CHARLES MARTIN SMITH PART 2 – ON LEE MARVIN, SAM SHEPHERD, JAMES GARNER, 'NEVER CRY WOLF', PLUS 'THE SEARCHERS' IN 4K/BLU-RAY, ALL 7 SEASONS OF 'CHEYENNE,' AND MORE!

Charles Martin Smith Part 2 – On Lee Marvin, Sam Shepherd, James Garner, Never Cry Wolf, and Directing

 

Last month Charles Martin Smith shared his memories of making The Culpepper Cattle Company and Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid. Here he discusses his later Westerns, and later career.

 

In Grizzly Adams, in the episode The Tenderfoot,

Charles Martin Smith plays a young Teddy Roosevelt

Henry Parke: Before you branched out into writing and directing, you'd star in other Westerns, like the Spikes Gang, the Streets of Laredo miniseries. You played Teddy Roosevelt on Grizzly Adams.

Charles Martin Smith: Oh, God, yes.

Henry Parke: It was a little sublime, a little ridiculous.

Charles Martin Smith: I don't remember much about that at all. But The Spikes Gang was an interesting experience, spending two months with Lee Marvin, a real legend.

Henry Parke: That was also with Ron Howard, right?

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah, Ron was in that too. And Gary Grimes who had been the kid in Culpepper. So we all knew each other. Spikes Gang would've been about six months after Pat Garrett. Because Ron and I were in Spain shooting that when American Graffiti first came out, and the first reviews from American Graffiti. Ron and I actually were rooming together -- we threw our per diems together, and we got an apartment together in Madrid. And I remember him being on the phone with his dad, and his dad reading the Variety review of American Graffiti, saying it's an instant classic. We were so happy. On that film, I finally really got the hang of riding a horse. That was a full-on fun Western experience; that was great. A little bit surprising that we were in Spain.

In The Spikes Gang, someone has the drop on Smith, 

Gary Grimes and Ron Howard

Henry Parke: Of course they made a lot of westerns in Spain.

Charles Martin Smith: And a lot of the supporting parts were cast in that movie with American actors who lived in Spain. These guys would work on those Westerns or the Spaghetti Westerns, you know. There was always work for Americans; you didn't want all the supporting characters to be speaking with Spanish accents. So it was a whole industry of making Westerns in Spain. There were standing sets, which we used. There were a number of Western villages and everything. It was a great look. I remember one time sitting, waiting as a shot was being set up, rolling hills with all these oak trees and everything. And Lee Marvin’s sitting in his chair looking around saying, very dryly, “There must be a Thousand Oaks around here.” <laugh>. (Note: Thousand Oaks is now an overbuilt residential part of the San Fernando Valley. But for decades it was a popular location for shooting Westerns.) What he was getting at is, this looks just like Thousand Oaks, and what the hell are we doing in Spain? Why didn't we do this a Thousand Oaks? We all could have stayed home.

He was a character. He was very protective of the three boys, too. He had been in World War II and had seen some very, very serious action. And it really scarred him. It really affected him for life. He kept talking about, that they were kids. They were all 19-year-old kids who were over there fighting the war. And now he was working with these 19-year-old kids and teaching us how to shoot and how to rob banks and everything. And it was a little hard on him, I think, emotionally.

In The Spikes Gang, while Grimes and Howard look on,

Lee Marvin coaches Smith

Henry Parke: I see.

Charles Martin Smith: But he was a great guy, very protective of us, making sure that we had everything we needed. It was good.

Henry Parke: So you did Westerns in Mexico and Spain. With Streets of Laredo, did you finally get to the United States?

James Garner with Smith in 

Streets of Laredo

Charles Martin Smith: We shot some of that in Texas, but we were right by the Mexican border for a lot of it. There's an area down there, it also shoots a lot of Westerns. My buddy, Rod Hardy directed a bunch of things with Kenny Rogers and stuff down there. Lajitas is the town, there again there's a lot of Western standing sets. We shot a lot of it down there. I don't think we actually shot anything in Mexico on that show. We were in Del Rio, Texas for a while. We moved around. I really enjoyed that. (James) Garner and I got to be good friends. I think Jim and I did three or four movies together, (Note: Smith and Garner co-starred in the 1997 hostage thriller Dead Silence) and I directed him once, which was great (Note: Smith directed Garner as Mark Twain in 2002’s Roughing It, based on Twain’s memoir.) And he was a lovely guy. He was warm and funny and great to work with, and I really enjoyed the Streets of Laredo. I had a great time on that. The other guy that I got to hang out with on that was George Carlin.

Garner as Mark Twain in

Roughing It

Henry Parke: I did not remember he was in that.

George Carlin in

Streets of Laredo

Charles Martin Smith: Everybody forgets he was in there, but he had a good part. We hung around. Boy, there was a great guy to sit and have lunch with, and tell stories, <laugh> and jokes. The other guy that was a joy to work with on that was Sam Shepard. I had a bunch of scenes with Sam, and he was such a good actor, and such a brilliant guy. Very quiet, kind of did his own thing. He had his own little place that he went every day for breakfast, and he got his pancakes. He was very studious in his way, but a great fun actor to work with. And the other guy that I got to be friends with on that too, and ended up directing him not that long ago, was Wes Studi. (Note: Smith directed Wes Studi in 2019’s A Dog’s Way Home.)

Sam Shepard in

Streets of Laredo

Henry Parke: Oh, very cool!

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah. Wes is a very cool guy. I had a really good time on that. Plus, you know, Larry McMurtry's writing was so good. (Note: In addition to writing the novel Streets of Laredo, Larry McMurtry also co-wrote the teleplay.) I had these wonderful long speeches, these monologues that McMurtry wrote that, for an actor, it's just so fun to do such good writing. There's one long section where I'm just saying, I'm so cold. I’m so sick of being cold. I'd rather just be shot. I can't stand it here anymore. This long, wonderful monologue. I did the scene with Sam. Good experience. Joe Sergeant directed that, and I thought, did a really good job. It was a really good show.

Henry Parke: Tell me about making Never Cry Wolf.

Charles Martin Smith: It’s certainly a huge highlight of my career. That was an amazing experience. It changed my life, as people say. It really did. I went up to Canada for the first time. We were up in the Yukon, and we filmed on and off for a year and a half, which is unheard of. We spent a lot of time, up in the Arctic with the Inuit. And living up there for that long and working on that thing was really eye-opening. It was an amazing experience. And I think it's a brilliant movie. I think Carroll Ballard is one of the great unsung heroes, between Never Cry Wolf and Black Stallion alone. He's one of the greats. Well, again, he suffered a little bit from the same thing that Sam Peckinpah did. He didn't get along with the executives in the film business. He was an artist and a bit of a maverick.

Henry Parke: As a writer and director, while you haven’t made a Western per se, you've certainly specialized in stories with themes that Western fans relate to: ‘man against the elements’ stories, man's relationship with wild animals. Do you feel a special interest in those kinds of tales?

Smith in Never Cry Wolf

Charles Martin Smith: I like them. I certainly like them, and probably the influence there is largely Never Cry Wolf. But I did The Snow Walker, which was another man against the elements film, also written by the great Farley Mowat, the Canadian writer that wrote Never Cry Wolf. And that was one of the main themes in all of Farley's writings, man against the elements and our place in the world which, I think you're right, is a big part of the Western. And it's something that I've always really been interested in as well. I didn't want to make horror movies or slasher films. That's not my sensibility, you know? And somehow, once you do an animal movie or two, boy, that's all you ever hear about. And I'm happy about it. That's okay. I enjoyed doing all those things. I particularly loved writing and directing the Dolphin Tail movies. But they do kind of pigeonhole you in the film business.

From The Snow Walker, directed by Smith

Henry Parke: It's true. A lot of what you have done has been, I won't say it's kid films, but things that are of interest children, that are appropriate for children.

Charles Martin Smith: I've enjoyed doing that. I think of all the films that I've done, there's been a lot of children characters (played by) non-actors. I somehow got drawn to a lot, working with kids, or teenagers and inexperienced actors. Like in Buffy (The Vampire Slayer), where there were a couple of people on there who had never really done anything. And working with native people as I’ve been in Snow Walker, and working with kids as I so often did in Air Bud and Dolphin Tail and all those things. And the idea of working with animals has always interested me too. They're very pure, you know? Animals will never give you a fake, a bad reading or a <laugh> a fake delivery. It's interesting to look at them and their faces, and their thoughts, and try to understand the world from that perspective. Whether it's a wolf or a dog, or a cat or a dolphin. Something about having them as characters in a film has always appealed to me.

Henry Parke: Which is very interesting, because of course, you're always told, don't work with animals or children

Charles Martin Smith: <laugh>. I know. And I've built a career doing both.

Henry Parke: Do you have pets?

Charles Martin Smith: No. Never really have had pets. It's funny, I've done these various dog movies; I never had dogs growing up. We always had cats. I always liked cats better than dogs. I think I was always more of a cat guy, but no, I don't have cats. I travel a lot, which I like doing, which is hard to do when you've got pets at home.

Henry Parke: That very true.  I wish you’d make a Western for kids, because I want the genre to keep going, and you've got to bring a new generation into it. And there are so few Westerns that are either of interest or appropriate for kids.

Charles Martin Smith: That would be very cool to make. I had a project based on a true story of some teenage kids in Canada, actually the youngest Canadian ever hanged. This would’ve been in the 1800s. They were three kids, they were mixed heritage, they were not really accepted by the indigenous people, or the white community. One of the kids had some serious emotional problems, got involved in some dispute, ended up in jail, and escaping, and trying to cause an uprising of the tribes against the settlers. And it's called The McLean Boys. Their father was Scottish, and their mother was -- I'm not sure which tribe -- but it's kind of a dark, grim story because they end up actually all getting hanged. They were 15, 16-year-old kids. I really wanted to make that movie, and a producer and I were trying to get the financing together, but it never happened. I would've loved to have done that because it is a genre that I love in all of its forms.

Henry Parke: After not having been in front of the camera for about a decade, you're now starring in the film This Time.

Charles Martin Smith: <laugh>. Yeah, I did This Time. That’s (for) a dear old friend of mine, Rob Vaughn; I've known him for 25 years. We worked on a bunch of shows together, and we've just been really good friends. He was trying to develop it for himself to direct, and he asked me to play this alcoholic Vietnam veteran hearse driver. I said sure, why not? We put it together; Rob did a great job directing it. It was a lot of fun. I haven't acted like that in a long time, where I didn't have one part of my brain trying to think about the directing, and playing a leading role. So that was fun. It's a really good film. But you know, I'm largely retiring, I think. I’m not really pursuing work anymore. I've had enough of that. It's tough making films and it's tough getting them going. You spend a lot of time in meetings and then trying to get the films green lit and get it started. I find that kind of wearying, so I moved to Palm Springs where I am now. It’s very nice living here and doing a little bit of writing, but I'm not really doing much except when a friend of mine asks, like Rob Vaughn did. And that's been fun, going around to film festivals with that.

 

HOME VIDEO REVIEW

THE SEARCHERS – 1956 – Warner Brothers

Warner Archive Collection – 4K HD + Blu-Ray -- $32.99, Blu-Ray-- $23.99

SPOILER ALERT – I assume you know the plot of The Searchers. If not, watch it before you read this.

“Hey, what happened to your Johnny Reb coat? You lose it?” Martin Pawley asks.

“Must have. I’m not goin’ back for it,” Ethan Edwards replies, distractedly.

Not quite 40 minutes into The Searchers, John Wayne, as Ethan Edwards, Harry Carey Jr. as Brad Jorgenson, and Jeffrey Hunter as Martin Pawley, ride through the desert, searching for Ethan’s two captive nieces. They’re sisters to Martin, though not by blood, and the older one is Brad’s intended. They stop at a desert pass between two hills; four from the Comanche band they’ve been tracking have split off into the pass. Ethan tells the lads to follow the main body; he’ll track the four. When Ethan returns, the lads are still waiting. He drops from his saddle to the ground on his knees, draws his knife and stabs it into the sand, in a gesture of futile rage. After the above exchange, they ride off after the main pack. The first time you see The Searchers, you don’t ‘get it’ any more than the lads do. But from then on, every time you see that scene, and you know that Ethan found the eldest girl raped and slaughtered, Ethan’s controlled pain hits you almost like a death in your own family.   

In a world – sadly, this one – where made-for-streaming movies routinely restate plot points because so many viewers are distracted by a second screen, this newest edition of The Searchers is a movie to own, and a powerful argument for physical media. You’ll enjoy and appreciate it the first time, but you’ll understand so much more the second viewing, because so much of the story is not said, but implied. Arguably it’s Ford’s most brutal Western, but it’s also his most subtle: nearly all of the violence takes place off-screen.

Another argument for physical media is the selection of special features you won’t get on streaming. They include an introduction by Patrick Wayne, who was a very tall 15 when he was in the film, and documentaries, one including analysis by directors Curtis Hanson, Martin Scorcese and John Milius.  There are also silent outtakes, a premiere newsreel clip, and contemporary TV promos with Hunter and Natalie Wood.

The Searchers is directed by John Ford, written by Frank S. Nugent from a novel by Alan Le May, photographed in Technicolor and Vistavision by Winton C. Hoch. It is edited by Jack Murray, with a score by Max Steiner. The supporting cast includes Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Jack Qualen, Olice Carey, Ken Curtis, Hank Worden, Lana Wood, and Henry Brandon as Scar.

If you’d like to read more about The Searchers, here are links to my INSP interview with Lana Wood , my True West interview with Patrick Wayne  – also found in my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People WhoMade Them , and my INSP article about John Wayne’s favorite role, Ethan Edwards.

 

HOME VIDEO REVIEW

CHEYENNE -- THE COMPLETE SERIES – Warner Archive Collection -- Blu-Ray -- $139.99

7 seasons – 107 episodes

 

In the 1950s, when the other major Hollywood movie studios were shunning television and hoping it would go away, Jack L. Warner of Warner Brothers decided to give it a try. Working with son-in-law William T. Orr, they created Cheyenne, which would be the prototype for many TV Westerns for years to come.  

Cheyenne Bodie was a big, handsome, easygoing, likable drifter with a strict moral code. As an infant, his settler family had been killed in a raid by a Cheyenne war party, but they raised him as one of their own, and in his teens, he decided to try white society. Clint Walker, who played him, had been a bit of a drifter himself, with no life plans, certainly no intention of becoming an actor. He was working as a security guard at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas when Van Johnson offered to introduce him to an agent. Walker was cast first as a Sardinian Captain in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, but before the film even came out, Warner had this actor with no credits and no experience carrying a new series entirely on his own broad shoulders. It’s astonishing how good Walker was: he truly seemed born to play Cheyenne Bodie.

If the Cheyenne shows look a little more polished and movie-like than many of the other Westerns of the era, there were several good reasons why. For one thing, while other series were weekly, Cheyenne rotated with several other shows each month, thus having more time for production. Starting in the 1950s, Gunsmoke averaged 49 episodes a season, Wagon Train did 39, but Cheyenne averaged 13 to 18. Also, Warner Brothers had been making Westerns since 1923, and had a tremendous backlog of action footage that they could build stories around. They remade at least a half-dozen movies as episodes in their first season. For the first episode, Mountain Forest, Walker’s clothes had to match Errol Flynn’s wardrobe in his best Western, Rocky Mountain, because so much footage from the film is seamlessly incorporated. The amount of money saved this way was prodigious. Orr bragged to movie producer Saul David that the shows were so inexpensive that they were in profit after the first rerun.

Color television rang the death knell for Warner Brothers Western television. While Bonanza started in color, and other long-run hits like Gunsmoke and Wagon Train eventually went to color, the Warner Westerns couldn’t. Just like Cheyenne did, Maverick, Bronco, Sugarfoot and the rest relied on that stock footage. There simply wasn’t the backlog of color Western movies to build the TV shows on, so they were all eventually cancelled.

The Cheyenne shows hold up very well, often seeming more like small movies than their contemporaries, and their guest casts are full of stars, some at the end of their careers, and others at the start. The Blu-Ray transfers look terrific.

 HERE’S MY OCTOBER APPEARANCE ON ‘RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER'

With hosts Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Bell, and Scott F. Smith, author of the Corrigan Brothers book series, featuring the newest volume, Play For Blood. HERE is the link.

PLEASE CHECK OUT THE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER TRUE WEST!

It features my article, Citizen James, where I take a look at some of the more unusual film portrayals of Jesse James and his friend and killer, Bob Ford!

 

And please keep your eyes out for my first piece for the Tombstone Epitaph in their November issue! It about the new Western, Last Train To Fortune, starring Malcolm McDowall and James Paxton, son of Bill Paxton. You can imagine how excited I am to be writing for the publication that the Earps and McLaurys read with their breakfast!

And that’s a wrap!

All Original Contents Copyright October 2026 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

Not to be used for A.I. training!

 

BRONCO LAYNE TALKS!

(picture from a Swedish gum-card)


Ty Hardin interview conducted August 11th 2010

From the late 1950s through the mid 1960s, Warner Brothers Studios dominated much of prime-time American television with a string of hip detective shows – 77 SUNSET STRIP, HAWAIIAN EYE, SURFSIDE SIX, BOURBON STREET BEAT – and string of equally hip westerns – MAVERICK, LAWMAN, SUGARFOOT, CHEYENNE and BRONCO.

From 1958 through 1962, big, handsome, muscular Texan Ty Hardin starred as the title character, roaming cowboy Bronco Layne, in BRONCO, and in addition to playing him 68 times in his own series, played him twice on SUGARFOOT and once on MAVERICK. When I called Ty Hardin to arrange an interview, I asked if Wednesday or Thursday was good. “Make it Wednesday. Thursday’s my poker day.” I thought it was the perfect answer from Bronco Layne, and when I began my interview with this charming, easy-going and self-effacing man, an interview punctuated with a lot of laughter on both sides, I reminded him of his answer to my first question.

TY: (laughs) We’ve got to get our priorities right, don’t we?

H: So you have a regular group you play poker with?

TY: Oh yes. We play every Tuesday and Thursday.

H: Are any of them from the Western days?

TY: Well, yes they are: they’re old fans. So they invited me to play, and I enjoyed it, so I made friends with them all, and they’re just good people. I don’t really buddy with the people in the industry any more, even though I meet them all and talk to them when we go to film festivals and things. The actor has a hard time assimilating into society, because he’s put on a pedestal. It gets impregnated into their system, and suddenly their shit don’t stink. I’ve been too basic all my life – just a country boy that got lucky.

H: That’s a good thing.

TY: I think for me it has been, because I was able to just walk away from the industry with no remorse. I felt I’d served my purpose. The industry was changing drastically, the lines, the stories they were making were not anything that I wanted to be a part of. So I adjusted very easily to the private world. I’m eighty years old. Most of my buddies are dead. And I think a lot of it is stress. We put a lot of internal stress on ourselves; one of the stresses comes from disappointment, and emotional problems. So I don’t have any emotional problems – I don’t try to kid myself that my horse didn’t like me.

H: On your IMDB page, the first thing I see is a great picture of you and Ann-Margaret on a beach.

TY: She was a sweetheart – she was just a wonderful person.

H: I was wondering what show that was from.

TY: You know what it was? We were at Paramount together, and they just wanted us to get paired up for publicity purposes. She was doing something else, and I was doing I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE (1958). I was the monster – don’t ask too many questions.

H: You were also Mac Brody.

TY: I was also Mac Brody – I played two roles in that.

H: So your film career began a lot like that of James Arness; he was The Thing in THE THING (1951) before he got GUNSMOKE.

TY: I didn’t know that. You’re full of information, aren’t you? (Looking back on) all those people, it’s kind of sad what we have today, in comparison to what we had. We used real stock back then. We had real people from all walks of life, and they had all different axes to grind, but I don’t think I met a bad guy in the whole group. I’m sure there were a few of them, but every actor I worked with were just delightful people. People like Jack Elam and Claude Akins. They were fine human beings, and they helped me a lot. I was just a young buck, didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, and they just stepped up and said, “Don’t do this, don’t do that,” and so on.

H: Speaking of Jack Elam, he worked with you on BRONCO, and I was just watching you two together in THE LAST REBEL (1971).

TY: Oh, he was such a help to me, he really was. I’ll never forget one time we were doing a close-up (on him), and I could never get one up on him. You know, you’re sitting by the side of the camera, and throw your lines out. Well, I walked way over to the right-hand side, he said, “What the Hell are you doing over there?” I said, “I’m working to the other eye.” He said, “I can’t see outa that eye – get over near the camera!”

H: I understand that you were born in New York City.

TY: I’m not sure exactly where I was born; I wasn’t too cognizant. My mother married a Yankee. He worked for the government for a period of time; I’m not exactly sure what he did. But I spent the first few years of my life in New York, and I remember a little bit about it, that there too many people in a small place. When my brother came along a year or so behind me, (my mother) just had a tough time. It was during the Depression, and it was so much easier for her to just (take us) home to Texas, where our family lived on a farm. We had everything; we raised our own food. And the whole thing (the marriage) fell apart. So much for my Yankee days. Well, I grew up on my grandparents’ farm. My mother had to work. She worked in Huston, and we lived in Austin, and my grandparents virtually raised Dewey and I when we were real young. My mother lived in a little-bitty apartment, we’d go up and visit her on the weekends when she had off, but things were tough during that period, and she was lucky to find a job and have a job and keep a job. My grandparents were not well off, but everything they owned, they owned. They didn’t owe anything. They owned their land, they had twelve or so acres right there on Lake Austin. I worked out in the cornfield, and we grew 90% of our food. It made things pretty easy. That was a very formative period of my life.

H: Did you go to the movies much?

TY: You know, it was kind of a big deal to go to a movie when I was a kid, particularly on Saturday. Johnny Mack Brown and Bob Steele were our big heroes growing up. Then along came Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy. I think everybody in those days kind of identified with westerns. I know I did. That’s our heritage, that’s who we were as people, and the other stuff was kind of boring. But I enjoyed watching horses, and seeing the Indians get shot and killed. (laughs) I grew up with a western background.

H: You graduated from high school in 1949. You attended Blinn Junior College on a football scholarship, and did semester at Dallas Bible School before joining the Army. Tell me, what was your military experience?

TY: Well, I went through O.C.S. (Officer Candidate School), became an officer, and I got stationed in Europe. I was in the Signal Corps, and I had top secret clearance – I don’t know what it was for; I didn’t know any secrets. And I was going to be a career officer. Then my C.O. (commanding officer) called me in. He said, ‘Ty, I notice you’ve got quite a bit of college credits. We’ve got a directive, we can send you back, and support you in finishing college. He told me I should get out of the Army – it was a temporary release – and finish my college. So I did. I was playing football for the Army at the time, for Ramstad in Germany. I had that qualification, so I got that football scholarship at the University of Houston, and played football. I was ineligible the first year, so all I did was run what they called suicide squad, which is everybody’s plays but ours. We’d scrimmage the main team twice a week. Got our butts kicked around, doing a good job for Clyde Lee, who was our coach.

H: And you were studying what kind of engineering?

TY: I started with physical education, and that’s boring. I had to challenge myself; it’s just part of my nature. So I (switched to) engineering, and I got work right out of college (as an) acoustical research engineer. I had two courses (to finish), English, and I forget what the other course was. I’d finished all of my engineering courses, and passed with flying colors. Douglas Aircraft came down, they were hiring people right out of college, so I got hired; I left school a week before my finals, and went to work. (laughs) There’s some dumb things I’ve done.

H: I understand that your big break had to do with a Halloween party.

TY: That was funny. (Douglas Aircraft) had a Halloween party, and I decided I’d come as a cowboy, because I’m sitting in California, and nobody knows anything about cowboys. So I went to Western Costume to borrow a costume -- Western Costume was right in front of Paramount Studios -- and a little talent scout came up to me and said, ‘Have you ever considered being an actor?’ (Laughs) ‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘I’ve just got out of college.’ And so he had me walk over to Paramount and talk to Bill Michaeljohn, who was the head of the talent department. And out of a clear blue sky they asked me to sit down and wait a second, went into another office to talk, came back and offered me a seven year contract.

H: Wow!

TY: On a piece of paper they printed out my salary. And for the first six months I was making something like $500 a week. And next it went up a couple of hundred – that was the first year. I was making about $150 as an engineer after five years of college.

H: So you weren’t looking to be an actor when this happened.

TY: Oh no, I had no more interest in being an actor than I do now.

H: How did you like being under contract to Paramount?

TY: I enjoyed it. You know what was good about Paramount, for my schooling and education, was they had a very good program for their young actors, and I filled in in every film they made. I made four or five films at Paramount, I didn’t even get billing, but I was playing bit parts. I was the monster in I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE, made TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE. I made three or four movies there. It was very good experience.

H: You also did your first western at Paramount, LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL. I was just watching it –

TY: We’re you? (laughs) Did you miss me?

H: Were you one of the three cowboys on the porch that picks the fight with Kirk Douglas?

TY: That was it! Got my butt kicked all over the place! Kirk Douglas knocks me down and everything – that little shrimp!

H: It’s funny, I was just talking to Earl Holliman, who’s also in the picture, and he was saying that he liked Kirk Douglas, but Kirk would do his fight scenes and never pull his punches. So he got kind of smacked around working with him.

TY: You know what it was? He would just get so enthusiastic about it. You could tell he was being carried away, and he had a little grudge on his shoulder anyway, being a little short guy.

H: You had a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. How did you end up at Warner Brothers?

TY: I was over there, looking for a part in RIO BRAVO, and I run into John Wayne. And the Duke simply got on the phone, called over to the casting department and said, ‘We’ve got a kid over here that you need to look at.’ But Ricky Nelson had already got the part on the picture, so there was no need of me. But I went over to see Bill Orr, who was VP of Warner Brothers. And I was traded for Tab Hunter. They wanted me, Paramount said to Warners, ‘You can have Ty if you give us Tab Hunter.’ I don’t tell many people that.

H: Personally I think Warner Brothers came out ahead on the deal.

TY: Well at that time they did because they were having trouble with the CHEYENNE show and (its star) Clint Walker. He’d worked two or three years on that show, and now he wanted to make some pictures. And I don’t blame him. (Note: Ty Hardin was hired to play Bronco Layne on BRONCO, as a successor to Clint Walker’s CHEYENNE, should Walker actually ‘walk,’ but no one but Clint Walker ever played the character Cheyenne Bodie.) He’ll always be CHEYENNE, and it’s very difficult to go in and try and replace him: it’s just not gonna happen. He’d developed a tremendous following, and still he has it today. We go to these film festivals, and he’s got crowds going out the back door. Amazing. Of course he did it for seven or eight years and he’s just a very personable fellah. And when they think of Cheyenne, they think of him – they don’t think of Bronco Layne, of Ty Hardin, the replacement. You should see some of the letters I used to get! ‘Where’d they find that guy?’ ‘What makes you think you can replace Cheyenne Bodie?’ (laughs) Kind of humbling. Clint and I, we’re good friends. He’d come by and I’d say, ‘Would you answer these for me?’ But that was a good career, I had a good start. I ran that show for four years.

H: So is that where your name was changed to Ty Hardin?

TY: Right. I was Orison Whipple Hungerford until then. I had already been called Ty, which was short for typhoon. It was something I just sort of inherited as a little kid. My grandparents gave it to me – they had to put everything out of sight because I’d come running through the house and everything would be in a scramble. So my grandparents named me Ty when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. But Hardin was (Bill Orr’s) idea; they named me after John Wesley Hardin. So they said, ‘We’ll make it Ty Hardin,’ and I’ve been Ty Hardin ever since.

H: It suits you. At the time that you moved over to Warners to play Bronco Layne, they were doing a whole bunch of westerns – MAVERICK and SUGARFOOT in addition to CHEYENNE.

(Wayde Preston, Ty Hardin, Jack Kelly, John Russell, James Garner, Peter Brown, Will Hutchins)

TY: They had six or seven of them going. They had the LAWMAN series going, too, with Peter Brown. It was so funny, we’d get a good actor/stunt man like Jack Elam, he’d go from one show to the next – he’d do two or three shows in a row, while he was out here. And I’ll never forget, one time we’re sitting there talking, and Jack walked in. And he was all dressed up, all ready to go. And the director came and asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘Isn’t this MAVERICK?’ But he was a neat actor to work with.

H: So, the regular guys like James Garner, Jack Kelly, Will Hutchins – what were they like off-camera?

TY: I think actors have a hard time with each other, you know? There’s so much ego floating around. I never felt the need to impress people. I’ve always drawn enough attention, being a good-looking man, you just almost accept it for granted that you’re going to be acceptable. Now, Will Hutchins was never like that. But Peter Brown was, he was a snob. And I don’t mean that facetiously, you know what I mean? Because he’s a good friend of mine today, and he’s mellowed out a lot (laughs). I came from good stock out of Texas, and we just thought differently, you know? We didn’t judge people by their looks or who they were. People are people. I never got to ‘know’ Clint (Walker) in all the years I’ve known him. I never sat down and talked about anything, and he’s kind of a mystery to me. But you can’t make a person be your friend. And he doesn’t have any; he’s a loner. That’s part of his nature. He’s what he is; Clint’s a nice guy, but he’s not friendly. That’s the difference between him and a Texan.

H: That’s why he’s Cheyenne, and not Bronco.

TY: (laughs) That’s it.

H: Warner’s turned out so many good western series, and theirs looked and felt so different from the other good stuff being done, like GUNSMOKE and WAGON TRAIN. What made the Warner Brothers westerns distinctive? Was it the acting, the production, the writing…?

TY: I think there’s a combination here. Warners had been involved in westerns since day one. Warners had stock footage that no one else had. I mean, if you needed four hundred Indians, they’ve got ‘em on film. That added a quality and a production value to the films that was unsurpassed in the industry. And the writers were very familiar with all the movies we stole the stock footage from. People who were working at Universal Pictures would have it to a degree, but not to the magnitude that Warner Brothers had it.

H: How long would it take to shoot an episode?

TY: Well, that would depend. If we’re shooting a lot of Indians and killing a lot of Indians, well, that footage has already been shot. Most of the time it was four to five days shooting to make a show. And then we’d have another day of dubbing, where we’d do all the crossovers and backgrounds and so forth.
H: Now you were not planning to be an actor. Did you have trouble memorizing your lines?

TY: Oh no, that was the easiest part. I fell into it because I was kind of a ham anyway. After having a college degree, you built up certain abilities. So I had no trouble memorizing twelve pages of dialogue. I could read it over once and that was it. So that was a great advantage of having a mind that had been taught to be programmed.

H: Did you only do one episode at a time, or would they do extra scenes from other shows out of order?

TY: Well, that would depend on availabilities. For instance, a lot of times we’d shoot a show, pretty well all of it. But then they wouldn’t have the back-lot available and I’d have to go out in the middle of another show to shoot action shots from the previous show. That was pretty easy to handle. Say, you’ve got six shows going on at one time. They’d shoot and kill the Indians over on MAVERICK, then send ‘em over to me and I’d shoot and kill ‘em -- he’d use the same Indians on three shows at a time. (Laughs) Jack Warner was probably the most ingenious person, and certainly he was frugal, and consequently he was able to put those shows out for almost nothing.

H: A producer who worked out here at the time told me they used to brag at Warners that their shows were so inexpensive to make that they were in profit after the first airing.

TY: And you can see why, because it utilizes their abilities and their ingenuity as well as production value. And as I say they used tons and tons and tons of stock footage. Look up and suddenly that’s Johnny Mack Brown riding along!

H: Was everything shot on the stages and the back lot? Did you ever go out on location?

TY: Oh yeah, quite often. We may be shooting for two or three shows at the same time on a location.

H: I just saw four episodes in a row, and I was wondering, did you take off your shirt in every single episode?

TY: I don’t know, did I? They were big on cheesecake. I didn’t realize that. That didn’t bother me, but you’re right.

H: It sure didn’t bother the ladies watching.

TY: No, I had a ton of them. That was one fun thing I had, I really enjoyed doing my mail, and I’d get a big ego trip, then I’d have to go down to real life. During that period I was married for a while, but marriages are hard to keep. Poor old Andra Martin (his 2nd wife), she was a real sweetheart of a gal. I just never really got to know her. I was married to Miss Universe at one time. (Helen Schmidt, wife #3 was 1961 Miss Universe) I was making PT 109. I was one of the judges for the Miss Universe contest. And of course I voted for her. She was a sweet gal. Looking back I think what an idiot I was. The industry just is so demanding, and I followed it so relentlessly, and I was so damned dedicated to it that I just got my values screwed up, my priorities all messed up. Marriage has always meant something to me. Unfortunately I’ve been good at doing it, but not at keeping it.

H: On BRONCO, some of the episodes were comic, like where you outsmart crooked cattle dealers. Others are more like mysteries, little film noir westerns, and pretty dark. What kind of shows did you enjoy playing the most?

TY: I think the lighter kind of story-line. You know, I’m not big on killing. I really don’t think brutality sells pictures too much. I think people want to identify, they want to see they’re real people. And when everyone is a madman killer, they just say ‘hurrah’ when you shoot and kill the ‘mutha’. I think one of the reasons those shows were so successful at Warners was because they did have (people like) the Shirley Joneses, real nice people that viewers liked, and you got involved with them and their problems. And we were basically more on problems than on crime.

H: That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

TY: We would deal with people’s problems, their inner problems, how they adjusted to a broken family or something like that. It was more of a human interest story, and less on violence.

H: Speaking of Shirley Jones and people like her, you had beautiful gals in every episode. Who were your favorites.

TY: Well, I had quite a few. I liked Shirley. There were some real good actresses I learned a lot from, that did a lot of good work. Names escape me, but a lot of them really catered to that running around with a gun and a horse -- I got a big kick out of some of them! They were in there just as big and tall as you could imagine.

H: And there were also a lot of interesting guys in the show. Some that had been around a long time, like Don ‘Red’ Barry, Denver Pyle and Gerald Mohr –

TY: Oh man, yes, like Gerald Mohr, and Lee Van Cleef – God knows how many times I worked with him.

H: What was he like?

TY: He’s just a neat guy. He’s got a strong character, you don’t upstage him – you just stay out of his scene. But there were so many of them that just had good, good presence. And I learned so much from them, believe me. And they don’t want me to be a character actor – they want me to stay Bronco Layne. Like Jack Elam one time said to me, ‘You’re never gonna be a heavy, so quit playin’ at it.’

H: You also had some guys who were just starting out, like James Coburn, Troy Donahue, Chad Everett. Did they make any impression at that point?

TY: Well, you know what they were doing, they were using shows like mine to kind of break those guys in. Warner had quite a montage of people under contract, and of course a lot of them didn’t have much experience either. He was big on finding new talent. And the best way to break them in was to send them down to our shows, where we’d look after them. (laughs) In other words, if they couldn’t handle a line, we’d cut ‘em out. But it was good experience for them. It was not that I was that good an actor. It was that I knew my person, I knew my character, and they’re going to have to play off of my lines, and they’re going to have to go pretty hard to steal the scene from me.

H: Did you have any particular favorite episodes?

TY: You know, after doing sixty of those boogers, it’s hard to say. Not any particular favorites.

H: After 68 episodes of BRONCO, did you feel the show had reached the point where it jumped the shark, ran out of ideas?

TY: You know what my personal opinion is? I think they had gotten expensive, and they’re always looking to cut money.

Next week, TY HARDIN – THE POST-‘BRONCO’ YEARS. But to keep you in the mood while you wait, here's the BRONCO theme:




DISCOVERY ANNOUNCES ‘GUNSMOKE’ DOCUMENTARY SERIES

Starting in October, the Discovery Channel will present ‘Gunsmoke’, a reality series about one of the oldest gun shops west of the Mississippi, “…where a third generation family of dynamic gunsmiths crafts blocks of steel into beautiful but deadly works of art.” The lead is former police officer Rich Wyatt, a married man with kids. I’m more than a little put off by choosing a series title in an attempt to trick people into watching it by accident, but what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. Oops.

GUNSLINGER JOEY DILLON MAKES THE FRONT PAGE!

Today’s, Monday August 8th’s, Los Angeles Daily News, features a front-page story on the amazing pistol-tosser who’s been covered in the Round-up for his performances at the Republic 75th Anniversary Celebration, the Cowboy Festival at Melody Ranch, and most recently at the Day of the Cowboy celebration at the Autry (GO HERE: http://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2011/07/shadow-hills-pilot-rolls-at-melody.html)

Read the Daily News article HERE.



http://www.dailynews.com/ci_18635677

JOHN FORD TO BE HONORED WITH STAMP NEXT YEAR!

On Friday, the U. S. Postal Service announced that next year director John Ford will be honored with a ‘forever’ stamp featuring an image of himself composited against the closing moments of THE SEARCHERS. Three other directors will likewise be recognized, but their names have not yet been announced. Whom do you suggest?

GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL SATURDAY AT THE AUTRY

Continuing their once-a-month “What is a Western?” series, on Saturday, August 13th, at 1:30 p.m., the Autry will screen John Sturges’ version of one of the most-filmed stories of western history, GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, in 35 mm. Sturges, though currently neglected, was a master of intelligent, exuberant action films like THE GREAT ESCAPE and MAGNIFICENT 7, and overdue for reappraisal. Here he’s ably assisted by a Leon Uris script from a George Scullin article, with costumes by Edith Head, a score by Dimitri Tiomkin, and the stick-in-your-head theme sung by Frankie Laine. Burt Lancaster is Wyatt Earp, Kirk Douglas is Doc Holliday, and the rest of the cast is filled to the brim with great westerns actors: Rhonda Fleming, Earl Holliman, Dennis Hopper, Lee Van Cleef, John Ireland, Jack Elam… It’s required viewing, and Associate Curator Jeffrey Richardson will lead a discussion on both the film and the actual history. And coming soon, for comparison purposes, is TOMBSTONE!








THURSDAY IS BEN JOHNSON DAY ON TCM

It’s become a tradition at TCM to devote each day in August to the work of a single actor, and Thursday, August 11th, the honor falls to the great Ben Johnson, Oscar winner for THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. And what a line-up! It starts at 3:00 a.m. Pacific Time with 3 GODFATHERS, and is followed by FORT DEFIANCE at 5, WILD STALLION at 6:30, WAR DRUMS at 8, CHEYENNE AUTUMN at 9:30, MAJOR DUNDEE at 12:30 p.m., JUNIOR BONNER at 3, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG at 5, WAGON MASTER at 6:45, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON at 8:15, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW at 10:15, and ends with THE WILD BUNCH at 12:30 a.m.

Also of interest on TCM this week, on Wednesday, Shirley MacLaine Day, at 5:00 a.m., see THE SHEEPMAN. On Saturday, James Stewart Day, there’s a double-bill of THE NAKED SPUR at 3:15 pm and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE at five. And on Ralph Bellamy Sunday at 1:45 p.m. it’s THE PROFESSIONALS.

TCM FANATIC - WESTERN NOW ONLINE!

And speaking of TCM, have I mentioned that the segment I was interviewed for is now viewable here?




THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepeneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permenant galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.

HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first Hollywood western, The Squaw Man. They have a permanent display of movie props, documents and other items related to early, especially silent, film production. They also have occasional special programs. 2100 Highland Ave., L.A. CA 323-874-2276. Thursday – Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $3 for senior, $1 for children.

WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166. 333 S. Grand Street, L.A. CA.


FREE WESTERNS ON YOUR COMPUTER AT HULU

A staggering number of western TV episodes and movies are available, entirely free, for viewing on your computer at HULU. You do have to sit through the commercials, but that seems like a small price to pay. The series available -- often several entire seasons to choose from -- include THE RIFLEMAN, THE CISCO KID, THE LONE RANGER, BAT MASTERSON, THE BIG VALLEY, ALIAS SMITH AND JONES, and one I missed from 2003 called PEACEMAKERS starring Tom Berenger. Because they are linked up with the TV LAND website, you can also see BONANZA and GUNSMOKE episodes, but only the ones that are running on the network that week.

The features include a dozen Zane Grey adaptations, and many or most of the others are public domain features. To visit HULU on their western page, CLICK HERE.

TV LAND - BONANZA and GUNSMOKE

Every weekday, TV LAND airs a three-hour block of BONANZA episodes from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. They run a GUNSMOKE Monday through Thursday at 10:00 a.m., and on Friday they show two, from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m.. They're not currently running either series on weekends, but that could change at any time.

NEED YOUR BLACK & WHITE TV FIX?

Check out your cable system for WHT, which stands for World Harvest Television. It's a religious network that runs a lot of good western programming. Your times may vary, depending on where you live, but weekdays in Los Angeles they run DANIEL BOONE at 1:00 p.m., and two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.. On Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. it's THE RIFLEMAN again, followed at 2:30 by BAT MASTERSON. And unlike many stations in the re-run business, they run the shows in the original airing order. There's an afternoon movie on weekdays at noon, often a western, and they show western films on the weekend, but the schedule is sporadic.

RFD-TV has begun airing THE ROY ROGERS SHOW on Sundays at 9:00 a.m., with repeats the following Thursday and Saturday.

Also, AMC has started showing two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN on Saturday mornings.

On Saturday mornings at 8:00 a.m. Pacific time, TCM is showing two chapters of ZORRO RIDES AGAIN, Republic’s fine western action serial, starring John Carroll, Duncan Renaldo, and featuring action directed by John English and William Whitney.

That's it for now!

Adios amigos!

Henry

All contents copyright August 2011 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved