Louis Burton Lindley Jr. (June 29, 1919 – December 8, 1983), better known by his stage name Slim Pickens, was an American actor and rodeo performer.

[1] He played comic roles in Dr. Strangelove, Blazing Saddles, 1941, and his villainous turn in One-Eyed Jacks with Marlon Brando.

Known as "Burt" to his family and friends, he grew bored with dairy farming and began to make a few dollars by riding broncos and roping steers in his early teens.

[4] After nearly 20 years' rodeo work, Pickens's wide eyes, moon face, strong physical presence, and distinctive country drawl gained him a role in the Western Rocky Mountain (1950), which starred Errol Flynn.

He did not need a stand-in for horseback scenes, and he was able to gallop his own Appaloosa horses across the desert, or drive a stagecoach pulled by a six-horse team.

[5] Pickens appeared in dozens more films, including Old Oklahoma Plains (1952), Down Laredo Way (1953), Tonka (1959), One-Eyed Jacks (1961, with Marlon Brando), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Major Dundee (1965, with Charlton Heston), the remake of Stagecoach (1966; Pickens played the driver, portrayed in the 1939 film by Andy Devine), An Eye for an Eye (1966), Never a Dull Moment (1968), The Cowboys (1972, with John Wayne), The Getaway (1972, with Steve McQueen), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), Ginger in the Morning (1974, with Fred Ward), Blazing Saddles (1974), Poor Pretty Eddie, Rancho Deluxe (both 1975), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979, with Michael Caine and Karl Malden), and Tom Horn (1980, also with McQueen).

Pickens was chosen because his accent and comic sense were perfect for the role of Kong, a cartoonishly patriotic and gung-ho B-52 commander.

The LP contained 12 selections (including Kinky Friedman's "Carryin' the Torch", which was issued as a single) and two songs written by Pickens.

He appeared in episodes of Mannix, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Lone Ranger, Frontier Doctor, Gunsmoke, Route 66, The Tall Man, Maverick (in several episodes playing different characters), The Westerner, Riverboat, The Fugitive, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, The Legend of Jesse James, Alias Smith and Jones, Daniel Boone, The Virginian, Night Gallery, That Girl, Baretta, Vega$, How the West Was Won, Cimarron Strip, and Kung Fu.

Pickens was cast in recurring roles in Custer, Bonanza, Hee Haw (where he was a semiregular from 1981 until his death), B. J. and the Bear with Greg Evigan, and Filthy Rich.

He played Wild Jack Monroe, the owner of station WJM, in CBS's The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and also guest-starred as Zeke in the 1963 episode "Higgins and the Hillbilly" of the ABC sitcom Our Man Higgins, which starred Stanley Holloway as a British butler for a suburban American family.

[11] In 2005, Pickens was posthumously inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs for his work as a rodeo clown.

[citation needed] The album Days Go By (2012) by The Offspring features the song "Slim Pickens Does the Right Thing and Rides the Bomb to Hell" (Track 12, 2:36) which harkens back to his final scene from Dr. Strangelove.