Hopalong
Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author
Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of popular short stories and
twenty-eight novels based on the character.
In
his early writings, Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous,
and rough-talking. Beginning in 1935, the character—as played by movie
actor William Boyd in films adapted from Mulford's books—was
transformed into a clean-cut on-screen hero. A total of sixty-six
immensely popular films were released, only a few of which relied on
Mulford's original story lines. Mulford later revised and republished
his earlier works to be more consistent with the character's new,
polished on-screen persona.