Will Kane popular imagination: the gaunt, chiseled stone face, a stoic deadpan that rendered Cooper the leading-man, romantic-actor equivalent of Buster Keaton...By contrast, Skerritt saunters through the new "Noon" as if he were still the easygoing, ironic lawman of "Picket Fences"." Will Kane William "Will" Kane is the protagonist of the film "High Noon" (1952). He was first played by Gary Cooper, then by Lee Majors in "" (1980), and by Tom Skerritt in "High Noon" (2000), a remake for cable television. Gary Cooper originated the character in "High Noon" in 1952. Cooper briefly reprised his "High Noon" role in an uncredited
High Noon a vicious outlaw whom Kane sent to jail, has been released and will arrive on the noon train. Miller's gang—his younger brother Ben (Sheb Wooley), Jack Colby (Lee Van Cleef), and Jim Pierce (Robert J. Wilke)—await his arrival at the train station; it is clear that Miller intends to exact revenge. For Amy, a devout Quaker and pacifist, the solution is simple—leave town before Miller arrives, but Kane's sense of duty and honor are strong. "They're making me run," he tells her. "I've never run from anybody before." Besides, he says, Miller and his gang will hunt him down anyway.