Bing Russell

Known for ActingBorn 1926-05-05Died 2003-04-08Brattleboro, Vermont, USA

Neil Oliver "Bing" Russell (May 5, 1926 – April 8, 2003) was an American actor and Class A minor-league baseball club owner. He was the father of Hollywood actor Kurt Russell. Although best known as the deputy on Bonanza (1959) and Robert in The Magnificent Seven (1960), Russell's was also well known on a national level as the owner of the Portland Mavericks Baseball Club. Helming the only independent team in the class A Northwest League, Russell was an innovator. Before Bull Durham (1988), there were the Mavericks. Russell kept a 30 man roster because he believed that some of the players deserved to have one last season. His motto was simply one three lettered word - not WIN - although the Mavericks did just that - no, the word was FUN. He created a park that kept all corporate sponsorship outside the gates, hired the first female general manager in professional baseball, and the following year hired the first Asian American GM/Manager. That same season his team set a record for the highest attendance in Minor league history, and went on to win the pennant. Ex-major leaguers and never-weres who couldn't stop playing the game flocked to his June tryouts, which were always open to anyone that showed up. From as far away as Capetown, and France, players would head to Portland for a chance with Russell's Mavericks.Read more

Movies & web series

The Man Called X

The Twilight Zone

The New Daughters of Joshua Cabe

Emergency!

The Munsters

The Battered Bastards of Baseball

The Wonderful World of Disney

I Dream of Jeannie

Rio Bravo

The Rockford Files

The Andy Griffith Show

Bonanza

The Magnificent Seven

An Eye for an Eye

Petrocelli

The Fugitive

Rawhide

Have Gun, Will Travel

The Loneliest Runner

The Streets of San Francisco

Overboard

Set This Town on Fire

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

Elvis

Last Train from Gun Hill

Wanted: Dead or Alive

The Rifleman

Alias Smith and Jones

How the West Was Won

Maverick

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Hondo

Mannix

Big Leaguer

The Great Impostor

The Horse Soldiers

Ironside

The Monroes

Branded

Flashing Spikes

Stoney Burke

Blackbeard's Ghost

Tango & Cash

Attack

The Apple Dumpling Gang

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

Cheyenne Autumn

Sam Benedict