Trivia

When he showed up on the set of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) fully dressed as a cowboy and speaking in a thick Southern accent, the British crew thought he was "Method" acting, not knowing that this was how he always dressed and acted.

He explained how he got into the rodeo business: "Well, there was this big, lanky, 15-year-old California ranch kid, and he went into the rodeo manager's office and said, 'Mister, I want to sign up for the calf-roping but my paw says I ain't allowed to. So I can't use my right name'. And the manager said, 'Son, no matter what name you use, it'll be slim pickin's out there today'. So the boy said, 'That's as good a name as any, I reckon-put me down as Slim Pickin's'. The manager spelled it 'Pickens' and the boy won $400 that afternoon".

Peter Sellers was originally going to ride the atom bomb in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Slim got a phone call late one evening from Stanley Kubrick: "Peter has fallen and broken his hip, I need you for a day's shoot--I need you bad and I need you now. How soon can you get on a plane and make it to London?". Slim obliged and in his haste forgot that he didn't have a passport because he had never traveled outside the US before. His entrance was delayed while he had to go through the process of getting one before he was allowed to leave the airport.

Was Stanley Kubrick's first choice to play the role of Dick Halloran in The Shining (1980). Pickens declined, saying that after enduring Kubrick's notorious style of multiple retakes in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), he had no desire to work for him again. Subsequently, the role of Halloran went to Scatman Crothers.

Although he was known for his heavy Southern drawl, leading many to believe he was from Texas or Oklahoma, he was actually born in Kingsburg, CA--not far from Fresno--and raised in California's San Joaquin Valley.

Inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame of the Rodeo Historical Society (a support group of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum) in 1986.

Bareback bronc rider; saddle bronc rider; rodeo clown and bullfighter.

Inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall Of Fame (2005).

Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1982.

Before becoming an actor, he was riding on the rodeo circuit. Someone told him that he should take up another line of work because all he would ever get in the rodeo was "Slim Pickin's".

He has appeared in three films which have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and Blazing Saddles (1974).

Brother of Easy Pickens.

Best remembered as Major "King" Kong, the United States Air Force B-52 pilot assigned to drop an A-bomb on Russia in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Joined the US Army Air Force during WWII. The story goes that he told the recruiter his specialty was rodeo. The recruiter thought he said 'radio'. Pickens spent the war in the US as a radio operator.

He was the son of Sallie Mosher (Turk) and Lewis Burton Lindley. His father was born in Ravenna, Fannin, Texas. His mother was born in Missouri.

Dedicatee of Howard Waldrop's story "Night of the Cooters," whose protagonist is Sheriff Bert Lindley.