Almost reptilian in appearance and disposition, B-Western heavy Ted Adams came out of a show business family and was reportedly born in the proverbial trunk. On-stage from childhood, Adams segued into films soon after the transition to sound, using several variations of his real name, Richard Theodore Adams. By the mid-'30s, he chose the friendlier Ted but there was nothing friendly about the characters he was given to play: He was sometimes the lead villain and often scruffy-looking so-called "dog heavies," the kind the audience could easily imagine kicking a dog. A constant presence in the low-budget Johnny Mack Brown and Bob Steele Westerns from producer A.W. Hackel, he later worked mainly for PRC and Monogram, the nether regions of sagebrush moviemaking. By the time of his retirement in the early '50s, Adams had added such television Westerns as The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, and Cowboy G-Men to his lengthy resumé.