Alfonso Bedoya

Biography

Mexican character actor who achieved his greatest success in U.S. films. He was born in a tiny village in Mexico of Yaqui heritage and he had a nomadic upbringing, living in numerous places throughout the country including, for a time, Mexico City. He received a private education in Houston, Texas as a teenager, but dropped out and roamed about doing an assortment of jobs. His family, however, brought him back to Mexico City, where he subsequently found work in the struggling Mexican film industry. He appeared in many Mexican films before director John Huston offered him the role of Gold Hat in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Bedoya stole the scenes in which he appeared as the smiling cutthroat and delivered the famous line about not needing any "stinking badges". He made a number of popular films in the U.S. in the next nine years, but a drinking problem destroyed his health. He died of a heart attack at the age of 53.