Jack Buetel

Buetel was born John Alexander Beutel in Dallas, Texas.^[1] He had stage experience in little theater in Dallas before being chosen to co-star in Hughes’s The Outlaw; Hughes also changed the spelling of his surname to "Buetel" in publicity to avoid mispronunciation.^[1]

Hughes cast Buetel as Billy the Kid in The Outlaw alongside newcomers Jane Russell and veterans Walter Huston and Thomas Mitchell.^[2] Production took place in 1940–41, but troubles with the Production Code and local bans delayed general exhibition for years. The film had a 1943 premiere and piecemeal engagements, but wider releases followed in 1946–47 after further edits and highly publicized marketing.^[2] Contemporary critics were mixed to hostile; Variety faulted the film beyond Russell’s sex appeal, and The New York Times called it “strictly second-rate…long and tedious and crudely acted,” assessments summarized in the AFI Catalog.^[2]

After The Outlaw, Buetel’s screen opportunities were limited. He returned to features as Bob Younger in Best of the Badmen (1951) and appeared in Westerns including Rose of Cimarron (1952), The Half-Breed (1952), and Jesse James' Women (1954).^[3]

An early marriage to Cereatha Browning was reported in 1941.^[7] He later married Joann Jensen Crawford (also credited as Joann Jensen Beutel).^[8] Buetel relocated to Portland, Oregon, by the 1970s.^[1]

Buetel died in Portland on June 27, 1989, aged 73, and was interred at Portland Memorial Mausoleum (Mausoleum JS2 Tier 3 Vault 10).^[1][9]

The Outlaw’s stop-start release pattern and censorship battles have been widely studied; the AFI Catalog documents the film’s staggered openings (1943, 1946, 1947), bans, and edited rereleases, as well as contemporaneous critical reaction.^[2] The role remained Buetel’s signature part.