A CONVERSATION WITH CLAUDE JARMAN JR

 

Robert Sterling and Claude Jarman Jr. in Roughshod

Last month, Claude Jarman Jr. died at the age of 90. Growing up poor, in Nashville, the son of a railroad worker, in 1945, 10-year-old 5^th-grader Claude loved going to the movies, but becoming a movie star was the last thing on his mind. And then 6-time Oscar nominee Clarence Brown, one of MGM’s top directors, came to Claude’s school, looking for an untrained, natural, blond southern boy to star opposite both Gregory Peck, and a new-born fawn, in the film of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ novel, The Yearling. For his performance, he would receive a miniature Oscar (which would later be replaced with the full-sized statuette) as the Outstanding Child Actor of 1946.

In his excellent 2018 autobiography, My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood, Jarman tells not only the story of his brief -- by choice -- but distinguished acting career, but also the story of the final great days of Hollywood in general, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer in particular.  You can buy it from Amazon HERE, or elsewhere.

In October of 2022, at The Lone Pine Film Festival, in Lone Pine, California, I had the pleasure of interviewing Claude onstage, after a screening of one of my favorite Westerns, and one of Claude’s best films, 1949’s Roughshod. One of the first and finest noirish post-war Westerns, it was directed by Mark Robson, who had previously directed 5 films for Val Lewton. Its story was by the writer of Hitchcock’s Saboteur, and Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart, Peter Viertel. The screenplay is by Daniel Mainwaring, who wrote Out of the Past, and would write Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and Hugo Butler, Oscar-nominated for Best Writing, Original Story for Edison, the Man.

The film stars Robert Sterling, later famous as George Kirby on Topper, and Claude, as brothers transporting horses to their ranch near Sonora. En route they run into four saloon girls stranded by a crippled wagon: Gloria Grahame, Jeff Donnell, Martha Hyer, and Myrna Dell. Knowing he’s being hunted by three escaped convicts, led by John Ireland, the last thing Sterling wants is the added responsibility of the women.

L to R, Claude, Myrna Dell, Gloria Grahame, (kneeling)

Sterling, Jeff Donnell, Martha Hyer

One more reason that I was excited to be interviewing Claude was that one of the four women, Myrna Dell, had been a good friend of us both.

Henry Parke: Back in 1945, Metro Goldwyn Mayor Studios held a nationwide talent search to select a young man to play Jody Baxter in the film of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Yearling. Twelve-year-old Claude Jarman Jr. was discovered in Nashville, and went to Hollywood to star opposite Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman. If you haven't seen it, you must. It's a beautiful, joyful, heartbreaking classic. And for this first professional performance, Jarman was presented with a miniature Oscar. As his career continued, he'd be adopted by Jeanette McDonald in The Sun Comes Up, grow up to be Ben Johnson in High Barbaree, grow up to be David Bryan in Inside Straight. But much of his best work has been in Westerns. He stars with Joel McCrea in The Outriders, with Randolph Scott in Hangman's Knot, with Fess Parker in The Great Locomotive Chase. He plays John Wayne’s and Maureen O’Hara’s son for John Ford in Rio Grande, and we’ve just seen him as kid brother to Robert Sterling in one of the really fine noir westerns, 1949's Roughshod. It's my pleasure to introduce to you, Claude Jarman Jr.

Claude Jarman Jr.: Yeah. After talking about all these Westerns, I forgot to wear my Western hat again. At any rate, it was interesting that Roughshod was where I really learned to ride. We spent two and a half months living in tents up in Bridgeport. Every day you saw a lot of activities with the horses. And every day I would ride with the wranglers. And I really learned how to ride during that, and it certainly paid off later, when I made Westerns, particularly with Rio Grande, where I did a lot of horseback riding. At any rate, it was a fun movie. The people were very talented, and they were all just at the beginning of their careers, which I think was really remarkable. And it was for that reason, we were all a very happy, happy group on location. And the people were wonderful to be with. The women were great. Myrna Dell, who played the one who wanted to stay with the miner, she was a real kick. She decided she wanted to be an actress, but she did not want to be someone who was a beauty queen. She wanted to just be somebody who could be the dance hall girl. That way she could have a full career. She'd end up making about a hundred movies doing that sort of thing. (Note: The Falcon’s Adventure, Fighting Father Dunne, The Bowery Boys – Here Come the Marines, etc.) And we sort of kept in touch. Every now and then, I would get a letter from her. In 2001 I was at the Academy Awards. That was the year that everyone who had received one was on stage. So I was on stage, and she wrote me a letter and she said, “I just saw you, on stage at the Academy Awards, and you looked terrific. All I can tell you is, when we made the movie together, you were too young for me then, but you're too old for me now.”

Myrna Dell 

Henry Parke: Myrna told me that story, too.

Claude Jarman Jr.: Did she? Anyway, it was Gloria Grahame who went on to win an Academy Award. (Note: Nominated in 1948 as Best Supporting Actress in Crossfire; won in 1953 as Best Supporting Actress in The Bad and the Beautiful.) She was 25 years old, so they were all very young. Martha Hyer, who played the first one to leave the group, to go back with her mother. She kept acting (Note: Nominated in 1959 as Best Supporting Actress in Some Came Running), and then she ended up marrying Hal Wallis, who was one of the great producers in Hollywood (Note: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, True Grit, etc.), and I think she just passed on in the last couple of years. So everyone had a career. They all had something that they grew into. It was wonderful. It was really a good experience. It was funny because that was the fourth movie that I made. First I made The Yearling, High Barbaree, and then the Lassie movie, The Sun Comes Up. I was still at MGM, but they loaned me out to RKO. That was one of the unique things that they would do. They wanted somebody, they would loan them, they would pay MGM; not me. At any rate, it was a great experience. And I think the movie still kind of looks pretty good.

Claude, Gloria Grahame

Henry Parke: Really good. Did you audition for the role of Steve?

Claude Jarman Jr.: No, I did not. I was just told I was gonna work at RKO. I remember at that time, there was a wonderful little school at MGM. I was a student with Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Powell. There was one little student in there all by herself, and that was Natalie Wood. Somehow, she was there by herself.

Henry Parke: Your director, Mark Robson, had gone from assistant director on Citizen Kane, to director of five films for RKO horror czar Val Lewton. And just before Roughshod, he directed Kirk Douglas to an Oscar nomination in Champion. What was he like to work with?

Claude Jarman Jr.: It was obvious to me that he was a very hands-on director who knew what he was doing, because he had just started, this was like his third or fourth film. He knew exactly what he wanted, and how to get a performance out of the actors. It was not surprising he went on to have a very successful career, and he was a very nice man, too. (Note: Best Director Oscar Nominee for 1958’s Peyton Place, and 1959’s Inn of the Sixth Happiness.)

Henry Parke:  Now, Robert Sterling, I think a lot of us grew up watching him and his later wife, Anne Jeffries, as George and Marion Kerby on the TV series Topper. He had a film career, just prior to the war, (Note: Two-Faced Woman, Johnny Eager, etc.) when he was married to Ann Southern, when they had met on one of her Maisie films, Ringside Maisie. But then he'd been away in the war. He'd joined the Army Air Corps and trained pilots in London. And so this was his big sort of comeback film.

Gloria Grahame, Robert Sterling

Claude Jarman Jr.: Yeah. But he was a good actor. He was good looking, came across as being very attractive. I'm surprised he didn't have a longer career than he did. Although I guess the TV thing was something that went on for a while. Then Jeff Donnell, who played the other woman who was sick, who got left behind, she went on and she had a TV career also. (Note: In a Lonely Place, The George Gobel Show, General Hospital, etc.) Everyone there ended up working. Except me. <laugh>.

Myrna Dell, Sara Haden, Jeff Donnell

Henry Parke: Myrna Dell was a good friend of mine. She told me a story about something that happened when Gloria Grahame's husband visited the set unexpectedly. She was married to the actor Stanley Clements. A tough guy in films, he's probably best remembered for taking over from Leo Gorcey in the Bowery Boys films, playing Stash. And Gloria was not that enamored with him at that point. She used to introduce him by saying, “This is my husband Stanley Clements, or as I call him, Humphrey Bogart after taxes.” Anyway, he dropped in on the set, and caught Gloria with Robert Sterling, who was still married to Ann Southern, and Sterling took the hills, and Clement slapped his wife Gloria around. And Myna said they had to use make-up to cover up the marks.

Claude Jarman Jr.: News to me.

Henry Parke: Do you have any thoughts on the villain of the piece, John Ireland?

John Ireland, James Bell, Sara Haden

Claude Jarman Jr.: That was the only time I worked with him. I thought he was a very good actor. My favorite actor after that was Lee Marvin, who was in Hangman’s Knot.

Henry Parke: One last question. Do you have any favorite memories from making the film?

Claude Jarman Jr.: I loved being outdoors; the summertime, the Highs Sierras and Mono Lake. It was just heaven to a kid at that age. And I didn't have to go to school in the summer, so I didn't have to worry about that. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience for me. Anyway, thank you very much, folks!

Henry Parke: And thank you!

Claude and Henry

Roughshod is out on DVD from Warner Archive, available through Amazon. Here's a clip!

 COMING ATTRACTIONS!

 

I’ll soon be posting my interview with actress and martial arts legend Cynthia Rothrock about her new Western, Black Creek, which is True West’s Editor’s Choice for Best Western to Stream (although it’s not available to stream yet)!

Here’s a glimpse of Billy the Kid: Blood and Legend, the new Western from director Michael Feifer, which has just started post production. I interviewed Mike just before he rolled camera, and that interview is coming soon to the pages!

Finally, back in 2021, an excellent Western was made in Australia, which has gone under two titles, The Legend of Molly Johnson, and The Drover’s Wife. Based on an 1892 story by Australian writer Harry Lawson, it’s about a pregnant mother at home alone on her farm in the Outback, caring for her children, and waiting for her husband’s return. It stars, and is written and directed by Leah Purcell, and it is an absolute knock-out. I interviewed Purcell back in 2021, but I never ran it because the movie was never released in the U.S., but it’s now running on Amazon Prime, and I’ll be posting the interview very soon!

…And that’s a wrap!

If you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned the blockbuster miniseries American Primeval yet, I’m deep into an article about it for True West Magazine! Speaking of which, please check out our Annual January/February “Best of the West” issue, with my selections for the best Western movies, DVDs, and TV shows of the year!

Have a great February!

Henry

All Original Content Copyright February 2025 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved

KEVIN COSTNER ON HOPES FOR ‘HORIZON 1-4’, CRAIG ‘LONGMIRE’ JOHNSON ON HIS NEWEST NOVELLA, 'GUNSMOKE' AUCTION, PLUS AUSSIE WESTERN SERIES ‘TERRITORY’, UPCOMING ‘FRONTIER CRUCIBLE’!

 

KEVIN COSTNER ON ‘HORIZON’

“I love what I do. I feel privileged to be able to do it. It has been a struggle, but it was a struggle for my crew too. Just to give you an example, I shot Dances with Wolves in 106 days. And Horizon, the first one, is arguably as big as that, if not bigger. We shot it in 52 days. No one stopped working. No one was late. [Everyone] was ready.” -- Kevin Costner

 

On Tuesday night, November 12^th, at the Angelika Theatre in New York’s West Village, Horizon, an American Saga, Chapter One, was screened for an audience of mostly members of various film guilds. Afterwards, star, director and co-writer Kevin Costner took to the stage with actress Ella Hunt, and Mara Webster of In Creative Company. Mara interviewed Kevin and Ella about making Horizon, and the following quotes from Kevin Costner are in answer to Mara’s questions.

Ella Hunt, Kevin Costner, Mara Webster

For those who have not yet seen Horizon, Chapter One, the title is the name of a town-to-be which an unscrupulous and thus-far unseen businessman has promoted as heaven-on-Earth to many would-be pioneers. Costner, who doesn’t appear for the first hour, plays Hayes Ellison, a horse trader who inadvertently gets thrust into a feud. Ella Hunt plays Juliette Chesney, a privileged Englishwoman travelling by wagon-train with her artist husband, both of them woefully unprepared for the trip, and clueless as to what’s expected of them. Costner’s and Hunt’s characters do not meet in Chapter One, but doubtless will in Chapter Two.

Mara Webster began by pointing out that Costner had been trying to put together Horizon since 1988, and wondered how having a 35-year gestation period affected the project. (Note: I spoke to Kevin Costner in 2019 for True West – here’s the link: https://truewestmagazine.com/article/kevin-costner/ -- an updated version of my interview is in my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them -- and we had discussed Horizon, a project that he wanted to make: “I have a Western that I really want to make; I just can’t find the rich guys that want to make it—an epic Western.”)
“Well, I was certainly ready to make it. I wasn't sure I'd find somebody like Ella. And I'm not sure Ella was born when I started thinking about this thing (note: Ella Hunt was born in 1998). It's an unusual story about Ella. It hasn't happened to me very often -- it happened to me once in Dances with Wolves. Robert Pastorelli (note: Candice Bergen’s useless apartment maintenance man from Murphy Brown) came in to read a part. And he came in spats, he had his bowling shirt on, and his gold ‘goomba’ stuff. And the part I had picked out for him -- I just looked at him -- he started reading and I said, ‘Robert, just stop for a second.’ I took his sides out of his hand. There was another (role), this dirty teamster, and I handed him those sides, and he made history with it. He was such an incredible actor. (Note: Pastorelli died in 2004, at age 49.) And when I first met Ella, she was going to read for the daughter (of a pioneer family), and I didn't take the sides out of her hand, but I made a switch right there, that she would play this incredible character, that we would be asking to do so much. She just has this incredible beauty and youngness about her. But there's some incredible maturity about her too.”

Tom Payne and Ella Hunt

“I thought he was joking,” Hunt responded. “And then was incredibly flattered, and daunted, as Juliette is a character who is very tested over the course of these films… I think one of the very special things about Kevin as a director is…the belief that he invests in all of the people around him. I'm so grateful that you looked at me and thought that I could do that. And now, because of Juliette, I've gone on to do things that I wouldn't have allowed myself to. I've just played Gilda Radner (note: in the new film, Saturday Night).”

In answer to Webster’s question about how Costner chooses when to shoot closely, intimately, and when to “see the impact of the landscape,” he replied, “Well, we did go to places that still exist in America. It's if you're willing to get out of chasing a rebate. For me, that was important, to have these landscapes that went on forever. But you know, we're not making a travelogue. And eventually it boils down to what is the story, and it shrinks down. And when someone can dominate the horizon, this giant landscape, you have to find scenes that are so intimate to set against it. And so we created scenes where my actors swallow this horizon. They're so strong that you forget about how far the country goes. You realize the pain and what they're going through. I like to think of the Western as our Shakespeare. This is not a series of ‘yeps’ and ‘nopes’. It was a Victorian age and people did have the ability to express themselves really beautifully. You have Danny Houston giving us a speech, which I equate to James Earl Jones' speech in Field of Dreams, Danny explaining Manifest Destiny. And you get someone like Ella, who shows the most intimate moment of a woman who is just tired of being dirty, and just the feel of water. And when you watch her perform that moment, and look in that mirror, (you) also understand how cold that night was. You know, that scene has as much place for me in a Western as a gunfight. It had to be there.”

Asked how he gave familiar genre elements a deeper context, Costner replied, “Well, I tried to break with Westerns because I don't like a lot of Westerns; most of them aren't very good. And the black-and-whites that we grew up with, they were so simple, they were a mainstay of our televisions, our theater. But they often were too simple for me. The black hat, the white hat, the way people dressed. But the thing that stood out for me, what had been missing almost in every way -- and it took a while for it to dawn on me -- is every western has a town. But they're not like mushrooms: they didn't just come up. There was a terrible struggle that took place. And it took place from sea to shining sea. Every inch of that land was fought for, was contested. Where our great cities exist, (there) were (already) people. They know where the good places were to live. And we did too, and we kind of wiped them out. But that was not ever talked about in any Westerns: the towns always exist. And I started wondering, what would it be like to see the beginning of something? There was nothing there, there was a (new) group of people that had found a level of equilibrium that made peace with the (native) people to such a degree that they were getting along. [As the film begins,] the first image is a surveyor stick that goes into an ant hill. And we disrupted their way of life. And what you'll see when you see all four -- and I hope that you do -- is you'll see the struggle: this town burns and is rebuilt and burns and rebuilt, and finally there's a tipping point in the West. And it was just simply numbers. They (the natives) never stood a chance. But I also don't want to be embarrassed about the ingenuity and the bravery and the spontaneity and the courage that it took for people to cross that Mississippi and go there. It's not a land in Disneyland; it was contested, it was real. The country was founded in the East, but its character was really formed in the West with this constant battle.

Tom Payne, Ella Hunt, Kevin Costner 

“I think we've had enough of heroes having buffoons to knock down. When you face formidable people, it makes for a more interesting movie. When you believe in the behavior -- it's not really possible for one guy to beat up everybody in the bar. Everybody assumes that everybody could ride a horse, or fix a wagon, or make a fire. If you stick with the reality, there can be a lot of drama in the West, and a lot of danger. Something that I gravitated to when I was little, was when I saw children in a movie being able to survive in an adult world; I leaned into the movie more. But when children were stupid in movies, where directors or writing made them stupid, I leaned away. And I think that with all our CGI, with all our great effects that we have to build our movies up, when we don't invest in character, in behavior, those things aren't any good to us. When we see ourselves is when our greatest joy happens in the theater.

“I do like to make these movies, and when I started writing this with Jon (Baird) in 1988, it's safe to say that no one really wanted to make it. And in 2003, the studio wouldn't make it for 5 million more dollars. And I was distressed about that. I went on to make other movies, but I couldn't leave this one behind. And I was so mad that they didn't understand the first one, that I decided to write four more. (The audience laughs.) And everybody goes, oh yeah, that's Kevin! Jon and I, we started writing, and again, I wasn't writing to please anybody, I was trying to please myself because I think that's my best chance at pleasing you.

“I do love horses running fast. I do love the mountains and rivers that never end. And I do love the gunfight if it's orchestrated correctly. But what surprised me was when I looked up or looked down, with Jon Baird, who I am completely indebted to, was that every story had women running right down the middle. So here I had these Big Four Cowboy Movies, and women almost dominate -- and Ella dominates Chapter Two.  I just found that I couldn't tell the story that I was trying to, without making women dominant. It was a surprise to me. I don't know if fate was just moving my hand. I go, ‘Not another woman! Come on! Where's the gun fight?’ But I loved how their struggle fit so perfectly in the West. I'm proudest of the script, that Jon Baird allowed these actors to feast on with myself.”

An audience member asked if all four parts of Horizon are written. “They're all written, so this is not a case of ‘we don't know where it's going.’ We know exactly where it's going. I don't know why four movies is what's in my head, but that's what it is. And so I will push the rock uphill to find the money to do this. So that one day you'll have these four, and I hope this is a Treasure Island on your bookshelf of electronic films. I hope you have it to show your friends, to revisit it and see the details, see the nuances and choices that these actors made because it was really extraordinary acting going on in an American Western. There's a notion that things are easy for me. I guess maybe they are, if I do the things that people want me to do, and it's not that I am a contrary person. I'm not even an avant garde person for crying out loud. I make movies with horses and campfires, but I do it with an edge. It's not always in vogue. But I'm so happy to be able to do it. And I won't rest until I'm done. And I will figure it out. If I can't find that billionaire, I will look to myself like I did on One and Two. But there will be four.”

An audience member asked Costner how he made period films seem so contemporary. “Well, I think that in every generation we have abusive people. We have peeping toms -- we had them on the wagon train. So I can blend the same difficulties that we have in life and bring them right into the frontier. We have the sociopath; we have acts of kindness. There were guns and there was alcohol and a lot of times there weren't very many women. People were angry. And you run into a person that's just killed somebody and there's a bloodlust. (Note: the following refers to a scene where he’s going up a hill to see the prostitute Marigold, played by Abbey Lee, and is stalked and goaded by gunman Jamie Bower playing Caleb Sykes.) Jamie Bower, who walked up that hill with me – that actor's amazing. So we have a gun fight -- I’m not trying to reinvent the Western. But what I was really interested in was the walk up the hill; that this was a bully, and we've all encountered them in school and at work. And this was somebody that was coming out of a blood lust. He had just killed someone. He'd just been humiliated by his brother. And that was just as interesting to me. A studio might say, ‘Just get to the gunfight for crying out loud, Kevin!’ And I'm in love with the walk. I think I'm always going to be in love with the walk.”

Jamie Bower and Kevin Costner

An audience member notes the industry’s lack of interest in passion projects, and asks Costner where his wellspring of determination and hope comes from. “I just believe. I believe in story so much. I believe I have a secret in my pocket, and I just can't wait to share it). The only thing that's disappointing to me is I can't be you, and see this for the very first time like you just saw it: I wanted people to make a movie like this for me. But I can't lose my enthusiasm. No one can break me, break my spirit. I do get down, do wonder how I'm going to go on, but I love my actors. I just love that I found my Yellow Brick Road a long time ago, when I didn't figure to have any future. I got D’s and F’s in high school, where you're supposed to at least be kind of good.

“I found myself. And to be here in front of you, to be able to share what I love with people who share and have a passion that runs so deep, it's so personal, every detail. And I hope that you see them, (the Horizon films) and you revisit them the same way. When I watched Wizard of Oz, I didn't know the horses change color. I should have, because there's the line, ‘A horse of a different color.’ Every time I watch that, I see something new. And that's what I want from my movies. My movies. They have to be more than just an opening weekend. They have to be a lifetime.”

 

CRAIG ‘LONGMIRE’ JOHNSON JOINS ‘RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER’ TO DISCUSS HIS NEWEST NOVELLA, ‘TOOTH AND CLAW’

On the first Thursday of every month, I have the pleasure of being ‘in the limelight,’ joining hosts Bobbi Jean and Jim Bell on their weekly Rendezvous with a Writer podcast, where I present the month’s news in the world of film and TV Westerns, and take part in their interview with a guest writer. On November 7th, that guest was Longmire creator Craig Johnson, who was announcing the publication of his newest novella, Tooth and Claw. This story takes Longmire and Henry Standing Bear back to the Vietnam War years, and their adventures in Alaska among polar bears and bad men. The link below will bring you to the podcast: 

https://www.facebook.com/bobbi.j.bell/videos/8753051584737954

 

AUSSIE WESTERN SERIES ‘TERRITORY’ ON NETFLIX

Robert Taylor, Sam Corlett

Actor Robert Taylor, who starred as the title character on the phenomenally popular Longmire, has two series this year. He plays Jackson Gibbs, a continuing character on NCIS: Origins, and for Netflix, he stars as Colin Lawson, the patriarch of the Lawson family, who are 5^th generation owners of the largest cattle-station in Australia. (Note: what Americans call ranches, Australians call stations.) It’s stated in the first of six episodes that it’s the size of Belgium, which I suspect is roughly the size of Yellowstone. In the opener, the son that Colin has been grooming to take over the family business meets an ugly fate, and the others scramble to take his position. I found the first episode gripping, and will definitely watch more.    

JANET ARNESS DISCUSSES JULIEN’S ‘GUNSMOKE’ AUCTION

On November 15^th, Julien’s held a Western-themed, largely Gunsmoke auction in the Hollywood Museum, former home of Max Factor glamour empire. There were 568 lots up for bids, 230 from the estate of TV’s Matt Dillon, James Arness. I had the pleasure of discussing the auction before the fact with Jim’s widow, Janet Arness, for an article for the INSP blog. Here is the link: https://www.insp.com/blog/what-janet-arness-thinks-of-the-gunsmoke-auction/

Incidentally, I’m writing another INSP follow-up article on how the auction turned out.

 

THOMAS JANE, ARMIE HAMMER TO STAR IN ‘FRONTIER CRUCIBLE’

Thomas Jane from Murder at Yellowstone City

Johnny Depp and an un-masked Lone Ranger, Armie Hammer

Shooting in Monument Valley and Prescott, Arizona beginning this month, Frontier Crucible will be rolling camera under the direction of Travis Mills, who gained attention when he made good on his audacious pledge to make 12 Westerns in 12 months – during Covid, no less! In the post-Civil War drama set in Arizona Territory, Myles Clohessy is an ex-soldier who throws in with outlaws lead by Jane, and a couple, Mary Stickley and Ed Brown, to fight against common enemies. The role for Hammer, the screen’s most recent Lone Ranger, was not specified. Also in the cast is Eddie Spears. Producer Dallas Sonnier pitched the project as Reservoir Dogs meets Bone Tomahawk, and he in fact produced Bone Tomahawk, as well as 2022’s Terror on the Prairie. (Click HERE to read about my visit to the Bone Tomahawk set, and my interview with Dallas Sonnier https://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2015/10/bone-tomahawk-review-interviews-plus.html )

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Please check out the new November/December issue of True West Magazine, featuring my article celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Sam Peckinpah’s classic, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid – I was fortunate enough to interview Peckinpah’s assistant Katy Haber, film editor and historian Paul Seydor, and one of the movie’s last living stars – although he’s the first one killed onscreen – Charles Martin Smith. And the next Round-up will feature my interview with Michael Feifer on the eve of directing his 8^th Western!

Much obliged,

Henry C. Parke

All Original Contents Copyright November 2024 by Parke – All Rights Reserved

 

JULIET MILLS ON JIMMY STEWART, MAUREEN O’HARA, AND ‘THE RARE BREED’, PLUS INSP’S ‘BLUE RIDGE’ FINALE, ‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ SEASON 4 PREMIERE, ‘LONE PINE!’

 

JULIET MILLS ON JIMMY STEWART, MAUREEN O’HARA, AND ‘THE RARE BREED’

Jack Elam, Jimmy Stewart, Juliet Mills

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!”

Juliet Mills’ sole feature Western is 1966’s The Rare Breed. Maureen O’Hara stars as a recently widowed Englishwoman whose late husband’s dream was to introduce hornless Hereford cattle to the American West, with an eye towards mating them with Texas Longhorns. Maureen’s daughter is Juliet Mills, and the men who variously help and hinder their efforts are cowboy Jimmy Stewart, meat packer David Brian, and rancher Brian Keith. There are a handful of Hereford bulls, and the one with the biggest role is named Vindicator.

I first spoke to Juliet Mills three years ago. I was gathering material to do audio commentary with my constant partner-in-commentary-crime C. Courtney Joyner, for a Blu-ray edition of Mills’ excellent Western, 1966’s The Rare Breed. Atypically, that BluRay still has not been released. This was during COVID time, and nothing was normal. Juliet and husband Maxwell Caulfield had then just celebrated their 40^th wedding anniversary, and when I wound up my interview by asking Juliet when we would next see them on the screen, she replied, a bit anxiously, “It's all been very quiet lately. I haven't worked this year at all; neither has my husband, but there's no point worrying about it because there's really not much going on.” What a difference a few years can make. Since our interview, Juliet has appeared in six episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, co-starred with Wendy Mallick – and Maxwell – in the movie 7000 Miles, starred in the fantasy adventure The Primevals, and performed voices in animated features and series including Bigmouth, Human Resources, Ark: The Animated Series, and voiced the whale in Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar. Maxwell has been equally busy in multiple episodes of The Bay, numerous movies and TV-movies, and was particularly memorable as Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione in the miniseries Pam and Tommy. And Max played Jacob Marley to Juliet’s Ghost of Christmas Future in the podcast Scrooge: A Christmas Carol.

Terms like “Showbiz Royalty” are tossed around promiscuously, but few families have more clearly earned the “Theatrical Royalty” designation than the Mills family. Juliet’s father, John Mills, had a magnificent 75-year career in film and television here and across the sea, an even longer and finer stage career, and won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1971, in David Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter.  Juliet’s sister, Hayley Mills, was the biggest child movie star of the 1960s, and is still very active. Juliet, with nearly one hundred screen characters to her credit, who will always be beloved for portraying the first title character in the 1970s series The Nanny and the Professor, began her screen career as an infant, in 1942.

“I was brought up watching my father on a film set. My first visit was in In Which We Serve, a (Noel) Coward film that my dad was doing. I was 11 weeks old, so I do hardly remember that, but there were a couple of others, October Man (1947), So Well Remembered (1947), and The History of Mr. Polly (1949). In all of them. I had little scenes, particularly in History of Mr. Polly. I had a little scene with daddy, a rather sweet little scene, but then of course I always visited him. I remember very, very well visiting him on Great Expectations (1946). I suppose I was about five at the time; that was David Lean. A great movie. What I'm really getting at is that on a film set, wherever it is, I always felt at home and relaxed and happy.

HENRY PARKE: You were very busy in British comedies in the 1960s: No, My Darling Daughter, Twice Around the Daffodils, Nurses on Wheels, Carry on Jack. You were so busy; what seduced you to come over to the United States?

JULIET MILLS: Well, as a matter of fact, I was in New York. I did a play called Alfie, with Terence Stamp. It didn't run that long, I think about three months. It was a little before its time, in the sense that (the cast spoke with) very strong cockney accents and the American audience didn't understand half of it. But while I was there, a casting director called Boaty Boatwright, who was very famous in that time -- I hope she's still with us. (Note: She is.)  She saw me in the play, and suggested me for the role in The Rare Breed. And I didn't do a test or anything, come to think of it. I got the part from the theater.

HENRY PARKE: How was filming in the United States different from filming in England?

JULIET MILLS: Well, the actual work, on the set, it's the same really wherever you are, except it was on a grander scale, in the sense of fantastic locations and huge sets and a Western. I'd never dreamed of doing a Western. My father always wanted to do a Western: he was very jealous. (Note: the following year, John Mills got his wish, starring in the short-lived but well-remembered Dundee and the Culhane, as one of a pair of frontier lawyers.)

HENRY PARKE: I would think the location work for The Rare Breed would have been quite different from what you'd done in England. Was it a physically difficult shoot for you?

Juliet Mills, Maureen O'Hara and Jimmy Stewart

JULIET MILLS: I wouldn't say too physically difficult. I did quite a bit of riding, which I loved, and I did ride anyway. We used to ride in Richmond Park when I was a child. The only slightly difficult part of that shoot was that it was quite hot, which I wasn't used to. We were shooting near Palm Springs, and so it was quite unusually hot for me. But they looked after us beautifully with ice, shammy leather around your wrist and all the rest of it, keeping it cool with umbrellas and stuff. But the only physical… I remember the time, there's a crash, the horses pulling a cart. The stampede. And we did a bit of that. I mean, obviously doubles did a lot of it, but some of it, Maureen (O’Hara) and I did. We were cowering under a huge rock when all these animals went thundering over. That was the only slightly scary bit, I think. But of course, the doubles did all the really dangerous parts.

HENRY PARKE: I've got to say it works. It looks very scary on film.

JULIET MILLS: Yeah, it does; it's very well done. (Director) Andrew McLagan was so experienced in doing that kind of thing, and he was just wonderful. He was one of the tallest men I've ever seen; he was huge. His feet were huge! He was a very, very, very nice guy, very good director. It was a very happy experience for me, as you can imagine. I mean, working with Jimmy Stewart, it was a dream. He was such a lovely guy. He was just as he seemed to be, you know, he was just himself. He was very, very sweet to me, very welcoming. There were three dozen red roses (from him) in my dressing room when I arrived. And he was always very friendly and we stayed friends after the film. And I used to go and see him in his house on Roxbury. I remember he had a huge vegetable garden. Of course now there's a house where his garden was. (I remember) being in a bar with him and the whole crew was after shooting, when we were on location. Because we did a lot at Universal, in the studio, of course. And they built all that whole set in there, that sort of compound area with the house and all that. That was amazing. I'd never been on a set of that size and scale before. But anyway, we were in this bar and I remember he said, “Do you do drink beer, Julia?” I was 22, and I said, “Oh yes, I do. I do have half a pint at home in the pub.” And so he said, “I'm going to order you a yard of beer.”

Maureen and Juliet

You probably know what it is, it's a long glass thing with a ball, a bulb, on the end, so you can't put it down, you have to drink it! That was one of my memories of Jimmy. He was so sweet. And then Maureen, of course I knew anyway. When I was first in New York at the age of 17, doing a play called Five Finger Exercise, which was Peter Schaffer's (Equus, Amadeus) first play actually. She and I did a live TV performance of Mrs. Miniver. So that's when I first met her. And then of course she did The Parent Trap with Hayley, where she played her mother. She actually played my mother twice and Hayley's mother once. So I adored her. I was very, very fond of her. The last time I saw her actually was when she came to Los Angeles for the TCM (Classic Film Festival). They were doing a tribute to her and they showed The Corn is Green. I had tea with her at the Roosevelt Hotel. I think she was 90 then. She was still so beautiful. When I did Rare Breed with her, she was breathtaking. Her skin was like alabaster. She had that wonderful red hair and those huge green eyes. She was an Irish beauty for real.

HENRY PARKE: Yes, absolutely. Someone who didn't look quite as for real was Brian Keith with all that red hair all over him.

Maureen O'Hara and Jimmy Stewart flank Brian Keith

in a horrendous fake wig and beard

JULIET MILLS: (laughs) Oh, he was a sweet guy. I loved him, but I know what you mean. It was rather over the top, all that hair. He really got into that Scottish thing in a big way. He was like a throwback, a Scottish landowner from way back when.

HENRY PARKE: Don Galloway played your romantic interest. He's an actor that I know primarily from from television, from the Ironside (1957-1975) series.

JULIET MILLS: I didn't know him, because having not been living in America, and doing a theater only in New York, I never watched television. I didn't know anything about him. He was a very nice guy and a very good actor. I don't -- what happened to him? I don't remember seeing, I never saw him again personally. And in real life, I'm sure he went on and did lots of things, but, um, did he do anything, any more movies after that?

HENRY PARKE:  He did several Westerns right after The Rare Breed, and years later he was in The Big Chill, but mostly he was a very busy television actor.

JULIET MILLS: We never met again, but that's this strange business we’re in. You're in each other's pockets, kissing each other on the lips, first thing in the morning. And you never see each other again.

HENRY PARKE: You also worked with a great villain, especially in the stampede, Jack Elam.

JULIET MILLS: Oh yes, he was wonderful, wasn't he? He was such a famous villain, and I'd seen him in so many movies, always playing the baddy, with those amazing eyebrows, and he was wonderful. And the stunt people were amazing too. Hal Needham was the stunt coordinator, and did a lot of stunts in that film. I think he actually played me at one point with a wig on. Jimmy's double, Ted Mapes, he always doubled for him; he was the same height, and he was a great friend of Jimmy's. Everything about that film was a happy memory, I have to say. Actually I saw it maybe a year ago on TCM and it's entertaining; it's good. I remember (stuntwoman) Patty Elder very well. She doubled for me. They were so courageous, those stunt people. They’d do anything on those horses, falls and crashes, oh my goodness. Amazing. Hal Needham, he loved his work. He was so experienced. I think he must have broken every bone in his body by the end of it all. He was always hurting himself. You know, they really do bash themselves up terribly.

HENRY PARKE: He's one of the very few stuntmen I know of who went from stuntman to director. (John Ford was another)

JULIET MILLS: I suppose that was partly his great friendship and association with Burt Reynolds. I think that's how he got into that. I will tell you one little funny story that I just remembered. We did all the location work first, then we went back into the studio. There were lots of horses in that set, that compound area. And when they dumped a load, as it were, the guy came and scooped it up with a shovel, so it wouldn't be in the shot. One time I was just standing around, I wasn't in the scene, and he wasn't around. And they were going “ny-ny, ny-ny, ny-ny,” because that's what they call them, the ones that scoop up the shit. I grabbed a shovel and I went in and scooped it up. And that was a huge joke with the crew. I had a gold charm bracelet that I always wore myself, not in the film. At the end of the shoot, Jimmy gave me a little gold shovel charm because they used to call me ny-ny. That was my nickname on the set.

HENRY PARKE: Any other fond memories of the filming?

JULIET MILLS: One of my favorite scenes that I remember so well. Jimmy was living in a little shack out on the prairie. I rode up on my horse and got off, and we had a scene together. That was wonderful for me, working with him on a one-to-one basis like that. He was such a giving actor, like all the greats. I did the film with Jack Lemmon (Avanti! 1972), and he was the same. Working with great film actors, all you have to do is react, really. You don't have to act at all. They're so generous.

Juliet and Vindicator

One other thing I will tell you. You know Vindicator the bull? We all became very fond of Vindicator and Jimmy especially. Jimmy wanted to make sure that Vindicator would be retired to a lovely life and not carved up or anything. So he actually bought him, and he went and lived out his life on Jimmy's ranch in Idaho.

When I heard that you wanted to talk to me about The Rare Breed, I started to think about it and things just come back, you know? It was the first time I ever worked in Hollywood. It was my film debut in Hollywood. And it was an important time for me in my life. I’d just had my first child. My son was about six months, I think, when we came out to do the film. That was my first husband -- I've been married to Maxwell Caufield for 40 years, so that's almost like another life.

HENRY PARKE: You did a couple of Western TV shows after The Rare Breed. You did A Man Called Shenandoah (1966).

JULIET MILLS: I don't remember much about that show, but I do remember Alias Smith and Jones very well, with Pete Duel. I remember that being on location, I think it was the Fox Ranch. I did a lot of episodic television around that time, and movies for television. Sometimes they were very, very good.

HENRY PARKE: How did you like working on The Man From UNCLE?

JULIET MILLS: Oh, great fun, great fun. Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, lovely, sweet guys. Very happy with their lot, feeling lucky to be in such a hit series. It was a very happy set. Honestly I don't remember much of the plot or my part, but I remember enjoying it very much.

HENRY PARKE: It’s been such a pleasure to talk to you. I've always enjoyed your work. I remember Nanny and the Professor very fondly. But one of your films that I’ve heard so much about, but never seen, is your “possession” thriller, Beyond the Door (1974).

JULIET MILLS: Oh my God, that's a scary movie! I took my son. He was about five, I think. I took him to see it at the Grauman's Chinese. He was so scared that when it was over, he wouldn't walk out with me. He said, “Mommy, I don't want to walk out with you. I don't want anybody to see me with you!” It was a strange.

 

INSP’S ‘BLUE RIDGE’ SUNDAY FINALE IS THE BEST EPISODE YET!

Jonathan Schaech

I’ve been catching a little heat from some friends that I turned on to Blue Ridge. “How can it be the finale?” they ask. “Didn’t it just start in July?” TV seasons have gotten shorter and shorter since the 1950s, when 39 episodes was the average, and I must admit a 6-episode season is a new low, count-wise, but the good news is that season 2 is coming in 2025, and it will have more episodes!

And the more urgent good news is that the Sunday, September 1 season closer is the best written and performed Blue Ridge story yet. One of the biggest strengths of Blue Ridge, movie and series, which separates it from other police dramas, is its rural setting, and its creators’ true understanding of that world, of the sort or crime found in that world, and the realities of underfinanced law-enforcement: it is still the wild west when it comes to self-reliance and teamwork.

They have PLENTY of reasons to be scared!

Sunday night’s story concerns not only very real human relationships under life-and-death pressures, but eminent domain, problems faced by some of our returning military, impenetrable government bureaucracy – and I won’t say any more. It’s too good to start telegraphing. If you missed my July article on Blue Ridge, you can click HERE, or just scroll down a little.

‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ SEASON 4 PREMIERE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4^TH!

Director Jim Orr watching Byron Preston Jackson

as Bass Reeves

Since Bat Masterson is a superhero to western historians and western movie- and TV-fans alike, what could be more appropriate than to begin season 4 of INSP’s Wild West Chronicles with a ‘superhero origin story’ for Bat? And because we are in the 21^st century, what could be more relevant than the fact that it’s not a ‘creation’ story, but a ‘reinvention’ story, the tale of how Bat, elegantly portrayed by Jack Elliot, redefined himself from lawman to journalist.

A familiar western street to Chronicles viewers.

A few months back I had the rare privilege to visit the Peppertree Ranch Studios in Acton, California, to witness a bit of the filming of two INSP Western series, Wild West Chronicles, and Elkhorn. Roaming the Western movie sets, I felt a connection not only with the West, but with the movie-making west of the early 20^th century, when two movie crews would be shooting on opposite ends of a Western street, and care had to be taken so they didn’t film each other!

Jim Orr directing Byron Preston Jackson

I was particularly happy to be present for some of the filming for what will be episode 2, Bass Reeves: A Father’s Justice, with Byron Preston Jackson as the legendary lawman. When I’d attended an early screening of the first episodes of the Paramount + series Lawmen: Bass Reeves, I’d spoken to the show’s creator, Chad Feehan, and I was amazed when he told me that they wouldn’t be including the most dramatically personal manhunt of Reeves’ career: when he set out to capture his own son for murder. Feehan told me they hadn’t dramatized that story because they wanted an upbeat tone to the piece. I understood, but I’m delighted that Wild West Chronicles is tackling that story.

 

‘RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER’ PODCAST CELEBRATES 101^ST EPISODE THIS THURSDAY WITH C. COURTNEY JOYNER AND ME!

 

On Thursday, September 5^th, filmmaker, screenwriter, novelist, and film historian C. Courtney Joyner, writer of the brand-new horror movie Quadrant, and Henry C. Parke (that’s me!), author of the new book The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them, will be the guests of Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Bell on Rendezvous with a Writer #101! And you need not wait! You can see Quadrant right now on Tubi and Prime Video, and you can buy Greatest Westerns right HERE.

I GUESTED ON THE EXCELLENT ‘HOW THE WEST WAS ‘CAST’ PODCAST

I’m going to be putting up links to all of the podcasts I’ve done recently, and How the West Was ‘Cast is exceptionally good – even the episodes that I’m not on! Hosts Andrew Patrick Nelson and Matthew Chernov have tremendous passion for and knowledge of the genre, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it! Here’s a link to my episode, where we discussed – you guessed it – The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and the People Who Made Them! https://westernpodcast.buzzsprout.com/884218/14709372?fbclid=IwY2xjawFANGRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdoHIKZRoiYQZ5xeIPlyWDvp8MaQS0fmRqZTjZCq5vCsfY2YkDV3_3O7eA_aem_M-rkJIE359PPFdpdvpC3RA

LONE PINE FILM FESTIVAL OCTOBER 10 – 13!

The Lone Pine 34^th Annual Film Festival is right around the corner, and the link below will take you to the official website, where you can learn all about the films you can see, the tours of the spectacular Alabama Hills – the locations of the movies you’ll have just seen, and all of the notable guests who will be attending. https://lonepinefilmfestival.org/

 

On Friday morning, October 11^th, I’ve have the pleasure of interviewing Sandra Slepski, niece of Western star Tom Tyler, about his later years, spent with her family. This will be followed by a screening of Tom Tyler’s 1936 Western boxing film, Rip Roarin’ Buckaroo, which was shot all around Lone Pine, in the Hills and in town, and later in the day there will be a tour of the film’s locations. I’ll also be signing and selling my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them. Keep an eye of our Facebook page, because I’ll have A LOT more info on Lone Pine as the date gets closer!

 

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright August 31, 2024 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

 

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