Actor Nelson McDowell first appeared in films with the Biograph Company in 1910, though, curiously, he was never directed by D. W. Griffith. McDowell's major film roles include David Gamut in Last of the Mohicans (1920), Sowerberry in Oliver Twist (1922) and Track Hatfield in the early-talkie western Billy the Kid (1930). During the 1930s, he played bits at such lesser studios as Columbia and Republic, closing out his career as a day player at 20th Century-Fox.