• the "brains" or "dress" heavy - the boss of the gang who often wears a suit, and pretends to be an upright, lawful member of the community.
• the "action" heavy - the assistant or second-in-command to the brains heavy who usually wore workmanlike duds, beat up and killed a lot of people, and often had more brawn than brains.
• a group of henchmen ... and this section on the Old Corral is dedicated to the performers who were relegated to those "henchie" roles. And sometimes those folks would portray law abiding citizens or a face in the background, and pick up a payday as a ranch hand, posse rider, townsman, barfly, etc. Many of these players also did stunt work.

Definition of henchman, "henchie":

• the 3rd-4th-5th member of the gang ... definitely well down in the "pecking order".
• generally not billed in the opening or closing credits.
• may or may not have a screen name ... depends on the "pecking order".
• rarely has any dialog ... except perhaps a grunt or two ... or a "yeah boss!" in response to "Let's go men!".
• often whiskered or with a moustache ... clothes are well worn ... often wears a sweat-stained hat.

In other words, these are NOT the western and serial performers that we immediately recognize like Roy Barcroft or Harry Woods or Lafe McKee or Tom London or George Chesebro or Charlie King. The Barcrofts, McKees, Chesebros, Kings and many others wound up with meatier roles, often had dialog, and in many cases, their names appeared in the opening or closing credits. Those folks are profiled in The "Villains & Supporting Players" section on the Old Corral.

The "Henchies" is dedicated to the performers whom we've seen a hundred times but mentally think

What's his name ???