CHARLES MARTIN SMITH ON ‘PAT GARRETT’ AND ‘CULPEPPER’, PLUS 'ANGEL AND THE BADMAN’ REMAKE IN THEATRES OCT. 9, MICHAEL KEATON DIRECTS/STARS IN 1ST WESTERN, JOHN SAYLES DIRECTS NEXT WESTERN, AND MORE!

ANGEL AND THE BADMAN REMAKE IN THEATRES OCTOBER 9^TH!

 

The new one

A very entertaining remake of the very first film that John Wayne produced, 1947’s Angel and the Badman, will be opening in theatres across the country on October 9^th, the first Western to receive a full theatrical release in the United States in two years.  The original was the first of 15 film collaborations between Wayne and writer/director James Edward Grant, which would include The Alamo, The Comancheros and McClintock!  It’s the story of a Quaker girl who nurses a wounded outlaw back from the brink, while both villains and lawmen are searching for him. The original stars Gail Russell as the angel, John Wayne as the badman Quirt Evans, and Bruce Cabot – the one who saved Fay Wray from King Kong – as the far worse badman, Loredo. Playing the lawman who’s just dying to hang Quirt is a mentor of Duke, the legendary Harry Carey.  

John Wayne, Harry Carey and Gail Russell in the original

The remake, appropriately from Angel Studios, stars Zachary Levi in Duke’s role. I didn’t recognize him at first with a beard, but you may remember him in the title role of the series Chuck. He’s also starred twice as Shazam, and was the romantic interest to the divorced Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He co-stars with Liam Neeson in the action film The Fix, which just opened in theaters on September 11.

Here's the trailer!

Australian actress Meg Fraser has the Gail Russell role, and as the worst badman, it’s the often-terrifying Neal McDonough, of the pale blue eyes and platinum blond hair, from Minority Report, Justified, Yellowstone, and several of the DC Comics series. And the great Tommy Lee Jones takes on the role of the lawman relentlessly tracking Quirt – come to think of it, it’s kind of a variation on his character in The Fugitive. I had the pleasure of interviewing Zachary Levi and Neal McDonough for my True West article on the movie, which will be in the November/December issue. 

Lou Diamond Phillips and Luke Perry in the 2009 version

Surprisingly, Angel and the Badman had already been remade not that long ago. In 2009, Lou Diamond Phillips played Quirt, and the late Luke Perry was Loredo in a pretty good TV movie version. If you’re wondering why this film keeps getting remade, it’s because someone at John Wayne Productions goofed, didn’t renew the copyright, and the film fell into public domain: that’s why you can find the original on practically all streamers

‘DRUMMER BOY’ – A HISTORICAL MUSICAL – ALSO COMING FROM ANGEL STUDIOS

 

Angel Studios is a very interesting company. They’re a streaming service, they make their own movies with top talent onscreen and behind the camera, they theatrically release many of them, and if you’re a subscriber, you actually get to vote on what projects they greenlight. Back on the 4^th of July, Angel Studios got a lot of attention for their film Young Washington. On November 6^th they have another picture in theaters, Drummer Boy, a musical, directed by the Smallbone brothers, a Grammy-winning Christian pop duo better known as For King and Country. The story is about two brothers who find themselves on opposite sides of the American Revolution, and one is a drummer boy. These Angel folks are smart in the old Hollywood way. Both Drummer Boy and Young Washington were shot in Ireland, I assume back-to-back, with 50 of the same crew members, and I suspect some of the same sets and costumes.

 

MICHAEL KEATON DIRECTS AND STARS IN RODE TO RUIN, HIS 1^ST WESTERN – CO-STARRING MORGAN FREEMAN AND LAURA LINNEY

Next, Michael Keaton will not only star in his first Western, he will also direct it, and he’ll be co-starring with Morgan Freeman. Freeman has only done one Western before, but it was Unforgiven, so he chose wisely. In Rode to Ruin, Keaton will play a retired US Marshall who has spent 40 years hunting his wife’s killer. Freeman is an aging outlaw who may know something about the crime, but his memory is fading. Just added to the cast this week is Laura Linney, who plays a frontier trader, who is one of the very few people Freeman’s character trusts. It will be Linney’s first Western, but she is no stranger to period stories, having so memorably portrayed Abigail Adams in the John Adams miniseries.

Screenplay is by R. Dean McCreary, produced by Lori McCreary, who has a long history of successful collaborations with Freeman. Oh, and guess who has acquired Rode to Ruin? That’s right, Angel Studios!

 

I PASSED THIS WAY SET TO PASS BEFORE CAMERAS FOR JOHN SAYLES BEFORE YEAR’S END – AMY MADIGAN, CHRIS COOPER, RON PERLMAN TO STAR

I Passed This Way is based on Eugene Manlove Rhodes’ novella Pasó Por Aquí. Although he is not so well known today, in the 1920s and ‘30s, Rhodes was a commercially popular and much-revered Western writer. Adapting and directing is long-time Rhodes admirer John Sayles, the twice Oscar-nominated writer/director of Lone Star. It’s about a young fellow who impulsively robs a bank, and ends up with Pat Garrett on his tail.

At this point, who plays whom is guesswork, but you can’t go wrong with this cast. Amy Madigan, who just won this year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Weapons, was wonderful with husband Ed Harris in the 1996 adaptation of Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. Chris Cooper, in addition to starring in Sayles’ Lone Star, is an Oscar-winner for Adaptation, and was July Johnson in Lonesome Dove. Ron Perlman, two-time Emmy nominee for his star-making role in the Beauty and the Beast series, was in 1994’s Cisco Kid, starred from 1998 to 2000 in the Magnificent 7 series, and more recently played Judge Henry in 2014’s re-imagined The Virginian.  

The very fine first film version of Pasó Por Aquí 

It's to be shot in Spain’s Canary Island, which might sound like an odd location for a Western. But they have great mountains and deserts, and were the location for the popular 1975 Western Take a Hard Ride, which starred Lee Van Cleef and Jim Brown. Pasó Por Aquí was first filmed very successfully in 1948 as Four Faces West, starring husband and wife Joel McCrea and Frances Dee. Their grandson, Wyatt McCrea, tells me that it was one of their personal favorites.

 

CHARLES MARTIN SMITH ON HIS ADVENTURES WITH PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, AND THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO.

 

Kris Kristofferson, Charles Martin Smith and Rudy

Wurlitzer in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

The film that put teenaged character actor Charles Martin Smith on the map was 1973’s American Graffiti. The role was Toad, the nerd who seemingly had no chance with lovely Candy Clark, but won her nonetheless. That wasn’t his first film, but it was close. In 1971 he’d debuted on The Brady Bunch, played a bellhop on Monty Nash, then made his first Western appearance with a featured role in The Culpepper Cattle Co. There were parts in Fuzz, Room 222, Go Ask Alice; then Sam Peckinpah chose him to play Bowdre in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Smith quickly became so in-demand in all genres that he did 4 tv episodes, voiced 16 cartoons, and was in Spain, starring in his third Western, The Spikes Gang, before American Graffiti was even released!

Two years after The Brady Bunch --

Charles was romancing Candy Clark in

American Graffiti

Since then, Smith has played over 90 different roles on big screens and small. In 1988, while continuing to act, he stepped behind the camera to direct Trick or Treat, and has gone on to direct 18 movies and TV shows, with a special expertise in ‘man versus the elements’ and animal-centered stories, an interest he developed while starring in the legendary Never Cry Wolf, directed by Carroll Ballard.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles Martin Smith on Labor Day weekend of 2024. I was writing an article for True West on the restored Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid from Criterion (you can read that article HERE https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/pat-garrett-billy-the-kid-the-way-it-should-be-seen/). I took the opportunity to discuss all of his Westerns with him because, happily, “These are films I'm interested in talking about.”

A recent picture of Charles Martin Smith

(Note: Since the interview, a number of people discussed, including Kris Kristofferson, Matt Clark, and L.Q. Jones, have passed away.)

Henry Parke: Do you remember how old you were when you did Pat Garrett?

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah, I was 19.

Henry Parke: You'd already done the Culpepper Cattle Company. Did that help you get the part of Charlie Bowdre?

Charles Martin Smith: I have no idea. That would be a question that you'd have to try to <laugh> ask Sam from ‘Beyond the Grave’. Culpepper was the first film that I'd ever done, and I'd gotten cast when I was 17. And then that following year we did American Graffiti, where I was 18. I turned 19 then in October of that year, and then we shot Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid around the holidays. We were all stuck in Durango, Mexico over the holidays, which made for some very memorable experiences, <laugh> getting there on that film.

Henry Parke: Do you remember auditioning for Culpepper Cattle Co?

Charles Martin Smith: Yep. Very well. I'd only had a couple of auditions for things before that. I got the call, went in, it was at the 20th Century Fox, in the main executive building there. And I remember (director and co-writer) Dick Richards just sat behind his desk and looked at me. There was no chit- chat, there was no talk. It was very uncomfortable. I'm not quite sure what Dick was doing, <laugh>, except we had a very strange first meeting. Then he gave me the scene to read, I came back and did the audition, and ended up getting the part, which was pretty exciting for me. It was my first paid acting job, in a film for 20th Century Fox, and I got to join Screen Actors Guild. It was a good experience, and it was a kind of a cool movie to work on, actually. You know, it didn't have any big Western stars. It wasn't John Wayne or anything, but it was a collection of really cool, interesting actors who had done a lot of westerns; Geoffrey Lewis and Luke Askew and really great stunt guys. They were wonderful, just a great bunch of guys. They were good to me. I only worked a week on it, but it was a great introduction to being in the movies, down there in Mexico and shooting this thing. Dick Richards was very much a visual stylist kind of director. When I think about some of the shots that he got, it's pretty amazing. When we were doing that buckboard race, he did one shot where the cameraman was strapped underneath the buckboard, shooting through the wheels. And this was a full-size camera. This was 1971. There were no remote heads or anything. This was a guy strapped underneath with a huge camera. He got some amazing shots in that movie. And I thought it was a really interesting, dark look at the West. There was a wonderful line where somebody tells Gary Grimes, “Cowboyin's something you do when you can't do nothing else.” Sort of took the glamor out of it. <laugh>.

Charles with Gary Grimes in Culpepper Cattle Co.

Henry Parke: When you got there, did you already know how to ride and shoot, or did they teach you that?

Charles Martin Smith: Well, on Culpepper I didn't have to do anything except drive a buckboard, which I thought was gonna kill me. I didn't really know any of that stuff. My early childhood was spent in Paris, in France. And then I lived in the (San Fernando) Valley, in Northridge. I was just a Valley kid. I didn't have any particular knowledge, but my father's younger brother Hank had been a cowboy. He was in the Agoura Ranch area, and it was all still pretty rural. He usually had three or four horses at his place up in Thousand Oaks. So I called my uncle Hank, and he taught me how to ride a horse, and how to do some things. It was really, really helpful. Hank had been a cowboy on these ranches, although he was an artist like my father. He was shocked to see in the movies, one of his buddies. He said, “What the hell? That's old Dick Farnsworth! What's he doing in the movies?” And they got together again after all those years and, and palled around some, when they were much older guys. It was kind of cool. So, yeah, Hank was my cowboy advisor.

Henry Parke: Someone else in Culpepper Cattle Co. was Matt Clark.

Matt Clark in Culpepper Cattle Co.

Charles Martin Smith: He was quite a guy. When I did Culpepper and didn't know anything and was really awkward; I'd never been on a film set in my life. There were all these old cowboy actors, and Matt Clark really befriended me. He said, any questions that I had, I should ask him. And if I needed any help with anything, Matt was great. He was really good and really good to me. I've never forgotten how kind he was to me on that movie when I really was scared to death and didn't know anything. And the other guy that I remember was really good was one of the stunt guys. His name was Walter Scott. He was great to me. And again, as a kid, on Culpepper, well, I didn't know what I was doing. Matt Clark and Walter were the two guys that really befriended me. And I've always been grateful to those guys for it.

Stuntman Walter Scott

Henry Parke: Did you watch Western movies as a kid?

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah, some. I watched all kinds of movies as a kid. But I wasn't particularly drawn to Westerns any more than any other genre.

Henry Parke: When you went up for Pat Garrett, had American Graffiti come out,? Did you know what a tremendous hit it was going to be?

Charles Martin Smith: No, it hadn't come out. We shot in June of ‘72, so they were editing, so Pat Garrett would've been November, December, January ‘72 into ‘73.  Graffiti was still editing and nobody knew anything about it. I remember telling some of the people on the show that I'd done this movie with kids cruising in cars and all that, but nobody knew anything about it other than that I'd done it. Now the story on Pat Garrett was, that I went in for the role of Alias, the part that Dylan ended up playing. In the script, he’s written as a 19-year-old, very shy kid with a stammer. And I went in and auditioned for Sam, and I had a very memorable meeting in his office in the back part of MGM.

Henry Parke: How was it memorable?

Charles Martin Smith: I mean, you have a good idea of what kind of a guy Sam was. He was volatile, unpredictable; some kind of edge about him. You just didn't know what he was gonna do. He went on a long discussion about Mexico. We're gonna shoot this movie in Mexico, and he's got a bunker down there, and when the shit hits the fan, that's where he's gonna go, he's gonna be in his bunker. And I'm sitting, a 19-year-old kid thinking, I might be over my head here with this guy. He was very intense. But I read the scene for him, and he really liked it. So I felt pretty good about it, and I thought there was a chance that I'd get offered the part. But I didn't hear anything for a while. And then I did hear from my agent that (Kris) Kristofferson's buddy, Bob Dylan, wanted to be in the movie, and Alias was really the only part that they could find for him. So they were rewriting Alias for Dylan to play the part. But they said, Sam really loved your audition, and he'd like to offer you a different part, the smaller part of Charlie Bowdre. So I said, sure, I'll be happy to do that. I don't think I would've normally been up for the role of Charlie Bowdre if I hadn't met Sam on the role of Alias.

Henry Parke: So Pat Garrett was your second Western to shoot in Mexico?

Charles Martin Smith: We shot Culpepper in Sonora somewhere. I can't remember the name of the town. We moved around a couple of towns in Mexico. We had some standing Western sets, beautiful sets, which had been built for some John Wayne movies (in La Joya Ranch). You might know more than me. Lot of weapons there.

Henry Parke: Was going to Mexico, working for Dick Richards, much different than to go to Mexico and worked for Sam Peckinpah?

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah. Everything was different. Sam Peckinpah was different from everything. With Dick Richards, I was only down there for a week, and I did my scene, and went. On Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the schedule kept changing. And Sam kept changing what he wanted to do, and rearranging things, not shooting what was on the call sheet, but deciding to shoot something else. Very much an artistic, auteur sort of approach to filmmaking, which I gather didn't really go over very well with the executives.

Henry Parke: Not a great deal. No.

Charles Martin Smith: He got into a lot of hot water there, and there was a lot of stuff going on. And as a result, I went down there, but I would sit around for weeks without working. Because he'd planned to shoot a scene that I was in, and then they'd shoot some other stuff. And so I ended up just sitting in Durango for a long time. Sam was unpredictable and wild, and had a terrible temper. You never quite knew what you were gonna get. And on the days that I did work, it was pretty intense. I think Sam liked to keep a sense of tension on the sets. I think it was intentional. I think he felt like it translated onto film, that kind of energy, that kind of real intense, edgy kind of energy. And so he kept his sets that way. That was a new experience for me. I hadn't been around much, but it was certainly a hell of a lot different from the way George Lucas directed. Sam was kind of dangerous. And I remember a lot of guys that had worked with him. 'cause the cast in that was just about every great Western actor living. And a lot of them had worked for Sam a number of times, guys like R.G. Armstrong. And a lot of 'em said that was it: they weren't gonna do another movie with him because it was just too stressful, with his temper and just the general sense of tension on the set.

I got to be pretty good friends with Kris Kristofferson. There didn't seem to be any issue with the tension with Kris. He kind of rolled along, happy-go-lucky. He was a really sweet guy. And, you know, I was just a kid, I was only 19, and most of the cowboys didn't really want anything to do with me. But Kris did. He really befriended me in a great way. And then 40 years later, I ended up directing him in Dolphin Tail and the sequel to that. We'd sit around on set and talk about Sam.

Henry Parke: Now your big scene is in and out of the cabin, but you were in other sequences too, so let me ask about them first. Like the ‘shooting the chickens’ heads off’ scene and the cantina scene, with Billy and Pat. Do you remember if those were done before or after your big scene?

Charles Martin Smith: No, I don't remember the order. In fact, it seems to me that it was all kind of split up and shot piecemeal. That business, the chickens’ heads being blown off, that was very disturbing. Then there was another scene where we're all inside the cantina. The cabin was a practical set, meaning we could shoot it like a real location. That cabin sequence took a long time to film, over a week, I think, partly because of all the on-set effects, the squibs and all the gunfire and stuff.

Henry Parke: Now, you were, as you say, 19, but you were already an experienced professional actor. And in that scene, you're playing with Kris Kristofferson, a great songwriter, but almost his first time acting. And Rudy Wurlitzer was a great screenwriter, but not an experienced actor. Did that make it difficult for you?

Charles Martin Smith: It made it a little different, but you know, I wasn't that experienced an actor. I had only been working in films for a year, maybe. I'd done a couple of shows, but I wasn't like some seasoned pro. And Kris had been acting, he'd been in other stuff too. So no, that was all good. And we enjoyed doing the scene. I remember Sam saying that he thought it was the best single scene that he'd ever had to direct. He loved that scene, just the idea of it. And the guy is getting pinned down and Bowdre, as he's dying, taking a gun and going out, 'cause they can't hurt him anymore; they already have, he's dying anyway. Sam just loved that. We spent a long time on that scene and got a lot of coverage. We filmed a much longer scene than ended up in the movie. The scene in the film is probably only about half of what we shot, maybe even less.

Henry Parke: After you're shot the first time, as you're bleeding, you're looking at some small things in your hands. I was wondering if you remembered what they were.

Charles Martin Smith: While we're waiting there and we can't do anything, we start playing cards, most of which was cut.  And then talking about me in the past tense; it was really a lovely scene. I wonder if I still have the script around somewhere. It might in storage. Talking about me in the past tense, as though I'm already dead. And I had the idea that as I was dying, as the guy is dying, he's looking at all the little details that you're never gonna see again; you know, a piece of straw in your hand, or just even just looking at your own hands and your own fingers and thinking, sort of saying goodbye. I remember I had that idea and played that a little bit.

Henry Parke: I'm sorry that so much was taken out of it. It's a wonderful scene as it is.

Charles Martin Smith: It is a good scene as it is. It was, I think, even better before. Whether Sam cut it or whether the studio cut it down, I never knew. But Sam loved it, and we spent a long time on it with that long drawn-out card game. Maybe it was too long, especially at the start of a film. Typically, you want to get the first act moving; you don't want to be spending a long time lingering on scenes early in a film. But I wonder if a full-length version of that original scene exists, whether there would've been a rough cut or even just a first assembly by the editor. Because it was pretty cool.

Henry Parke: Gosh, it sounds like a great scene! When you were shot, was that your first time working with squibs?

Kris Kristofferson, Charles Martin Smith, and Rudy

Wurlitzer in Pat Garrett 

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah, I guess it would be. And they squibbed me up and down. I mean, they took a long time. <laugh>. But I was kinda looking forward to it, 'cause it's a Sam Peckinpah movie, and I'm getting the full Peckinpah treatment, you know? Slow motion, with the bullets and the blood flying and that real Wild Bunch kind of stuff. But they didn't trust me to set them off myself. In later films where I had squibs on, there's a battery pack, and you’ve got a little button hidden in your hand, and you set off your own squibs. That's the way we did it later in The Spikes Gang, and other things I did where I was getting shot. But they didn't trust me to do that 'cause -- and I don't blame them -- I was a kid, and I'd never done this before. So the effects guy was setting off the squibs, and what they did was they ran an extension cord down my leg and taped it to my boot, and then plugged in a cord that then ran off-camera so the guy could set the squibs off. He said, we're gonna set the squibs off and then yank the cord and unplug it, and then you can fall back and everything. And I said, when you yank that cord, how do you know it's gonna come out? You're probably just gonna pull my legs right out from underneath <laugh>. They said, no, no, no. It'll work, it'll work. Well sure enough, they pulled my legs out from under <laugh>. I landed right in that doorway with that happening. But I was scared to death that I wouldn't do it right. It took most of the day to rig the shot. And you know, the cardinal sin with that is reacting to the shot before it hits you. That's a thing. Because actors get nervous and they'll react to the gunshot before it actually hits them. That'll ruin a take. And I was nervous that it would be painful. I didn't know; I'd never had those squibs before. You know, they put a little backing plate on each individual charge so that it doesn't burn your skin. But still, I was nervous about it. And it turned out fine.

Henry Parke: Now in the cantina scene and then with the chickens, there you are as part of the gang, with Luke Askew and L.Q. Jones, Donnie Fritz, Harry Dean Stanton, all these really interesting guys --

Charles Martin Smith: -- Richard Bright, I think was one of them.

Henry Parke: That’s right.

Charles Martin Smith: Those guys, they were great.

Henry Parke: Did you get to know any of them? You said you'd worked with Luke Askew before.

Charles Martin Smith: I had worked with Luke Askew, but I didn't have any scenes with him on Culpepper, and I didn't really know him. L.Q. Jones was a very gregarious, chatty, kind of funny guy.

Henry Parke: L. Q. was very friendly with me, and very generous with his time, in his later years.

Charles Martin Smith: Great guy. And he was that way as a younger guy. So I kind of knew him, but the only guy that I really kind of hung out with and got to know better was Harry Dean.

Henry Parke: Terrific actor. What was he like?

Harry Dean Stanton in Pat Garrett 

Charles Martin Smith: He was always terrific in everything. And then we did a movie called Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins a couple of beers later, with Alan Arkin. We shot that in Arizona for a couple of months. So Harry Dean and I got to hang out. And I knew him socially too, outside of film. He was a really wonderful guy and an actor that other actors really appreciated; one of those guys. And I'd worked with Bo Hopkins on Graffiti. He was the leader of the Pharaohs. I called him when I was going to do Pat Garrett, because obviously he'd done The Wild Bunch.

Henry Parke: That was his first film, I think.

Charles Martin Smith: I think it might've been.

Henry Parke: About Sam purposely creating tension on the set --

Charles Martin Smith: -- That's my theory. It was also his personality. He was just kind of out of control that way. And he would get angry very quickly and easily. He fired the second A.D. (assistant director) before I got there. And then the second A.D. that was there when I was working said, well, I'm not gonna be around much longer <laugh>. He said, 'cause every movie Sam fires the first second AD, and then he'll fire the next second A.D. and keep the third one. I'm the second, second A.D. on this, so he'll fire me too, because he just needs to fire people to <laugh> keep everybody on their toes. And sure enough, Sam fired him.

Henry Parke: With all the tension from that already, were you aware of the political problems between Sam and Jim Aubrey and everyone at MGM?

Charles Martin Smith: Not really. I heard rumors about it, when we changed the shooting schedule, and then I knew there were some issues. I remember at one point a couple of executives did come down, but nah, I wasn't really in the middle of it enough to be part of all that. And I want to say that with Sam firing people, and yelling at people, and of that tension, none of it was ever directed at me. I don't know, maybe it's 'cause I was the kid, but he was great with me. He would yell at other people, and he'd turn and kind of wink and smile, like ‘this is just part of my deal, you know?’ I had a lot of respect for him. He was a very good director, very meticulous. Every piece of set dressing had to be just right. Everything. He really was very painstaking and very careful and very creative. He was not just some crazy guy. He was a really fine director. He just had this way of working that kept everybody tense.

Henry Parke: Right. But it works on the screen. You can't argue with that.

Charles Martin Smith: You can't. I'd love to see what his cut would've looked like before the executives got it.

Henry Parke: You got along well with Kris Kristofferson. How about James Coburn?

Charles Martin Smith: I hardly talked to Coburn once or twice. But again, we didn't really have scenes together. And I was one of a group of cowboys, so I never really got to know Coburn like I did Kris. Coburn was very grand. I remember he always smoked a cigarette in a long cigarette holder. The impression he gave you was that he was a grand Hollywood actor of the old school, and he'd be out there with his cigarette holder.

Henry Parke: There were so many terrific actors in there: Jason Robards, Slim Pickens, Jack Elam. 

Charles Martin Smith:  Some of them I worked with, and some of them I didn't. One guy that I was particularly interested to get to know was Elisha Cook Jr.

Henry Parke: Yes, my hero.

Charles Martin Smith: Man, he was a very cool guy. I only really chatted with him once, but of course I remember him from Maltese Falcon and all that. I just was so happy. And I remember having dinner once with Chill Wills, and how on Earth he and I ended up in the dining room of the motel where we were all staying, having dinner, just the two of us, I don't know. But he spent the most of the time ranting about these damn college hippies who were protesting the war and all that. Here am I, sitting there, having been to a bunch of Vietnam War protests myself, <laugh>, and having long hair myself. And having been in rock and roll bands, <laugh>, all that. I'm thinking, oh, this is a little uncomfortable. There were some characters there. There were definitely some characters. I would've liked to have gotten to know Slim Pickens, too, but I didn't really, I just sort of met him just to say hello.

Henry Parke: How about Bob Dylan, who got the part you went for?

Sam Peckinpah directing Bob Dylan as Alias

in Pat Garrett

Charles Martin Smith: Dylan was great. Extremely shy, kind of awkward. And we were all told early on, don't talk to him. Do not take his picture. Just leave Dylan alone. But we ended up having some good conversations, and I did kind of get to know him. And he was fascinated by movies. He really wanted to know more about film. He was interested in making them. (Note: Dylan would go on to direct the feature Renaldo and Clara, and 5 of his music videos.) He was writing some songs for the film, which we thought was great. He was very into it. And then he was talking with Kris and Sam about Sam's next movie, which was going to be bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. I remember Bobby talking about what a great script that was, and how much he wanted to be a part of that, too. He was really into it. And he had never really acted before. Actually a couple of times he asked me for little acting tips, which I thought was pretty nice; giving acting tips to Bob Dylan was pretty cool. <laugh>. I liked him. He was a good guy. It took a while to get to know him; he didn't open up very easily. He was very…I guess the best word for it is introverted.

Henry Parke: Any other thought about Pat Garrett?

Charles Martin Smith: The way Sam worked was pretty chaotic. I think if I was a film executive, I wouldn't have been happy about it either. I later worked with (director) Carroll Ballard on Never Cry Wolf, and Carroll had a lot of similar qualities, in that he was very creative, and he would change his mind about what he wanted to shoot that day, and do everything differently than he'd planned. Caroll's a great guy; he didn't have the personality that Sam had, but just that kind of creativity, and letting the movie kind of grow organically as he's making the film. That's the way I remember Sam being. And I can imagine that the studio didn't like it, and he didn't want anybody interfering with him or his process. I respected that. But I can see that in the film business, which is a business, that would rub people the wrong way.

Henry Parke: Sam Peckinpah was first a successful screenwriter, then a hugely influential director. Those are two branches of filmmaking that you would also excel in. Did you learn anything in particular from working with Sam?

Charles Martin Smith: Absolutely. I learned a lot from every director I worked with, 'cause I was trying to pay attention. But I really was fascinated by the way Sam ran the set and, and how he would do things. And his meticulousness, his attention to detail, and very much about how is that gonna look through the lens? Not just how does it look to the naked eye, like you're doing a play, but we put together a scene and just his talking about the camera, where he was putting it in, what kind of a lens he was going to use, and how this was all gonna look on film. That was the first time that I ever really gave a lot of thought to that. I didn't even really on Graffiti so much because of the way that was shot. But Sam would be so careful about where that camera was, and exactly what it was seeing and what was at the edge of the frame. And every shot was like a painting practically, the way Sam did it. I learned a lot just by watching him do that.

 My interview with Charles Martin Smith will conclude in the October issue of Henry’s Western Round-up with his memories of making The Spikes Gang, Never Cry Wolf, Streets of Laredo, working with Lee Marvin, James Garner, Sam Sheperd, George Carlin, Wes Studi, director Carroll Ballard, and his own extensive directing career!

 

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Please check out the September/October True West, featuring my article, Citizen James, where I take a look at some of the more unusual film portrayals of Jesse James and his killer, Bob Ford!

 

And please give a listen to my most recent Rendezvous With a Writer podcast appearance, where Bobbi Jean and Jim and I talk with One Armed Bandit author Michael Knost. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/live/UP8RA0i2ml8?si=iOp4jDLlW_WWsr3Y or you can hear it here: https://www.latalkradio.com/sites/default/files/audio/Rendezvous-090326.mp3

Much obliged,

Henry

 

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

Not to be used for AI training!

INSP'S 'BLUE RIDGE' RETURNS TONIGHT! TALKING WESTERNS WITH JOHNATHON SCHAECH!

 

INSP’S ‘BLUE RIDGE’ RETURNS SUNDAY 7-1

Updated July 20, 2026

    

This Sunday, Justin Wise, former Green Beret-turned-rural sheriff returns to the mountains of North Carolina in season two of Blue Ridge.  Yes, it’s a contemporary police story, but as creator/producer and frequent director Gary Wheeler points out, “It’s certainly a modern-day Western in the vein of Longmire; some might call it Western adjacent. It's in the wide-open spaces.”

In technological terms, it’s a bit of a throw-back to a simpler time, one that it’s star, Johnathon Schaech responds to, even with his big-city background. “My father was a Baltimore City cop. He had a beat that he had to walk, and he didn't have a radio. He had a call box in the street. So he had to really rely on his neighborhood for safety. So when I read (the original Blue Ridge script), I kept thinking, this guy really needs to rely on this crazy town for his own safety. Phones don't always work up in the mountains. There's a lot of similarities. And my father's a pretty tough man, especially when he was working the beat. I just thought, it's so funny: I've become my dad.”

Justin Wise has also come to town in hopes of getting back together with his ex-wife Elli (Sarah Lancaster), and to be a bigger part in the life of his daughter Maddie (Taegen Burns), another part of his character that feels at home to Jonathon. “My parents separated when I was younger. They did get back together, so I could see Justin trying to win his wife back, the way my father was trying to get my mom to come back to him. My mom left because of my father's work. He just couldn't calm down. He saw horrible things, and he was stressed out all the time. It’s literally like Justin; he’s always at work, and that's why Maddie left him, same as my father. So he’s trying to deal with himself, to be softer and more present with her, because he loves her and she loves him.”

Gary Wheeler directing Johnathon Schaech

“He's the lone hero who always stands for what's right,” notes Wheeler. “He's a character that runs toward the fire, not away from the fire, and that's very traditional, classic western television. That’s Matt Dillon, that's the Cartwrights, The Rifleman -- that’s probably my favorite from my childhood. Jonathan's character, Justin Wise, is certainly cut out of the same cloth as Matt Dillon.”

Schaech is certainly in shape for season 2, as the opening of episode 1 demonstrates.  “We opened with this kind of ‘Rocky Balboa’ montage of him carrying logs, chopping wood and all that,” Wheeler recalls. “And when Johnathon read it, he said, ‘I'm gonna do that scene shirtless!’” Johnathon explains, “in between the two seasons, I did a bodybuilding contest, kind of a bucket list thing of mine. So I (trained), dieted for about five and a half weeks, and I went out to this bodybuilding contest up in Franklin, Tennessee, and I won <laugh>! I won for over 50.” He looks amazing in the show, Wheeler notes: “He got in the best shape of his life.”

Johnathon Schaech doing some heavy lifting!

As with season one, each episode has a stand-alone plot, or as Wheeler calls it, “a case of the week or a problem of the week.” Besides Juston’s ex-wife and daughter, the other regular characters are back, including warring patriarchs Jeremiah Wade (Tom Proctor) and Connor McGrath (A Martinez), and deputies played by Greg Perrow and Avianna Mynhier are still working not out of the police station, which burned in the pilot episode, but from the local history museum since, as Mayor Brady (Odessa Feaster) explained, it’s the least-used municipal building.

Jonathon Schaech, Sarah Drew and Greg Perrow in

the season 2 opener

    

Among guest stars this season, Bruce Boxleitner returns as Oak Miller, a character he created in the TV movie before the series began. Gary says, “He's one of my great friends, and I love to text him and talk movies with him. We brought Oak Miller back, and that's always a great adventure, because Oak Miller is a really tough character, really a tough cowboy. Bruce grew up in that genre, the guy from The Gambler. And one thing about Bruce is you can put him on a horse and say, hit that mark.” Also, “the incomparable Doug Jones, who does all these creature features,” having starred in Hellboy, The Shape of Water and Pan’s Labyrinth, “is in episode three, (playing) a hermit.”

One highpoint will be Moving Mountains, the final episode of season two, with guest star, the legendary Keith Carradine as a preacher, Brother Rusty, who has a potentially deadly accident that is the focus of the story. Saying more about his predicament would ruin it, but Gary describes it as “the emotional core of the entire season of Blue Ridge, I think.”

When I asked Keith Carradine if it was his first time playing a man of the cloth, he told me, “Yes, I believe so. When they came to me, I just responded to the material, and particularly because it was a story of redemption, it was just a wonderfully positive message. I'm a fan of Johnathon's, and I love that he has used that life experience to be a part of what he's doing now in Blue Ridge. I was just happy to be invited into that world and to be given a chance to tell the story of Preacher Rusty and their sort of mutual redemption in the course of that episode.”

 

Brother Rusty (Keith Carradine) is in rough shape

when Justin Wise (Johnathon Schaech) finds him

Wheeler says, “I had re-watched The Grapes of Wrath, and Keith’s Dad, the great John Carradine, has an amazing role as a preacher. Keith came to me and said, ‘I want to play my paw in the Grapes of Wrath.’ That was one of the (motivations) for him to take the project. The way he looked with the overalls, that hat he wears, just very ‘Joadian’, very ‘John Steinbeckian’.”

It’s a very physically demanding episode, and the first one that Johnathon Schaech directed. “The one thing I've learned over the years of making movies is casting is everything,” says Schaech. “So when you get an actor like that, who wants to come out and play a part for you. You just make sure the camera is ready, make sure he's lit, and give him anything he wants and needs. And he was such a trooper.”

I wondered if Taylor Sheridan’s successes had rubbed off on other rural shows like Blue Ridge. “I think anybody who is playing in our space would say, how could it not?” says Wheeler. “How could those doors not be opened for us? Wide open spaces, a sense of family, interesting mountain rural settings. You know, we shot on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Season two deals with the impact of Hurricane Helene. Blue Ridge season one was very successful, especially on the streaming platforms, and you know, I do think people want to watch PG Yellowstone, they want to see a PG version of Reacher.  Blue Ridge aspires to be something hopeful. I hope that they can watch it with their family, and find that sense of community, and that it's fun and that it has action, has good mysteries, and all of those things.”

Season 2 of Blue Ridge begins on Sunday, July 19^th, 10 pm Eastern Standard time. Check your local listings.

JOHNATHON SCHAECH ON HIS WESTERNS

Henry Parke: It's remarkable how many westerns and sort of westerns you've been in. Are you a fan of the genre?

Johnathon Schaech: You know, I am. One time at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), I sat down with this big agent, and he said to me, you're like a cowboy <laugh>. And I'm like a smiling goofball, trying to make jokes all the time. I'm like, how am I like a cowboy? He goes, the presence about you. And it reminded me when I first started acting, I had a legendary acting teacher named Roy London. And I kept saying to him, I really want to be like Robin Williams. And he’d get so angry at me. He goes, ‘You're never gonna be Robin Williams! <laugh> <laugh>. You're like that guy, Clint Eastwood.’ And so I was like, but he's kind of angry all the time. I think I'm a lot like my father, who’s very much like a cowboy. And those Westerns find me. And I love doing 'em, and I can't wait to do more.

Henry Parke: Did you watch any of them growing up?

Johnathon Schaech: Oh, my dad, we watched them all the time. John Wayne films like Red River.

Henry Parke: Your first western that I'm aware of is an episode of Brisco County Jr. in 1993.

Johnathon Schaech: Oh my God. Right. That started my career as a cowboy.

Henry Parke: You were the youngest attendee in a Bounty Hunter convention. Did you enjoy doing that one?

Johnathon Schaech: I had a frigging blast. It was the first time I did something light like that, you know? And I really was a very bold young actor. I really took center stage when it was my time.  “Nevada Cooper! Friends call me Coop!” <laugh>. I watched it not too long ago, and I was like, wonder if I offended the lead, Bruce Campbell? But I talked to him years later and he was like, ‘Hey, you're such a pleasure to have on the show.’ And I thought, wow. They like when you take those big chances; it's important for a young actor to know they're allowed to take center stage and not to bow down. The actor wants you to rise up.

Henry Parke: And it was inherent in the character you were playing. He was not a wallflower at all. But tell me about That Thing You Do. That was pretty soon after Brisco County, and you are much more suave when you come into that. How did you get That Thing You Do?

Liv Tyler and Johnathon Schaech in That Thing You Do

Johnathon Schaech: I used to journal, and I remember journaling that I was going to work with Jessica Lang and Tom Hanks: those were my goals. I remember putting that down on paper, and then I got a phone call from my agent that I had an audition for Tom Hanks' next movie that he was directing! I remember preparing for the role, and the sides (note: screenplay pages sent to an actor before an audition). One of the scenes was, it said, “I quit. I quit.” And he walks out, he quits the band and leaves. I remember preparing it and thinking, he's a singer. He should sing it. So I prepared myself to sing it for the audition. When I went in, Tom Hanks was there with a reader, who would read the scenes with me. I dressed the part, I dressed like 1960s; the Beatles is what I dressed like. Tom watched. And when that moment came up, I tapped the microphone and I sang it, “I quit!”, and I walked out the door. And Tom Hanks came and got me, said, “Get back in here kid.” And I knew I got the part. I was like, I won. And once we were cast, we were put in almost like a school, to learn how to play the instruments and sing. I just was doing it nonstop for about eight weeks. And I learned how to play the guitar, and I learned how to sing.

Henry Parke: So you were not a musician coming in?

Johnathon Schaech: No.

Henry Parke: Wow! You're real convincing. Do you do your own singing in the film?

Johnathon Schaech: No. Tom told me, “We're not gonna have you sing in the movie, but we want you to learn how to sing so you're hitting all the notes. And sometimes we'll do playback, and sometimes we won't.” And it was hard once they got the singer, Mike Viola (note: of Dawes and Panic at the Disco), it was even harder, because that guy’s singing really high. But you know, it sounded great. By the end, I couldn't sing like him, but I could sing a little bit better than I could before. But, you know, I get credit for singing the, “I Quit song.” <laugh> I got to work with Tom recently again, 30 years after we'd made That Thing You Do. He cast me in Greyhound II,  the sequel to the first one. That movie is awesome. Tom wrote it, and he wrote a part for me. So I just went out there to Australia and shot that.

Henry Parke: In 1998, you starred as Harry Houdini in the biopic of that title. In addition to being a great showman, magician, escapologist – a word I think he coined -- he was a remarkable physical athlete. Much of what he did was more about muscle control than misdirection. How'd you like playing him?

Johnathon Schaech: That's one thing I really got involved in. I had to do all the tricks and I had to do all the stunts. So there were some things I really couldn't do, like hanging upside down and getting out of the straight jacket: it was very hard. So in my training, I started doing Pilates every single day. It made my core incredible, so I could do anything after I did that for three or four weeks And so I was, I took all those stunts and I did all of them. Then I went to Vegas and I worked with Lance Burton, Johnny Thompson. I even met with Siegfried and Roy, Penn and Teller, like these different magicians to learn why they did what they did and how they did it. And they were great.

Henry Parke: After Brisco, I don’t think you did another Western until 2015 where you play another historical character, besides Houdini, in Texas Rising.

Johnathon Schraech as Sidney Sherman in Texas Rising

Johnathon Schaech: Yes, Colonel Sherman, not the Union soldier, but the head of the Calvary. I have been riding horses in movies as long as I can remember now. And this was different. Because it was now in Mexico, so they didn't speak English. <laugh> <laugh>. So those horses, they'd still respond to the same things; your legs, and tugging on the reins. I had to ride a great deal in that. The best part of doing that thing was I got to be with Bill Paxton. And we spent a lot of time just being buddies. And just seeing him on a horse: he was great on a horse. And he had big speeches on the horse, you know, and sometimes a horse would move. He'd be like, “Oh man, we gotta go back and start the speech up again!”

Henry Parke: I just rewatched the first episode last night, and I'd forgotten what a terrific series that was.

Johnathon Schaech: What a cast -- Brendan Fraser's in there, Ray Liotta's in there. Olivier Martinez, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Henry Parke: And your director, Roland Joffe. What's it like shooting in Durango?

Johnathon Schaech: That's where they shot all the John Wayne movies. They still had some of his sets up. It was neat. We would film out in the middle of the desert from sunrise to sunset. I have one great story. I was head of Calvary.  I had to lead the charge, literally, the sword out front, full gallup – dadun! Dadun! Dadun! Dadun! Bill wasn't in the charge. He was on the other side of the camera, watching me, he's giving me all this encouragement -- You could do it! You could do it! I’ve got about a hundred guys behind me when we did it the first time. And the horse to my left was buddies with my horse. So my horse went to the left, <laugh> <laugh>. And so by the time I got through all the cannon fire and smoke, I was too far left of the camera. So I moved up in front of that other horse for the second charge. So when they said action, I was way ahead of it. But what happened was one of the blank charges from cannon fire split right in front of my horse. And he reared up and I fell off the back of him with a hundred guys charging up behind me! Oh man! The guy behind me, it was a young kid, he was probably 13 years old. He had the  Texas flag, and he stopped because he saw me, but because he had the flag, all the guys went around him; therefore, they went around me, or I would've been killed. And when they saw my horse, they come charging over through the smoke to see if I was okay. I got back on my horse, and did the charge again. This time, I'm going towards the camera, and I had my sword out front. And Bill Paxton, I could see him, his hand out, and he was telling me to lower my sword so that the camera could capture my face <laugh>. So I'm charging, he's like, down, down, down! <laugh>. So I lowered my sword just enough. Then I had to jump over this barrier and ran past the camera. We nailed it. Third take. Pretty exciting stuff.

Henry Parke: When you first started acting, did have experience with horses before? Did you grow up riding?

Johnathon Schaech: I rode when I was younger, but I wasn't around horses all the time. It was my first, I did a film called Hush, with Jessica Lang and Gwyneth Paltrow --

Henry Parke: So you go to work with the two actors that you most wanted.

Johnathon Schaech: Exactly. First I went to Maryland. My cousin had a bunch of horses, and I told him what I had to do, and so he just put me on a horse every single day. I just spent time out there just riding and got really comfortable. And then I went to Virginia probably a month prior to filming and got on the horses that they wanted. They were all race horses, and I just would take the horse and go up into the woods and just rode. That's the best way to do it. So that was my first real riding, and I got really comfortable riding horses. I even learned how to ride English. And I got another great story. You want to hear it?

Henry Parke: You bet!

Johnathon Schaech: <laugh>. It was with Gwyneth Paltrow. We had this one scene where we're riding, and her horse starts to gallop to the left, off camera, across the field. Riders chased her down and brought her back. And she's like, I'm not getting on a horse anymore. So we wind up getting on the shoulders of two of the biggest grips, and doing this acting scene together as if we were on horse. You’d never know. This is movie magic.

Henry Parke: In 2016, you began a recurring role on Legends of Tomorrow as comic book hero, Jonah Hex. Has there been any talk of following up the 2010 film?

Johnathon Schaech: Not with me. I tried to get them to do the comic book version of Jonah Hex, I just wanted to do it so badly. I just thought people would love the love to see the real Jonah Hex from the comic book, at least that's what I got from the fans. But I couldn't get it made.

Henry Parke: Is the comic book version radically different from the Josh Brolin version?

Johnathon Schaech: Yes, it's vastly different. They took liberties to the detriment of the movie, I think. Josh Brolin is a great actor, so he brought like a lot of Jonah to it, but the story elements took away from his portrayal. He's just a hardcore; basically, he’s Clint Eastwood. He’s tough, gritty, and they made him almost like sci-fi, and they just didn't need to do it. He just needs to be a gritty cowboy. That's what he, how he's written in the comic book.

Henry Parke: How do you like playing him in Legends of Tomorrow?

Johnathon Schaech: Well, I played the comic book guy, but they had him dealing with real sensitive issues. <laugh>. You know, it was kind of fun. He was dealing with like a female co-star who's tough and he's gruff around her. But he's respectful to her, which he would be in the comic books as well. It was different, but it was fun. I enjoyed it. People really loved my portrayal of Jonah Hex from what I got from social media.

Johnathon is about to swing, as Jonah Hex

Henry Parke: I guess it's probably good and bad that you get that kind of feedback. That's something that traditionally actors in old Hollywood didn't get.

Johnathon Schaech: Exactly. One thing about social media is, we do something for the comic books, and there's a million people involved. It's a big fan base.

Henry Parke: People could say, technically it's not a Western, but Hawaiian or not, I think The Wind and the Reckoning is for all practical purposes a Western. I don't think it got nearly the attention it deserved. I thought it was a fascinating picture, and you gave a great performance in it.

Johnathon Schaech: Well, thank you for watching. I love that movie, John Fusco is my favorite writer.

Henry Parke: He's been very kind, helpful to me over the years. He's a great guy. Tell me a little about making The Wind and The Reckoning.

Johnathon Schaech in The Wind and the Reckoning 

Johnathon Schaech: Well, that was a COVID movie. I got the phone call that they wanted me to play that role, the marshal, and I was like, wow --  I mean, first off John Fusco! This is unbelievable. I call up Steve' Zahn (from That Thing You Do), saying, I have to fly out to Hawaii. I’ve got to go get a COVID deal. Do you know where I could go? And he's like, “You're kidding me. I'm going out to Hawaii. I'm just gonna film this thing at the Four Seasons.” It was White Lotus <laugh>. And so I'm going out. I'm not at the Four Seasons, on the big island. It turned out to be a retreat. They rented the whole place so that we could shoot the movie. And we had rats. So he was at the Four Seasons, I’m at this rat-infested resort! <laugh>. And everything was shut down. You couldn't even go to the beach in Hawaii.

Henry Parke: That's got to be torture.

Johnathon Schaech: It was, it was really in, but we were so remote. But you know, I really got close to the cast. Jason Scott Lee and his family was there. David Cunningham, who wrote the finale for Blue Ridge season two, he directed that. So there's a full circle right there. But it was great to film it. The scenery was just as beautiful. It's incredible. I said, we're shooting a Western in Hawaii. This is fantastic. It doesn't get any better.

Henry Parke:  You were talking about Jonah Hex, and that he’s an Eastwood kind of character. If you were making movies, westerns or anything else, in the 1930s, ’40, ‘50s those golden years, whose parts would you want?

Johnathon Schaech: Hmm, let's see. Spencer Tracy.

Henry Parke: I can see that.

Johnathon Schaech: Now I could, because I'm older now. Because he was always kind of like a man's man.  He was a little tortured too. He's something special, that guy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATRICK WAYNE AND ROBERT WOODS!

Wednesday, July 15^th was Western movie star Patrick Wayne’s 87^th birthday, and Sunday, July 19^th was Western movie star Robert Wood’s 90^th birthday! A couple of weeks ago Rob Word, of Rob Word’s a Word on Western fame, held a get-together luncheon at Celia’s Mexican Restaurant in Burbank, where we celebrated both of those important events!

Photo courtesy of Rob Word

There are a few gents in the photo whose names I don’t know, but I’ll update this as soon as I do. Front row l to r, Woody Wise, Robert Woods, Patrick Wayne, Robert Pine, Bruce Davison, Bill Burton. Back row, 2 men I don’t know, Bruce Scivally, C. Courtne Joyner, a stranger, Darby Hinton, Mitch Danton, Rob Word, a mystery man, and me – Henry Parke.

Patrick Wayne and Natalie Wood between scenes

shooting The Searchers

Here’s a link to my True West interview with Patrick Wayne:

https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/patrick-wayne-2/

Incidentally, that interview is featured in my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them, which is available from fine booksellers everywhere, including HERE. 

Robert Woods gave me my first movie-star interview for Henry’s Western Roundup 16 years ago. I’m reprinting it below.

While the mentioned Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee is, sadly, gone, Spudic’s Movie Empire, though no longer a brick-and-mortar store, is very much in business online: check out his Facebook page to learn more. And Robert Woods’ films have become much more available. A search of his name on Tubi lists six titles: My Name is Pecos, Pecos Cleans Up, Black Jack, 7 Guns for the MacGregors, The Belle Starr Story, and Six Bounty Killers for a Massacre.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE PECOS

Robert Woods at Spudic's Movie Empire

Photo by Henry C. Parke

An Interview With Spaghetti Western Star Robert Woods

A couple of Sundays ago, Spudic’s Movie Empire in Van Nuys played host to an American star of European Westerns, Robert Woods. During the 1960s and 1970s, he starred in fifty movies, at least half of them spaghetti westerns. The event was to celebrate the digitally re-mastered DVD release of THE GATLING GUN (1968), which kept firing behind us during our conversation.
Born in Colorado and raised at a ranch near the Continental Divide, it seems natural that he should want to be a cowboy actor, but that wasn’t his goal at the start. “I felt there was a world out there – I loved Colorado, loved the Rocky Mountains. But I always wanted to see far off lands. I had dreams about Paris, about the places I’d read about in books, in school. And so I joined the Navy during the Korean thing. When I came out I went to San Diego State, and I wasn’t thinking of becoming an actor at that time. I was studying in a little theater because it was quiet. And they were having readings for a play, VICTORIA REGINA, and I laughed, because they were pretty bad. And the director said, and I quote, ‘Are you gonna read?’ And I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Then shut the F up!’ And then I said, ‘Okay, I’m reading.’ So I went down and I read, and he loved me, and I got the lead in the play.”
That led to more plays and musicals. “I did West Side Story in San Diego, (and) they brought me to L.A. to test for the part of Tony in the film. But it turned out they really already had a Tony, and they were gathering people from all over the country as a publicity thing. I was pretty disappointed. But I did a lot of musical stuff. I played valve trumpet, I played jazz, I sang, I recorded for Fontana.”
He went from being a teaching major to a speech major, but the acting seed had been sown. “I had letters of recommendation (for people) in L.A., and thought I was going to set the world on fire. I ended up sleeping on somebody’s floor for a month, starving, and running out of money, and no gas for my car. So I said the hell with it, and went down to Central Casting, and got on line to be an extra. They sent me out to MGM, where I became George Hamilton’s stunt double for WHERE THE BOYS ARE (1960). There’s a scene in a (mermaid-themed) nightclub with a (big cement) conch shell, and I dive over it, (into the tank) where Barbara Nichols is swimming in two feet of water. So I did this little stunt, and that day (producer) Joe Levine was there, and he said, “You’re an actor!” And I said, “Well, no, I’m doubling George. I’m just an extra.” He says, “No! You’re an actor! Go stand over there by Chill Wills, I’ll give you a line.” It was easy as that (he snaps his fingers). All this time I’ve been sweating it out, wondering how I’m going to get a (S.A.G.) card without a film, I can’t get a film without a card, and it was over in a micro-second.”
Now he had a S.A.G. card, but the work wasn’t exactly pouring in. He was working as a singing waiter at the Chinese restaurant Flower Drum Song, “When some guy came in and offered me a part in a film, and he gave me a script. I went to read for the producer, and he was gay, and I didn’t understand any of that at the time. The script was called THE NUN AND THE SERGEANT (1962), and it was to be my first big break. And (when I understood the deal), I threw the script in his face. He said, ‘You’ll never work in this town again!’ It was one of those dramatic scenes. ”
He got a crash course in dealing with gay people when famous drag queen Lynne Carter hired him to be the straight-man in her act. “Nineteen weeks in (Greenwich) Village, right across the street from The Bon Soir, where Streisand was doing her act. I’d go across the street and see her; she’d come across and see me. It was a fun time. And Carter offered me to go on the road, offered me great money to go to Australia, but I didn’t want that image, so I said no.”
When he auditioned for Otto Preminger for THE CARDINAL (1963) casting director “Bill Barnes told me, ‘We really like you, but we don’t have the budget to send you over to play this priest. But if somehow you can find yourself in Italy, you’ve got the part.’ And I said, ‘Strangely enough, I’m going to be in Italy.’”
With his life savings, $450, in his pocket, and with time to kill before the summer and THE CARDINAL, he flew to Paris, where he made some money dubbing films. “And I’m sitting on the Champs Elysee, and a guy walks by me, I thought he was gay, and he says, ‘Are you a model?’ ‘No, I’m an actor.’ ‘Well, you should really try modeling. Here’s my card.’ So I stayed talking a little longer than I should, wound up getting back to the dubbing studio late, and the guy I was working for blew his cool. And I said, ‘What did I know, I didn’t want to be rude.’ I gave him his card. It was Helmut Newton. He said Newton was big: I have to do it. So I became a model – I was the highest paid male model in Paris for a year. You don’t ever talk about that in acting circles (laughs), but it was great money, and I got to go all over the world with Newton -- and he was married, he wasn’t gay. Kinky, but not gay.”
Robert never got to do THE CARDINAL. But he was modeling and doing theatre, “…when a guy came backstage with a contract and wanted me to do a western. I said, ‘no, thank you.’ I was doing theater and modeling, and the money he offered wasn’t that good. The next night he was back with a contract for five pictures. Well that was a whole lot better. So I went down to do my first film (1965’s PISTOLEROS DE ARIZONA – FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS ON ONE ACE in the U.S.) for (director) Alphonso Balcazar about two months later.”
He was in Madrid, waiting to begin his second western, sitting in an ice cream shop, “…and a guy says, ‘Man, you’re just right for the pilot in THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE. Go see (director) Ken Annakan.’ And I walked into his office, and he looked up and he said, ‘My God, you’re my pilot!’ I didn’t even have to read, it was just done. I signed a contract and was out the door. Two minutes later I get a call from the William Morris Agency, from David Niven Jr., to be my agent.”
He didn’t know whose pilot he was playing. “I walk on the set and there he is: Henry Fonda. He couldn’t have been more gregarious – what a nice man. We hit it off. He once told me I looked more like his son than his son. (laughs) We became life-long friends. My part was one week’s work, but I had a nine-month contract. I was in Madrid, and a man walks up to me on the street and asked me if I was an actor. I said I was doing BATTLE OF THE BULGE, and he said, ‘You’ve got to come over and do Geraldine Chaplin’s screen test.’ It was Roy Rizzotti, the right hand of David Lean at the time, and they were making DR. ZHIVAGO. And I said, ‘I can’t do that, because I can’t get out of the contract (with Warner Brothers).’ Hank Fonda was sitting with me, and he said, ‘Just be quiet about it. How long can it take?’ So I did. And I have a great story – I was sitting in the Hilton, with the cast of BATTLE OF THE BULGE, hardly anyone knew who the Hell I was anyway, because I was just the pilot, and there’s a lot of mingling, and (Rod) Steiger had just come in for DR. ZHIVAGO. And at the far end of the lobby the door opened and David Lean walked in. There was a hush over the crowd, and people whispered, ‘That’s David Lean! That’s David Lean!’ He walked straight to me, shook my hand, and thanked me for doing the test. And everyone says, ‘Who the Hell are you?’ And David Lean actually offered me something in (ZHIVAGO), but Warner Brothers wouldn’t let me out of that damned thing I was doing (BATTLE OF THE BULGE) – I mean, I was stuck in. I got paid well. There are a lot of people in the business that I liked, but I didn’t really work with. David Lean and Henry Fonda were, I think, the two most important people I worked with in my career.”
His interest in music was put to good use in at least one of his westerns. “One of them, STARBLACK (1966) I wrote the lyric and sang the theme. It was funny because I had just come in from England, from a recording gig, to do this movie, and they took me right over to this (recording) studio, and in two hours I sat down and wrote this stupid lyric, and sang the song, thinking, ‘They’re never gonna use this,’ and there it is, after forty years it’s still playing.” Ennio Morricone did the soundtrack for GUNS OF THE MACGREGGORS (1966), but it’s a little harder to say who did the music for Woods’ movie with the biggest cult following. “It’s strange, because the music for EL PURO (1969) was a combination of three composers: Morricone; Alessandro Alessandroni, who (officially) wrote the music -- he’s the one who wrote the original ‘whistle’ song for A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) -- and a guy whose name I can never remember. The three composers had an agreement between them to use each others’ material, so it’s a combination, a mélange of three composers. So on EL PURO we had (some of) the same soundtrack as A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS.”
Which were his best written scripts? “I like MY NAME IS PECOS (1966), (written by Adriano Bolzoni). BLACK JACK (1968) was a well-written film (by Luigi Ambrosini and Giuseppe Andreoli), and was my first touch with what was intended with spaghetti westerns. They had me way overacting is some scenes -- oh God, it was so hard. ‘Go, over the top, you’re laughing! Keep laughing! Keep laughing!’ Laugh forever? I can’t laugh forever. But the script, though, was excellent. Allen Bianquini wrote a script called HYPNOS (MASSACRE MANIA) (1967), a modern film that I really liked, about subliminal suggestion over the television.”
His favorite director was David Lean. As to the others, “I like (Franco) Giraldi a lot, great feel to 7 GUNS FOR THE MACGREGORS (1966). Paolo (Bianchini) I liked a lot, actually when I did GATLING GUN (1968). I chose Paolo (for director) because I liked HYPNOS. Alphonso Balcazar directed EL PURO – he was flexible. We sort of wrote the film around him, while he was directing it.”
One of the unusual aspects of doing movies in Europe in the 1960s was the international casts. “In the beginning it was all guide track, and you’d loop it later. In fact the first film I went down to do, I spoke a little bit of French, but not any Spanish, not since school, and I arrived there, and everyone was speaking their own language. Helmut Schmid was doing German, there were French guys, Italian guys, Spanish guys -- everybody spoke their own language. I had to learn the whole script because it was my first film, and I wanted to know exactly what this guy was saying -- I’m trying to react! I learned everything. It was mostly guide-tracks and looping, except in France, where they were allowed to shoot in nothing but French. I did a thing called THE MERCENARY AND CAPTAIN SINGRID (1968), for French Rank, shot it in Africa, and I had to speak classic French. Well, I speak argot, I don’t speak classic French, and it was like sixteen hours a page trying to get the dialogue down so I could perform it.”
Sometimes the number of productions Robert starred in made looping his own dialog impossible. “I did it as much as I could. 7 GUNS FOR THE MACGREGGORS was one where I really wanted to – it’s a Columbia Pictures release, it’s great, they send me a ticket to New York. But I did seven pictures that year, one right after the other, you can’t break away, and you can’t hold these guys up from releasing their product because I can’t dub it. I said, ‘Just find somebody good.’ And they didn’t. I was not pleased at all with the guy’s performance, but it’s a good film.”
He did two films back-to-back, co-starring John Ireland: “GATLING GUN (1968), where I played the lead,” and in the next picture, CHALLENGE OF THE McKENNAS (1970), he played the lead. He almost always played the hero, but in MCKENNAS he played such a villain that at one point he tries to rape his own sister. Did he like to play bad guys? “Well I liked it, but I wasn’t crazy about that film. I didn’t like (Leon) Klimovsky as a director. I own the American rights to that film, I never wanted it released here.”
But one thing he did like about the experience was working with John Ireland.
“John became my life-long friend. He opened a restaurant in Santa Barbara, and when I came back (to the U.S.) he threw this huge party for me. We became really close friends. In fact, two days before he died, I was up in Santa Barbara, and I said, ‘Come on, I’ve got a limousine, let’s go. We’re going to John Beck’s and see a screening.’ And he said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well.’ And he died two days later. He didn’t tell me he was dying! I would have stopped everything and just been there! He was great. I loved John, you know, he was nominated for an Academy Award for ALL THE KING’S MEN (1949).”
Which are his personal favorites among his westerns? “7 GUNS FOR THE MACGREGGORS, because it was a light comedy. It was violent, but it was light. The other one was THE GATLING GUN. And MY NAME IS PECOS, I really like that. It was an enormous success in all of these little third-world countries. I’d been doing those awful – and I mean awful – WHITE FANG (1974-1975) films in the Alps. And I just wanted to forget about that and get some sun. I went on a vacation to Senegal, and a customs officer asked me to come over, and I think, ‘I’m not hiding anything,’ and he asks, ‘Are you Pecos?’ Stores were named after Pecos, my guide was named Pecos! The diplomatic corps of Senegal invited me to parties, I mean, it made quite an impression – this whole country was so taken by this little film. It’s a dark film, but where the little guy wins, and I think that’s why it appeals to these third worlders.”
What are his favorite westerns that he’s not in? “THE WILD BUNCH (1969). Before that I guess my favorite western movie was VERA CRUZ (1954), with Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, and then I saw THE WILD BUNCH (1969), and I thought that was the best western I’d ever seen – it’s an authentic display of the west. You know, I grew up in the west, and some of the old guys I knew were there when people were shooting each other in the back. Jack Elam became a friend, and he was telling me about his grandfather, who was a Texas Ranger, and he used to hide behind doors and shoot ‘em in the back: that was his (method). And he said there was not any of this meeting guys face to face in the street, there was no such thing. The quick-draw, I don’t think ever existed, unless it was some kind of a contest.”
Would he want to do another western? “Yeah, probably, (if) we do it as a comedy. Burt Reynolds talked to me about doing a thing called ‘Spaghetti Western’, make it a comedy, make it a behind-the-scenes thing. Wake up in the morning in the bunkhouse, and the guys get up and each has a glass with his teeth in it. That kind of thing.”
And he has another movie in the works. “We’re starting a film called THE HITMAN’S BIBLE, the story of a decrepit old hitman – perfect casting – he’s popping pills all the time, but he won’t kill anybody unless they’ve sinned against God. He has to rationalize it – it’s a very cool script. It’s not done yet, it needs a little work, but the ideas are fantastic.”
GATLING GUN is available from Dorado Films Inc. Another film, SAVAGE GUNS, is in the 20 Movie Pack from Mill Creek Entertainment entitled MEAN GUNS. And at least a half dozen of his films can be rented, most or all VHS, at Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee.

...AND THAT'S A WRAP!

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