‘BLACK CREEK!’ ACTION STAR CYNTHIA ROTHROCK ON MAKING HER FIRST WESTERN! PLUS UPDATE: STARTING AT 8 TONIGHT, THURSDAY, TCM WESTERNS: “TCM SPOTLIGHT: THE DEFINING FRONTIER”

R. Marcus Taylor, Keith Cooke, Cynthia Rothrock,

Richard Norton, Don 'The Dragon' Wilson

‘BLACK CREEK!’ ACTION STAR CYNTHIA ROTHROCK ON MAKING HER FIRST WESTERN!  PLUS WESTERNS TO CATCH AT THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL, AND MORE!

When Cynthia Rothrock first appeared on the action-movie scene in 1985, she was exactly what the industry needed: a striking blonde actress who just happened to be a record-holding martial arts master in several disciplines. The undisputed Queen of Martial Arts films has since starred in 70 more action films, and a few comedies, but she never made a Western until 2024. Black Creek will be released early in the summer of 2025. It is a somewhat whacky, wonderfully entertaining revenge Western, and Cynthia has loaded the cast with faces that may not be that familiar to most Western moviegoers, but will be a thrill to action movie fans, as it includes many of the best on-screen fighters in the business, including R. Marcus Taylor, Keith Crooke, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, and Cynthia’s most frequent costar, Richard Norton. Before our interview, which was punctuated with her disarmingly girlish laughter, she’d sent me a link to the then nearly-finished film, and when I emailed back that I’d enjoyed it very much, she replied, “Glad you liked my film. A lot of love and hard work went into it.” I told her that was obvious.

Cynthia Rothrock: Oh, thank you. We did this movie in 14 days, if you could believe it, and I was just so excited because everybody just gave their all, and it was such a hard shoot. We had freezing nights because I wanted the look to be eerie, you know: candlelight and lanterns. We had to light up everything, so everything took longer, but it was worth it. But it was so cold -- like 4:00 A.M. doing a fight scene, your muscles would freeze up. I had all these guys standing around the corral, and they were like, “We're doing this for Cynthia.” They were such troopers. It was such an amazing thing. I created this Facebook page for Black Creek, and we have so many people from different countries that came over, and were working on this film. They became this really tight-knit close family, where they hadn't met before. It's just beautiful to see how everybody is so involved in this project. It's so cool.

Henry Parke: You have a very impressive list of movie credits, but I believe 2024’s Taken from Rio Bravo, starring Alexander Nevsky, directed by Joe Cornet, is your first Western. 

Cynthia Rothrock: Right. That was just a cameo I did as a favor 'cause Alexander as a friend of mine.

Henry Parke: You do a very nice job in it. I was wondering if you sort of looked at it as a dry run for Black Creek?

Cynthia Rothrock: Well, I learned what I didn't want to do, because of it. I liked their Western town, I liked the setting, but we went with Mescal Movie Set instead, because it had a better feel. It was actually more difficult, because Mescal didn't have electricity, so we had to bring in generators, which was another big expense. Some of the people that worked on Taken from Rio Bravo, because they were from Arizona, worked on mine too. So it was a really good connection for my film. What really gave me this idea is, I love Westerns, and if you Google “woman gunslinger,” you get Annie Oakley or Selma Hayek. And I go, gosh, I wanna be known as a gunslinger that can really fight, you know? My inspiration came from Yellowstone because I just loved Yellowstone. I liked the gritty darkness of it. So when we decided to do my own film, because I've done 70 films – but this is the first time I've decided to take the helm and do my own film. Robert (Clancy) and I were coming up with stories, and he’s like, “What do you wanna do?” And I said, “A Western.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “A Western?” “Yeah.” And he's like, “Okay…”

Keith Cooke, Cynthia, Brandy Futch

Henry Parke: I was surprised that you designed and made many of the costumes yourself.

Cynthia Rothrock: Costuming was so expensive. We're like, oh my gosh, that's not in our budget. So (Robert Clancy) and I both did the costumes for the whole entire movie. We researched everything: you can't have this on your boot, you can't have an emblem, no rubber soles, you can't have zippers -- every little detail. We started two years ago with the Kickstarter program. It's funny because, when I did the Kickstarter, all my male peers -- you know, I grew up in this male dominant world?

Henry Parke: Clearly.

Cynthia Rothrock: Being, in the early days, the only female competing against men, I just kind of looked at them as my peers. And a lot of them were saying, don't do a Kickstarter. You're not going to make it. It's going to be embarrassing. There's one actor that has done some big movies, and he failed at (crowd-funding), and they're like, if he failed, why do you think you could do it? And I went, I'm going for it. And we became like the second highest funded action picture in the history of Kickstarter.

Henry Parke: That's great.

Cynthia Rothrock: You know, this was a fan-based production: if it wasn't for the fans supporting us, we wouldn't have been able to do this movie. One of our top incentives for Kickstarter was they could be in a fight scene, or they could have a line in the movie. And we had a lot of people do that. We had people from Greece, England, Australia, a lot of different countries coming just to do this. They did a phenomenal job. We had some working with acting coaches, we would do readings every month and go through the script with everybody. And even if they only had one line, we'd still involve 'em. That's a really good memory for me.

Henry Parke: How many people took part in the Kickstarter program?

Cynthia Rothrock: We had over 500 people. People were saying it was a fluke, right? You'll never do it again. Well, we have the graphic novel for Black Creek coming out as well. We did an Indiegogo campaign for that, and we came in 220% above what we asked for. I just can't wait for everybody to see this because I'm just so proud of it. I'm so proud of everybody – with 14 days and the limited budget -- what we pulled off.

Henry Parke: May I ask what your budget was?

Cynthia Rothrock: It was about $425,000.

Henry Parke: Oh my goodness! I work on a lot of low budget films, so I’m very aware that that is a small amount of money to have something that looks so elegant, and your art direction, your production design, is so impressive.

Cynthia Rothrock: We were drawing how we wanted it to look, and the stunts; we were so, so much involved in this. But I've had a lot of people do favors for me. Our music team is sensational. Doing our main song, and then the ending song, is Jim Peterik, who won a Grammy, and was nominated for an Oscar, for Eye of the Tiger that he co-wrote for Rocky III.

And Benjy Gaither, and he currently has a number-one hit song he wrote for George Strait, Three Drinks Behind. And Mark Shearer -- I've never met him, but he’s been a fan of mine. And these three people teamed up and did all our music. And what we would have to pay for that is crazy! We've just been so blessed! And I'm hoping that someone will say, wow, look what she did for two weeks of shooting and this money! If we give her a million or a million and a half and 20 days of shooting, what can you pull off?

Henry Parke: Is this your first screenwriting credit?

Cynthia Rothrock: Yes, it is. First time as a co-writer; first time as a producer. And it was a whole different experience for me, because usually I'm sitting in my trailer and just studying my lines, but now I have no time to sit in my trailer. I knew the script inside out because I was one of the writers, so thank God for that. But I had to be on set all the time to make sure everybody was happy doing their parts, dealing with any issues. It was an eye-opening experience for me, being there way early every morning and then being the last person to leave.

Cynthia gets the drop on Keith Cooke

Henry Parke: You said that you were a big Western fan and that Yellowstone inspired you. Do you have any other favorites that inspired you?

Cynthia Rothrock: Tombstone, Outlaw Josey Wales. I remember when Sharon Stone did The Quick and the Dead, I was like, wow, that's really cool that she was doing that role. I liked a lot of the old Westerns that you would see on TV. When I was a kid I’d read about Annie Oakley, that she was this tough woman back in that era, tough with the guys. And it's funny because I grew up in that same kind of situation, you know?

Henry Parke: Tell me a bit about your character, Rose Jennings.

Cynthia Rothrock: She's a little rough; she likes to drink, she's got a little bit of a potty mouth, and isn't afraid of anybody. She’s very close with her family, but it's hard for her to settle down in one place. She takes off for a while, and when she comes back, she finds out that her family was killed. And then all hell is loose. She's getting these people (who killed them), and saving the rest of her family.

Henry Parke: I was kind of overwhelmed by the physical demands this movie places on you. Wearing so many hats, did you have to do a lot of training while making the movie?

Cynthia Rothrock: No, because I was on-set every day, and if it wasn't me rehearsing my scene, I'm with the other actors because none of these actors got to practice. My stunt coordinator knows how I like to move. And everybody is different; they all had their own fight styles, and he was familiar with them. So we put together a composite so they can watch it and study it and say, Hey, is there anything in here you don't like? And then of course, when you get to the set, we would just be rehearsing while cameras were setting up. And if there was something that wasn't good for someone, we would change it on the spot. It was almost like the old Hong Kong fighting: learn it, shoot it. That's how I got my start. I did seven movies in Hong Kong before I came to the United States and then started doing films. My first movie was in 1985, with Michelle Yeoh, we did Yes, Madam.

Cynthia and 2023 Best Actress Oscar-winner

 Michelle Yeoh in Yes, Madam!

Henry Parke: I just watched it on Prime, under the title In the Line of Duty II: The Super Cops. It was hysterical.

Cynthia Rothrock: That was my first, and I thought I'd just do one movie, you know? I'm kind of an out of the box person. I never really want to do something that's the same, the same, the same. I always want to try to put some unique flare into it. There was something so unique going to Hong Kong. I didn't think it was going to turn into a career. I thought, oh, I'll just go there and I'll do one movie. And it's funny, in my mind, I was thinking, well, maybe I'll be on the poster and I could show my kids someday, saying, “Hey, look, your mom was in a movie.” It really wasn't my intention that I was going to become an action film star.

Henry Parke: Was Black Creek your first time riding a horse in a film?

Cynthia Rothrock:  It was my first time riding a horse on my own. I've gone on trails where you follow the leader. I didn't want to look like I didn't know what I was doing, so the horse wrangler told me, don't put your two hands here, do this here. And actually I got really comfortable with the horse. There's one scene where there were two horses on the side, and me, and they shot some rounds off down below, and it freaked the horses out -- the two horses on the side started bucking. And I just turned my horse around nice and calm and went down the hill. It was funny because someone said to Robert, “Wow, how long has she been riding?” And Robert said, “About two hours.”

Henry Parke: With so many of the smaller westerns, they have no time with the horses, and they have inexperienced riders, and everyone's shouting, “We have to put together a posse and get after those guys!” And they jump on their horses, and walk slowly out of town.

Keith Cooke, Don Wilson, Brandy Futch

Cynthia Rothrock: I know! I did have an incident on-set with the horse wrangler. The horse was so big, and I'm five foot three, and no matter what, I could not get my foot into the stirrup and get it up over the horse. And so he lifts me up, and I'm like five, five and a half feet off the ground. And he dropped me, and I fell on my right, on my back and on my head. We were off to the side, so nobody saw it. And my hat saved my head, because my hat was kind of like a little helmet, and my belt saved my hip, so I didn't get hurt, but it took the air out of me. And the wrangler goes, “You're a karate girl. You should be used to this kind of stuff.” I said, “When I get on the horse, can I get an apple box to stand on?” He says, “Oh yeah.” And I'm like “Why didn't you think of that in first place?”

Henry Parke: This is the first feature directing credit for Shannon Lanier.  Where'd you find him?

Cynthia Rothrock: We had two directors. Shannon was directing the acting scenes. I met him, we talked, and he seemed to have my vision, and he worked in low budget film. I said, “Look, I’m bringing this guy in from Germany for the fights; when it comes fighting, I want him at the helm. I want him with the camera, to direct that,” and he said, “Okay.” So all our acting scenes, Shannon directed, and all the fight scenes, Mike Moeller directed.

Henry Parke: Mike Moeller has quite a resume, doing stunts on the Hunger Games, Matrix, and John Wick films among others. Very impressive.

Cynthia Rothrock: He's so awesome. It's funny, because we brought his stunt team over, and I wanted him to fight me. And he's like, “No, I don't want to fight. I just want to do the choreography.” And I went, “Okay.” And when he saw the trailer, he’s like, “Oh, I should've been in it! I'm fighting in Part Two!”

Henry Parke: I guess you have to be very physically capable to be on a Cynthia Rothrock set. I notice even your cinematographer, Aaron Johnson Araza, is a former stunt man.

Cynthia Rothrock: Yeah. Well, they're moving pretty fast, getting down low with the camera -- it’s good because he understood the action, and that helped us. Aaron would be directing some of the scenes, and we’d go, wow, that's a great shot! It was a collaboration, with everybody pulling this film together.

Henry Parke: What was the most challenging part of making Black Creek?

Cynthia Rothrock: We had 150 people on-set on our first day. So we did the hardest days right in the beginning. I think the most challenging part during the whole movie was, are we going to get all these scenes in? Some of the fight scenes, I wanted more to them, and we had to cut them down because of time. I'm definitely planning that on Black Creek 2, every fight scene has one whole day to shoot. And I must thank James Marlowe. He has the Marlowe-Pugnetti Company; he’s a fan of mine, and he came on as an executive producer. We've become really good friends, and he is definitely my guardian angel, helping us with post production, with editor Ben Ho, getting the right sound person, and just being a mentor through it; he is definitely a big part of bringing this movie to fruition. We put him in as a partner, and when we do Black Creek 2, we'll involve him. (Note: since the interview, it’s been decided that James Marlowe will direct Black Creek 2: Retribution, which is already written.)

This interview is really exciting for me because you're not in the karate world, you're in the Western world. And that's what we want to do as crossover, not only having Martial Art fans, but get Western fans loving this movie as well. And it's unique because you don't really see Westerns where everybody does Martial Arts

Henry Parke: You certainly don't.

Cynthia Rothrock: (Kickboxing legend) Don “The Dragon” Wilson said to me, “But Cynthia, how could everybody know martial arts? There weren't martial arts schools.” I said, “Don, because the Chinese were there. They came in for the gold rush; they all knew it. They taught it.” He goes, “Oh. Okay.”

Just as I was finishing my editing of this interview, I learned that Cynthia Rothrock’s close friend and Black Creek foe Richard Norton had just died. It would be their last of more than a dozen films together. I asked her if she would like me to include a remembrance of him.

“I am beyond words and deeply shocked by the sudden passing of my dear friend and fellow martial artist, Richard Norton. The martial arts world has lost a true legend. We shared an incredible journey—starring together in numerous action films, from China O’Brien, Millionaires Express, Rage and Honor to Lady Dragon. I was thrilled to have him join the cast of Black Creek as the formidable antagonist, Damien Sinclair. His performance was nothing short of extraordinary. Our final fight scene together will forever hold a special place in my heart—a moment I’ll always cherish as the last dance of the “Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers” of Martial Arts action. Richard’s talent, kindness, and dedication to Martial Arts will continue to inspire generations to come.”

WESTERN HIGHLIGHTS AT THE TCM HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL

Me and Shirley Jones -- and a few others -- at the

2014 TCM Fest screening of Oklahoma!

From Thursday, April 24^th through Sunday, April 27^th, The Turner Classic Movies Channel will hold their wonderful annual Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. Screenings and other events will be held at the Chinese IMAX Theatre, The Chinese Multiplex, The Egyptian Theatre, The El Capitan Theatre, and around the pool of The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. While the big packages for attendees can run in the thousands of dollars, individual screenings are only $20 each, although there’s no guarantee you’ll get in. This link will take you to the official Festival website, with complete details: https://filmfestival.tcm.com/

Among screenings of particular interest to Western fans, on Friday they’re showing 1940’s The Mark of Zorro, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, and Hollywood’s greatest actor/swordsman (just ask him), Basil Rathbone. 

On Saturday they will premiere a restoration of 1958’s Gunman’s Walk, directed by Phil Karlson, and starring Van Heflin and Tab Hunter, and introduced by Keith Carradine. 

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Also on Saturday, on the big Chinese Theatre IMAX screen, they’ll be showing a 35mm VistaVision print of 1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, directed by John Sturges, starring Burt Lancaster as Wyatt, Kirk Douglas as Doc, John Ireland as Johnny Ringo, Earl Holliman as Charles Bassett, and Dennis Hopper as Billy Clanton.  

And on Sunday morning, 1955’s Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, will also be presented on The Chinese Theatre IMAX screen. Directed by Fred “High Noon” Zinnemann, this, the greatest of Western musicals stars Gordon Macrae as Curly, Shirley Jones as Laurey, Gloria Grahame as Ado Annie – who can’t say “no,” and perhaps the only singing film performance by Rod Steiger as Jud Fry! And the film will be discussed by Shirley Jones’ son, Shaun Cassidy.

UPDATED 5-8-2025: TCM FOCUSES ON WESTERNS IN MAY WITH “TCM SPOTLIGHT: THE DEFINING FRONTIER”

Every Tuesday and Thursday night in May, Turner Classic Movies will feature Westerns, 46 in all, in generally chronological order, focusing on various aspects of the genre. I’ve included links to a few of my related articles, for more detailed information about the films.

Thursday, May 1^st – The Foundation, focused on silent films, from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to The Iron Horse (1922).

Tuesday, May 6^th -- The Quintessential Cowboy: John Wayne and the Idea of America, included the film that should have made him a star but didn’t, Raul Walsh’s The Big Trail (1930); and John Ford’s film that did make him a star, Stagecoach (1939); Howard Hawk’s film that proved even to his harshest critics that Wayne could act, Red River (1948); and the epic that was so epic-ish that it took not just Ford, but Henry Hathaway and George Marshall and Richard Thorpe to direct, How the West Was Won (1962).  

And now, the ones we haven’t missed yet!

Thursday, May 8^th -- Rugged Individualism, will begin with a look at great paired actor and dire ctor individualists like James Stewart in Anthony Mann’s The Man from Laramie (1955), Randolph Scott in Budd Boetticher’s Ride Lonesome (1959) , and Barbara Stanwyck in Sam Fuller’s Forty Guns.  A weird choice is James Cagney in Lloyd Bacon’s The Oklahoma Kid (1939), which is better than you’d expect, and does feature Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandito. Rounding out the program are a pair of Eastwoods, Hang ‘Em High (1968), the pretend Spaghetti Western from Ted Post, and Clint’s first self-directed Western, High Plains Drifter (1973).

On Tuesday, May 13^th – Social Commentary in Disguise, is dominated by post-war, noirish Westerns. The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) looks at mob rule, individual responsibility, racism, and lynching. Henry Fonda deserves all of the attention he gets for this William Wellman film, but equally affecting are Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn, and Harry Morgan. Jacques Tourneur’s Wichita (1955), was one of the Joel McCrea starrers – here as Wyatt Earp – that were so good that they turned a poverty row studio, Monogram, to a major, Allied Artists. Elmore Leonard’s novel was the basis for Martin Ritt’s Hombre (1967), a pressure-cooker of a movie that looks at anti-Indian and anti-Mexican racism, with Paul Newman as the multiracial center.  Sergeant Rutledge (1960), John Ford’s courtroom drama starring Woody Strode as a black sergeant accused of the rape and murder of a white child, is so uncompromising and blunt that it’s astonishing that it was made, no less released. Rounding out the program is one of Sergio Corbucci’s finest, and most rarely seen Westerns, the snow-bound The Great Silence (1968), starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, and a pre-Blaxploitation Vonetta McGee.

Thursday, May 15^th -- Heroism and Sacrifice are themes that are unforgettably explored in John Sturges’ TheMagnificent 7 (1960), which made stars out of 6 (and Brad Dexter had a very respectable career), made an unlikely Western star of Eli Wallach, and featured future Chinatown cinematographer John Alonzo as one of the townspeople who hires the 7.  It's followed by Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964), which turned Clint Eastwood from TV actor to superstar, and triggered Spaghetti Western mania in the U.S. Fred Zinneman’s High Noon (1952) is next, for which Gary Cooper won an Oscar, as a lawman whose town abandons him at the first sign of danger – heavily influenced by screenwriter Carl Foreman’s experiences during the Red Scare. My Darling Clementine (1946), starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday, is arguably the best movie about the O.K. Corral, although not the most accurate, despite or because of John Ford’s relationship with Wyatt Earp.  The program ends with a 2022 short, High Noon on the Waterfront, about the personal and professional risks taken by the people who made those two films.  

Tuesday, May 20^th, A Changing America: Disillusionment and the Rise of the Antihero is the theme, featuring film stories fomented and fermented during the late 1960s’ and early 1970s’ mélange of disappointment and cynicism. George Roy Hill’s ButchCassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) made charming rascals out of bank-robbers, and Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) made lovable scamps out of mercenaries: both wonderful Westerns, and Butch’s William Goldman screenplay is often cited as the best screenplay ever filmed. Eleven years after his final Leone film, Eastwood directed his remarkable anti-war Western, The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), considered by many to be the zenith of Eastwood’s Western career, as an actor and as a director. Finally, Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christy as a frontier gambler and a whore in a cheerily grim yet sentimental movie that defies meaningful description.

Thursday, May 22^nd, Cultural Breakthroughs features Westerns that opened their stories beyond the usual white males.  Delmer Daves’ BrokenArrow (1950), tells the largely true story of the friendship between ex-soldier Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) and Cochise (Jeff Chandler).

In William Wellman’s Westward the Women (1951), written by Frank Capra (who'd hoped to direct), stern and sour Robert Taylor reluctantly takes an all-female wagon-train from Chicago to California, doubting he’ll get half there alive. It balances Capra’s charm and Wellman’s toughness beautifully. Despite the low-expectations of Blaxploitation films, Sidney Poitier’s Buck and the Preacher (1972) is a thought-provoking and entertaining surprise. Buffalo Soldier-turned-wagon master Buck (Poitier) leads freed slaves west with the reluctant help of Preacher (Harry Belafonte), who murdered his master and took over his scam. Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2006) is the contemporary Western that had traditionalists up in arms, until they learned that Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were portraying shepherds, not cowboys. The final film in the program is the documentary Bearing Witness: Native American Voices in Hollywood (2024).

On Tuesday, May 27^th, American Psyche might nearly be called American Psycho, focusing on the dark side of the West. In John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), the fictionalized search for Comanche captive Cynthia Anne Parker gave John Wayne one of his most compelling, and least likable characters. 

King Vidor’s (and several others’) Duel in the Sun (1946) might have been a good Western if producer David O. Selznick hadn’t been so driven to top his Gone with the Wind, that he forced an epic out of a potboiler plot. Anthony Mann’s Winchester 73 excels with James Stewart as a man obsessed with hunting down the fellow whose coveting of a perfect rifle led to murder.   In Robert Wise’s nearly all-at-night Blood on the Moon (1948), Robert Mitchum is drawn into a cynically manipulated range war.

On Thursday, May 29^th, the series ends with The End of an Era, a look at “end of the West” Westerns. Featured are two very different, but very sentimental films from SamPeckinpah, the gently charming The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and the anthem of doomed manly camaraderie, The Wild Bunch (1969). Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) is the Spaghetti Western epic that has never been topped. And John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) studies the regretted compromises men needed to make for the West grow, through the characters of lawyer James Stewart and cowboy John Wayne.   

ONE MORE THING

Until I have a chance to write at length about the late Val Kilmer’s immense contributions to film in general, and Westerns in particular, here’s a link to his first lead in a Western. In 1989 he played the title character in Billy the Kid, a Ted Turner-produced TV Western that was scripted by Gore Vidal, based on his novel, The Left-Handed Gun, which had first been the source for the 1958 Paul Newman film.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Please check out the March/April issue of True West Magazine, featuring my article/interview, Kris Kristofferson: A Texan at Oxford.

And here’s the link to my newest piece for the INSP blog, What Makes a Great Western Movie, wherein I try to reverse-engineer some classics to figure out what makes them work.

https://www.insp.com/blog/what-makes-a-great-western-movie/

And if you haven’t snapped up a copy of my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and The People Who Made Them, wait no longer!

Here’s the link to the Amazon page, but feel free to order it from your local independent bookseller – we have to keep them in business too!

https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Westerns-Ever-Made/dp/1493074393?_encoding=UTF8&linkCode=sl1&tag=insptv-20&linkId=40670747d047d3241c54003bcabb179f&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Happy Trails, Henry

All Original Content Copyright April 2025 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

JOSEPH PORRO – THE MAN WHO DRESSED ‘TOMBSTONE’ INTERVIEWED! PLUS, I’M INTRODUCING ‘NEWS OF THE WORLD’ AT THE AUTRY!

 

I’LL BE INTRODUCING ‘NEWS OF THE WORLD’, AND SIGNING MY BOOK, AT THE AUTRY ON SATURDAY, JULY 13^TH

Helena Zengel and Tom Hanks

I was delighted to be asked to introduce a film in The Autry’s long-running ‘What is a Western?’ series. I chose News of the World not only because it is an exceptional Western but, because of the pandemic, so few people had the chance to see it as it should be seen: in a theatre, on a screen. The title, which admittedly doesn’t sound particularly Western, refers to the profession of Captain Kidd, played by Tom Hanks in his first Western. He’s a former Confederate Civil War officer, now barely making a living by travelling from town-to-town with a sheaf of newspapers, reading them to the public. He meets a young girl (Helena Zengel), a former captive of the Kiowa, and is given the unwanted responsibility of returning her to her family. It’s a tale that echoes John Ford’s The Searchers, focusing not on the search, but the challenge of a long-time captive’s return to her former world. The Autry bookstore will have copies of my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and the People Who Made Them, which I will be signing after the film. The link to The Autry, with all of the particulars, is HERE.

And if you want to buy my book right now, you can get it  HERE.

JOSEPH PORRO – THE MAN WHO DRESSED ‘TOMBSTONE’

Joseph Porro

Joseph A. Porro’s costume design career is astonishing. Since 1985, beginning with no-budget films like Neon Maniacs, Porro has used his amazing design skills and style in a wide range of genres, from horror films like Fright Night Part 2 (1988) and Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), to crime thrillers like The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015), science fiction like Stargate (1994) and Independence Day (1996). And there’s his international work. “I’ve spent three years in Hong Kong and seven years in mainland China and India. I'm probably one of the most traveled designers, because early in my career I worked with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lungren, who didn't like to pay taxes in the United States.” His designs for the 2003 version of The Music Man, and 2020’s The Mandalorian earned him Emmy nominations.  But his most appreciated designs? “I still get fan mail from Tombstone all the time.”  He also designed costumes for the Western comedy Shanghai Noon, and even the unsold pilot for the space western Martian Law. I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Jospeh about his wide-ranging career, and especially his Westerns.

HENRY PARKE: I've just been rewatching Tombstone, and I love your work in it. It just doesn't look like any other Western; the costumes just seem to breathe authenticity. I understand that you're from Boston. Is it the movies that brought you to California?

JOSEPH PORRO: No, not at all. My mom was living out there with my uncle and my cousins, and I wasn't doing well financially in Boston. So I went out just to see if I could get some work out there. I said to myself, you have a design degree from Parsons in New York. Maybe you should look into costume design. I was making animal costumes like Bugs Bunny for Warner Brothers, actually sewing, in the factory in North Hollywood. And this lady, a designer, drove up in this brand new 450 SL Mercedes, and I was like, wait a minute. I'm on the wrong end of this business. (laughs), I quit the job that day. It was very scary, very lean years, the first years in Hollywood, but I was determined to be a designer.

HENRY PARKE: What was your first costume job? I mean designing, not Bugs Bunny.

JOSEPH PORRO: Near Dark was, probably. I did some stuff that went directly to video, but this was for Catherine Bigelow, who's won an Oscar (for The Hurt Locker). It was a modern-day western vampire kind of thing. Very unique in its day. That was my first decent movie.

HENRY PARKE: One of your earlier direct-to-video films was Neon Maniacs which was written by a high school friend, Mark Carducci.

JOSEPH PORRO: That was my first film as a designer and it was quite a disaster. We didn't get paid. They owed us four- or five-weeks salary and I was living in my car then. That was not my favorite film, but you know, whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

HENRY PARKE: Absolutely true. With Independence Day, Stargate, now The Mandalorian among so many others, you've specialized in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Was that your primary interest in film at that point?

JOSEPH PORRO: I liked movies where you actually designed, where you didn't go to the store to buy the outfit. You actually took a pencil and paper and did your own thing. Which I did on Tombstone, and it wasn't how I originally wanted to approach it. At the time I was hired, Kevin Costner was doing Wyatt Earp, and they were doing Geronimo. So literally every single western (rental) costume was gone. The only place that had any left was American Costume. So I go to Luster Bayless (who owned American Costume). “I've just been hired on Tombstone.” And he sits me in his office and tells me that when hell freezes over is when he will give me a costume for that movie! (laughs) Luster Bayless had interviewed with (writer/director) Kevin Jarre as a designer for Tombstone, and (not been hired).

All the big costume houses were empty, so how the hell am I going to do this movie? I said, I can get Victorian clothes in England. I think you need to put me on a plane because there's nothing here. I said, I'm from a fashion design background, so I ‘get’ manufacture. I was in New York for four years working with the designers, and we made things. So everything was manufactured, and that's why I think it had that look. There's things I would change today. I'm much more persnickety about period men's suits and coats and how they're done. Then I was just happy to get someone to make it. So we built it: we built the whole show. And Kevin (Jarre) wanted it much more Technicolor. He was very into the history. He really knew his shit. He got fired, of course, like a week into it. But he wrote the original script too. I was very sad to see that happen. And then they brought in George Cosmatos. He was a piece of work, that one. (laughs) He'd walk on this new set, he'd turn to the set dresser. He'd go, “You see that painting? You see that chair? When we're done with the scene, I want those sent over to me.” He just cleaned the place out! He said that to me with the sketches, too. He said, “I want all your sketches.” And designers were allowed to keep their sketches back then. Now everything's on a computer, but back then they were all original drawings. And in 40 films, he was the only one ever to say to me, “I want your sketches.” I gave him some, I let him think it was all of them. It was either that or be fired. He was not a nice person, but he liked me. I think he fired about 40 or 50 people. Cleaned house. I don't think he's got a devoted fan club, but he finished the film right, and it did look good.

HENRY PARKE: Did he have the kind of strong feelings that Kevin Jarre did about costumes? Or did he just go with what had been planned?

JOSEPH PORRO: He went with. He said what he'd seen in the dailies totally worked and just stay with it. He wasn't persnickety about what I did. He gave me free rein.

HENRY PARKE: Obviously the costumes for all of your characters were very different. I'm thinking particularly about characters like Curly Bill or Ike Clanton.

JOSEPH PORRO: I built all of it. What I rented from England were background, Victorian costumes for people doing crosses (background extras). I built all the chaps.  We did the hat thing with Stetson. I had a glove manufacturer downtown doing the western gloves. I had guys doing all the hand tooling on different things. Guess who it ended up with? This is the part that's great.

HENRY PARKE: Who?

JOSEPH PORRO: Well, the line producer wanted Luster (Bayless) to be on it. It was some serious kickback kind of thing going on. At the end of the show I was given two days to wrap, and it all went to American Costume. Everything. I swiped one pair of cowboy boots, and Charlton Heston's neck scarf I kept for myself because I paid for it with my own money. American took everything. That would never happen today in a studio film. But back then it was different.

HENRY PARKE: Right.

Design for Dana Delany's lilac dress

JOSEPH PORRO: But there was that interesting mix of characters there. Dana Delany was absolutely wonderful. All the ladies, the wives were all great. And Bill Paxton, that first film I did, Near Dark, Bill Paxton was in that. I loved Bill. God, it's so sad he's not with us anymore; such a great guy. Fun, enthusiastic, and he worked your costume, you know what I mean? He got into it, and it helped him become a character; he really was just a joy to be around. Really fun.

I ended up spending literally the whole year with Kurt Russell because I did Stargate with him right after Tombstone. I got to know Goldie (Hawn) pretty well because I'd see her like 20, 30 times at the house for the fittings. She was absolutely lovely. From the crew perspective, boy, Sam Elliott worked the whole room. He knew everybody's name -- the guy who was doing the coffee in the morning, and his wife's name. All the girls thought he was the most charming thing that ever walked, and I thought he was wonderful too.

Billy Zane was an absolute joy, just fun to be around. And so was Powers Booth, absolutely lovely. Stephen Lang, Jason Priestley, Thomas Hayden Church. Michael Biehn was nice, very polite, but he was kind of reserved. What's the name of the other guy who became a much bigger star? Billy Bob Thornton. Yeah, he's a great guy. And so was Charlton Heston. I was kind of in awe. It was originally going to be Robert Mitchum. He couldn't pass the medical; that's the only reason he wasn't in it. And I think it was one of Heston's last films. It was a real joy to dress the guy. Because I was a kid who saw Ben Hur, and he was such a big, big, big star for so long. Planet of the Apes and all these great films he did. He was lovely. He was with his wife every second of the time. And she was a lovely lady. She was by the camera, and as soon as they stopped, she would be with him and she'd go get him a cup of coffee. The two just were very close. You could tell he was having fun. I think it was like a bunch of overgrown kids, playing. And I saw this again when I did Shanghai Noon too. It was like, these really are a bunch of overgrown kids, they get their toy guns and they get on a horse and they get to ride over the hill and shoot the gun, and they're having a ball. It's that kind of environment when you're on a Western. There was only one real pain in the ass on (Tombstone). And you know who that was.

HENRY PARKE: No, I don't.

JOSEPH PORRO: Val Kilmer. And I think he had a lot to do with Kevin Jarre getting kicked out. He didn't think (Jarre) was up to snuff. He stole my father's watch-fob chain, which he was wearing in the movie. He took everything that he could of his (character’s) stuff. He stole the guns that were genuine pistols of the period; a big gun collector was a gun guy on the show. And he brought in the real deal and Val stole 'em. I don't know if those got back, but I called the producer and I said, he's got my grandfather's watch-chain; it's a family piece. I didn't get it back. He said, I'm going to send you a check for a thousand dollars. He had been dealing with props and everyone with Val. I'll tell you one thing he did do well. He was definitely the one who worked out (twirling) the silver cup. I'm the one that supplied the silver cup. I still have it.

HENRY PARKE: I particularly loved Dana Delany's costumes. Was it fun to design for her?

JOSEPH PORRO: It was. We used the Tucson Opera House to build the clothes for her and the other ladies. And the cutter fitter there, the head person, ended up staying with me. She was on The Mandalorian with me. We stayed together for 30 years. Her name is Maggie McFarland. Lovely, lovely lady. And she's still working in Hollywood. I'm retired, but she's still working.

My favorite day on Tombstone was the day that they all rode over the hill -- that big crowd of cowboys. Because that was a big setup, and very early on in production, the third or fourth day of shooting. I was so desperate: how am I gonna get clothes on these guys? And when I saw them all come over the hill and thought, I still haven't been fired! That was my, “I did it!” day. It was one of the toughest films I've ever worked on in my life. It was 18-hour days and a 40-minute drive to that set. The last two, three weeks of shooting Tombstone, the Stargate people wanted preliminary sketches. <laugh>. So then I was getting three to four hours of sleep, because I'd have to do drawings at night. It was a tough show.

HENRY PARKE: Did the success of Tombstone have a big effect on your career?

JOSEPH PORRO: Well, no. You would think I would get 20 westerns after that, right? It doesn't work that way in Hollywood. So many directors liked it, but they weren't Western directors. It was definitely a feather in my cap. And they would be like, oh, he did Tombstone. So it did not hurt my career at all.  And here I am now looking back; it's probably, movie-wise, the one I'm going to be known for, you know? I've done television things that were costume-wise better than Tombstone. Much better.

HENRY PARKE: What was your favorite part of doing Shanghai Noon?

JOSEPH PORRO: The barroom scene in Shanghai Noon is something that I'm incredibly proud of, because that was hysterical. It took three weeks to shoot, as it was like 40 people in the fight, and everything that they've done in every movie for a hundred years with barrooms they did in that one. And they did it with a great sense of humor.

HENRY PARKE: Was doing a comedy Western a lot different from a serious western?

JOSEPH PORRO: No, there was no difference at all. What the joy for me was to actually see Jackie Chan still in his golden years, working at a level of choreography and magic that I've never seen in my life, on anything else. I mean, I worked with Jean-Claude Van Damme and those guys, a lot of action stars early on in the eighties. And none of them could put a show on like Jackie Chan, like him in a fight. His choreography and his sense of humor -- like, I can't believe that he just did that, you know?  <laugh>  I mean, he jumped over this or tumbled -- it's like, what the hell?

 

A Shanghai Noon design for Jackie Chan

HENRY PARKE: When you did Shanghai Noon, did you actually get to go to China?

JOSEPH PORRO: It's the first time I was in China. It was an absolute nightmare: they forgot to get me a Chinese visa. I didn't know I needed a visa because I was just a guy from L.A. I didn't need a visa when we shot in Canada. So here I am at the airport for 18 hours, and Jackie Chan made one phone call and I was let out! <laugh>. He was that powerful. Since Charlton Heston did 55 Days at Peking (1963) the only American to do the Chinese Imperial Court was me, in Shanghai Noon. And I did the full-on court. I did 500 guards, all different levels, with generals. I did the whole royal family, I did a Chinese opera troop, and I did all the servants and the eunuchs. It was roughly 700 costumes to pull those scenes off. My God. And I had 'em all built in China.

HENRY PARKE: Amazing!

JOSEPH PORRO: That it was! It was fun!  <laugh>. And I made friends from that first trip and then, they called me for something else, and I ended up doing seven Chinese movies. I was the American in China doing Chinese movies. I'm so proud of some of them. No one's ever going to see the Chinese movies in America, some of my best work. But they paid literally double what they were paying me in Hollywood. So I took the work, which was bad because that kept me out of the loop in L.A. It kind of took me out of the picture. You need to be seen and be around. It was bad on that level, but otherwise it was great.

HENRY PARKE: We’ve talked about Jackie Chan, but how was Owen Wilson to work with?

A Shanghai Noon design for Owen Wilson

JOSEPH PORRO: Oh, dreadful, horrible. Me and my crew wanted to just slit our throats every five minutes we spent with (Kilmer and Wilson), they were that obnoxious. Owen Wilson: you're doing an 1870s western and I've done all these sketches, and we have all these materials that are authentic. I've got actual pieces from the period, to show him how the real shit looked. And lots of black and white photos from the period, and sketches. And he comes in and he goes, "Oh, I was just on Rodeo (Drive) yesterday" -- and he actually talked like this -- “I was just on Rodeo and I saw these white Gucci jeans, and I really feel that is direction we should go in." Could you hear me? 1870s western male lead wants to wear white Gucci jeans? How is he with Jackie (Chan)? Amazing. The two were perfect together. The chemistry was great. How was Val Kilmer in Tombstone? He was amazing. You watch him, and he's the perfect person for this role. Could I stand him? No. It wasn't just me; it was hair and makeup. He drove all of us crazy.

Val Kilmer would just sit in front of the mirror staring at himself like he was a Greek god, and we have five other fittings to do today, and this is a film done on a tight little budget. I’ve got to get shit done nonstop around the clock, and he is sitting there and asking you, can you get sushi in Tucson? I go, you've got 28 (costume) changes; we need to lock them in and do the alterations on them <laugh>. And we didn't know what he was wearing till 10 minutes before he was in front of camera.  Everybody has their tough times on a shoot. And if you're good at what you do, you have a vision, you fight for it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Take it for what it is, but it's a hell of an exciting business to be in. For every person that's difficult, I had 500 that were a joy. And I never had two days that were alike in 45 years.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright May 2024 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved