Though he never quite reached the lead actor status he worked so relentlessly to achieve, Warren Oates (1928-1982) is known today as one of the most memorable and skilled character actors of the 1960's and 1970's. With his rugged looks and measured demeanor, Oates crafted complex characters that were at once brazen and thoughtful, wild and subdued. Warren Oates: A Wild Life is the first book-length look at the actor whom friends remember as a hard-living, hard-drinking man who was kind and caring, but also as mean as a blue-eyed devil. Born in the small town of Depoy in rural western Kentucky