Handsome leading man who developed into one of Hollywood's greatest and most popular Western stars. Born to George and Lucy Crane Scott during a visit to Virginia, Scott was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. He attended Georgia Institute of Technology, but after being injured playing football, transferred to the University of North Carolina, from which he graduated with a degree in textile engineering and manufacturing. He discovered acting and went to California, where he met Howard Hughes, who obtained an audition for him for Cecil B. DeMille's Dynamite, a role which went instead to Joel McCrea. He was hired to coach Gary Cooper in a Virginia dialect for The Virginian and played a bit part in the film. Paramount scouts saw him in a play and offered him a contract. He moved rapidly into leading roles at Paramount, although his easy-going charm was not enough to indicate the tremendous success that would come to him later. He was a pleasant figure in comedies, dramas and the occasional adventure, but it was not until he began focusing on westerns in the late 1940s that he reached his greatest stardom. His screen persona altered into that of a stoic, craggy, and uncompromising figure, a tough, hard-bitten man seemingly unconnected to the light comedy lead he had been in the 1930s. He became one of the top box-office stars of the 1950s and, in the Westerns of Budd Boetticher especially, a critically important figure in the western as an art form. Following a critically acclaimed less-heroic-than-usual role in one of the classics of the genre, Ride the High Country, Scott retired from films. A multi-millionaire many times over as a result of canny investments, Scott spent his remaining years playing golf and avoiding film industry affairs. He died in 1987, survived by his second wife, Patricia, and his two children, Christopher and Sandra. He is buried in Charlotte, North Carolina.
During the Thirties, was roommates with Cary Grant in a beach house known jocularly as Bachelor Hall. The close friendship between Scott and Grant, as well as the steady stream of women into and out of Bachelor Hall, have fed rumor mills for years. Rode a beautiful palomino horse named Stardust in his Westerns. Best friends were Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, and the Reverend Billy Graham. Formed Ranown Productions with producer Harry Joe Brown, and produced several films. Interred at Elmwood Cemetery, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, just four blocks from his boyhood home at 312 W. 10th Street. Was the inspiration for the popular 1973 song "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?," a top-20 country hit for the The Statler Brothers. Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1975. Remained close friends with Cary Grant until the day he died. When he heard of his old friend's death, he reportedly put his head in his hands and wept. His image from his Westerns as an upright, outstanding sheriff or cowboy was so strong, it was paid homage to in Mel Brooks's classic comedy Blazing Saddles. When the African American sheriff chides the reluctant townspeople that they would have helped Randolph Scott, the great Western star's name is intoned by a chorus on the soundtrack and the townspeople are won over.