Actor Bob Elkins, best known as DJ Bobby Day in Sissy Spacek's Academy Award winning Coal Miner's Daughter, died Wednesday in Cold Spring, Ky. He was 89.
After the Loretta Lynn biographical film in 1980, Elkins appeared in Johnny Cash's The Pride Of Jesse Hallam filmed here in 1981; Just Another Stupid Kid with Christine Parks; The Pennsylvania Miners' Story; The Dream Catcher; The War That Made America; Lynda Carter's Tattered Angel and Claire Danes' Homeland TV series.
The West Virginia native, who moved with his family to Covington at age 12, was well known throughout the Cincinnati theater community from appearing in local and community productions and many local films.
"He was a wonderful man. He was always prepared. You could always count on him," says D. Lynn Meyers, producing artistic director of the Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati and the casting director for most Hollywood films shot here.
"He'd go see everybody's shows. He was a familiar face in the audience for many years," Meyers says. He also taught or mentored many area actors.
After serving in the U.S. Navy, Elkins returned here and enrolled in an acting school because "I always liked movies." He held a day sales job while acting in TV commercials and local plays.
Elkins won Best Actor at the 2003 in the Dublin Film and Music Festival in Ireland for his portrayal of a homeless man in an independent film entitled Homefree, according to his Wikipedia profile.
He continued to act well into his 80s, with his last credits in 2019 for The Randoms and Act of Contrition.
