral homepage. Poll results for William Boyd are listed below.
The 'Hopalong' moniker came about due to Cassidy being injured in a shootout. In HOP-A-LONG CASSIDY (Paramount, 1935), the first film of the series, Boyd/Hoppy is recovering from a gunfight, and is asked about his wound. His response is something like "I'll manage to hop along".

The Motion Picture Herald and Boxoffice polls were conducted from about the mid 1930s through the mid 1950s. With a few exceptions, the annual results would list the 'Top Ten' (or 'Top Five') cowboy film stars. In most cases, the winners were what you would expect - Autry, Rogers, Holt, Starrett ... and William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy. Boyd/Hoppy consistently placed in one or both polls from 1936-1952, with the exception of the year 1951.

Popularity Rankings of William Boyd
Year	Motion Picture Herald Poll Ranking	Boxoffice Poll Ranking
1936	4th	No Survey
1937	2nd	3rd
1938	2nd	2nd
1939	2nd	2nd
1940	2nd	3rd
1941	2nd	2nd
1942	3rd	3rd
1943	2nd	No Poll Conducted
1944	2nd	3rd
1945	3rd	3rd
1946	.	5th
1947	3rd	4th
1948	5th	5th
1949	7th	5th
1950	5th	4th
1951	.	.
1952	10th	.


Les Adams brought up an interesting tidbit about the billing given to the Hoppy performers. In the early films with Jimmy Ellison, Boyd is first-billed, but Ellison gets the same sized lettering. In the post-Ellison films, Boyd gets the dominant billing, and all the other players (like Hayden, Hayes) are in smaller letters and they're listed as being 'featured' or 'with'.

Hoppy Fan Club, Hoppy Festival, and the Hoppy Museum

Laura Bates headed up the FRIENDS OF HOPALONG CASSIDY fan club and was the director and coordinator of the annual Hopalong Cassidy Festival in Ohio. However, the last Hoppy Festival was 2015. Unsure of the status of the fan club. Last contact info I had on Laura was:
Laura Bates, 6310 Friendship Drive, New Concord, Ohio 43762

The "Hopalong Cassidy Festival - Retired" group is a busy group on Facebook ... and Laura Bates participates in the texts and announcements: https://www.facebook.com/groups/573059576048455

The Hopalong Cassidy Museum in Cambridge, Ohio was destroyed by a fire in 2016. Much of Laura Bates' Hoppy memorabilia was sold at auction in late 2021: https://www.coshoctontribune.com/story/news/local/2021/09/30/museum-founder-selling-hopalong-cassidy-memorabilia-auction/8320503002/

Lots of Hoppy Links

Hopalong Cassidy Enterprises / U. S. Television Office, Inc. is the owner and copyright holder of all things Hopalong Cassidy:
http://hopalongcassidy.com/
https://www.hopalongcassidyenterprises.com/

Find A Grave website has a photo of the marker for William Boyd and Grace Bradley Boyd at Forrest Lawn - Glendale: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2123/william-boyd
and Boyd's horse Topper is interred at the Los Angeles Pet Cemetery: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7667621/topper

The Los Angeles Times website has the obituary on Grace Bradley Boyd who passed away September, 2010: https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-xpm-2010-sep-24-la-me-grace-bradley-boyd-20100924-story.html

The Internet Archive has many of the Hoppy radio shows which you can stream/download: https://archive.org/details/HopalongCassidy2

The Louis L'Amour website includes info on the Hoppy novels authored by L'Amour (writing as Tex Burns) circa 1950: http://www.louislamour.com/novels/hopalong4byLouis.htm

Stars and Stripes is a daily newspaper published for the U.S. military, DoD civilians, contractors, and their families. Their website has several photos of Boyd, and the photo credit notes: Frankfurt, Germany, August 27, 1954: Cowboy star Bill Boyd, arriving at the Rhein-Main airport to begin a European vacation with his wife. Go to: https://www.stripes.com/blogs/from-the-archives/hopalong-cassidy-1954-1.518711

There's some photos of Hopalong Cassidy author Clarence Mulford at the Maine Memory Network:
https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/8675/
https://www.mainememory.net/bin/Detail?ln=8661

You can view photo covers of the Hoppy and Bill Boyd Western comics at the Grand Comic Database:
https://www.comics.org/searchNew/?q=hopalong
https://www.comics.org/searchNew/?q=bill+boyd

There's a large website devoted to actress Dorothy Sebastian, William Boyd's wife prior to Grace Bradley Boyd: http://www.dorothysebastian.com/

Roger Hall's Cowboy Songs Corral website has a section on Hoppy: http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/Hoppymusic.htm

Rob Williams' website on Hoppy is at: https://compmast.tripod.com/boyd/boyd.html

The Time magazine website has their Hoppy photo cover of the magazine from 1950: http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19501127,00.html

Life magazine covers are on Google - including the 1950 cover with Hoppy: https://books.google.com/books?id=Z00EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22hopalong+cassidy%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rw-uVITTLIazyATxyYLYAw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBDgo#v=onepage&q&f=false

"Silents are Golden" is a website devoted to silent films, and they have several 1920s era photos of William Boyd: http://www.silentsaregolden.com/photos/photosA-C.html

Joseph J. Caro is the author of the definitive book on Hoppy merchandise. This link will take you to the amazon.com website with info on his Hoppy merchandise book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0962807818

Remember the Hoppyland amusement park? Go to:
https://www.westland.net/venicehistory/articles/hoppy.htm
http://www.virtualvenice.info/media/attractions.htm

The University of Southern California, Digital Collections, has several Los Angeles Examiner newspaper photos of Boyd in 1951 at a department store and at the opening of Hoppyland: https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=2A3BXZYQS568&SMLS=1&RW=1372&RH=756

There's a great photo of Boyd and Grace having dinner on the SS United States luxury liner at Joe Rota's Gallery website. Scroll about two-thirds the way down on this webpage: http://www.ss-united-states.com/galleryvt.html

Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has information on William Boyd, Harry Sherman, James Ellison, Russell Hayden, Gabby Hayes, Andy Clyde, Rand Brooks, and the other players. Click below on: