COMICS & COWBOYS LUNCHEON AT THE AUTRY!
July 16th’s Third-Wednesday-of-the-month
Cowboy Lunch at the Autry was great fun, and an eye-opener for many who, like
me, had little knowledge of the topic.
Rob Word’s theme this time was COMICS & COWBOYS, and the comics were
not the side-kick kind, but the full-color sort. The program opened with Maxine Hansen of Gene
Autry Entertainment paying tribute to actor Dick Jones, who had been under
personal contract to Gene, and starred in two series he produced, THE RANGE
RIDER and BUFFALO BILL JR. He was also
featured in many comics.
Among the artists discussed was Everett Kinstler,
now an official portrait artist to presidents and movie stars, who once drew
Zane Grey and Zorro comics.
Kinstler's Zorro
Rob Word and Mark Evanier
Mark Evanier, animation writer and book author, and a
guiding light of ComiCon, was a guest speaker.
He discussed working as an assistant to legendary comic artist Jack
Kirby, and gave an overview of the comic business in general. Among the things I learned: that while Dell comics put out many Western comic
series, often tied to movies and TV shows – the heyday of western comics and western
TV coincided – the work was actually done by an outfit called Western Publishing – the folks who do The Little Golden Books. Western
comics always were published under Dell
until 1962, when Western decided to do their own publishing, under the Gold Key name.
A Jack Kirby cover
Dan Spiegle, who would become famous for his
comic-book adaptations of Western TV shows, actually got a break when he didn’t get hired to draw a Bozo the
Clown strip. They told him his work was
too dark and hard-edged for the clown, but some bright guy realized it would be
just right for the Hopalong Cassidy strip they were starting; he drew it from
1949 until it was cancelled in 1955. He
worked on the MAVERICK and SUGARFOOT comic books, which were adapted directly
from episode scripts. He even went
on-set to sketch James Garner at work, a pleasure, since Garner was such a nice
guy. An issue with some actors, though
not Garner, was that actors had art approval on their drawings, and often
expected to be made more attractive than they really were.
Spiegle's Maverick
Sergio Aragones, the celebrated MAD MAGAZINE artist
for more than half a century, was the next guest. A native of Mexico, his father had worked in
Mexican movies, and Sergio told about visiting the set of THE BEAST OF HOLLOW
MOUNTAIN, and watching Guy Madison trying to play scenes co-starring a ball on
the end of a stick – which would later be replaced by a dinosaur.
Sergio Aragones' Bat Lash
Sergio would soon create the Western comic BAT
LASH. With his English not so strong at
the time – he jokes that it’s still
not so great – he tried to tell the stories as visually as possible, with Denny
O’Neil writing the words.
Sergio Aragones with a 'Bat Lash' page
Switching to European comics, actor Martin Kove told
about how, during his CAGNEY & LACEY days, he almost got to star in the film version of Lieutenant Blueberry which, despite the sound of its title, was a
serious and hugely popular adult Western comic-book out of France. As so often happens, the script that was
developed had nothing to do with the comic strip, and the project died in the
dust.
Martin Kove with a painting of Lieutenant Blueberry
The last guest speaker was Olympic athlete and movie
stuntman Dean Smith, who was signing his autobiography, COWBOY STUNTMAN. He credits James Garner for starting him on
his 55 year career as a stuntman, and recalled being hired to double Strother
Martin in the John Wayne film MCCLINTOCK, and ending up doubling Maureen O’Hara
as well!
Dean Smith signing his autobiography
It was a great event, a packed house, including a
number of well-known stuntmen, and western stars L.Q. Jones and Morgan
Woodward. On August 20th, the
theme of the Cowboy Lunch will be Gene’s Autry’s old headquarters, Melody
Ranch. Be there or be square!
Morgan Woodward, L.Q. Jones & Martin Kove
Looking over this article, it strikes me how often
James Garner’s name came up at this event, just a couple of weeks before he
died. I’ve enjoyed his work since I was
a kid, on MAVERICK, ROCKFORD, and everything else I saw him do. There has been so much written about Garner
the man and Garner the actor that I really don’t have anything to say that hasn’t
been said much better by the people who actually knew and worked with him. Tom Sellick, who early in his career worked
with Garner on ROCKFORD FILES always said that no one wore their stardom better
than Garner. We’ll all miss him.
‘BOUND FOR GLORY’ AUGUST 9TH AT THE AUTRY
As part of their ‘What is a Western?’ series, and in
conjunction with their ROUTE 66 exhibition, the Autry will present ‘BOUND FOR GLORY’,
starring David Carradine as folk-singer and political activist Woody
Guthrie. Directed by Hal Ashby, scripted
by Robert Getchell from Guthrie’s autobiography, the film won the Best
Cinematography Oscar for Haskell Wexler, and Best Musical Score for Leonard
Rosenman. The film, free with museum
admission, screens in the Wells Fargo Theatre at 1:30, and will be introduced
by Jeffrey Richardson, Gamble Curator of Western History, Popular Culture, and
Firearms.
I SPY – The Complete Series – A Review
The success of the James Bond films, based on the
Ian Fleming novels, created a vogue for spy TV series, commencing with THE MAN
FROM U.N.C.L.E. and SECRET AGENT in 1964, I SPY, THE AVENGERS (it really
started in ’61 but wasn’t shown in the U.S. until ’64), the spoof GET SMART and
the western version WILD WILD WEST in 1965, and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE in
1966. They were all delightful in their
time, but in my opinion, I SPY has aged better than the others, so it’s great
news that Timeless Media has released
the entire three-season, 82 episode run on DVD as I SPY – THE COMPLETE SERIES.
I SPY seemed more grounded in reality than the
competition. While most of the other spy
series aped the Bond films’ fondness for gimmickry – walkie-talkies hidden in
pens (“Open channel D”), shoe-phones, and cameras, radios, hats and
what-have-yous that converted into guns, Robert Culp as Kelly Robinson, and
Bill Cosby as Alexander Scott, had guns that looked like guns, and that killed
people when nothing else was going to work.
While most other shows pitted their agents against a succession of
hard-to-distinguish Fu Manchu/Moriarty/Dr. No-like criminal masterminds, or a
seemingly endless collection of neo-Nazi organizations, Robinson and Scott were
usually up against the Soviet Union, or other recognizable and seemingly real
enemies.
And while the other shows made often obvious studio
back-lots stand in for foreign countries, I SPY went all over the world for
real. Episodes were shot in Hong Kong,
Japan, Turkey, Mexico and much of Latin America – and that’s just in season
one! Their cover was ingenious, and made all of the
travel logical. Kelly, a former Princeton
law student, was a top-seeded tennis pro, traveling the world to play in
international tournaments. Alexander was
his trainer, as well as a Rhodes Scholar.
(In a remarkable example of life imitating art, Eugene Fodor, one of the
great travel-writers, would reveal that since 1936 he had been using his
travel-writing as a cover for his secret work for the OSS and CIA.)
Famous for the amusing banter between the leads, the
characters took themselves lightly, but their work seriously, often following
orders they did not agree with or fully understand, when necessary. One of
the crucial differences between I SPY and the other espionage shows is that
while the others were plot -- or ‘mission’ – driven, I SPY was largely
character-driven. Should an arrogant
black American athlete who’d defected to Russia, and now wanted to come back,
be helped, or was he more trouble than he was worth? Should one of Kelly’s mentors in spying, now considered
a double agent, be killed without a hearing?
Will an incompetent senior agent doom Scotty and Alexander’s mission to
failure? In one of my favorites, the
agents must safeguard scientist Boris Karloff, who has created a formula of
international importance, but whose ancient brain keeps drifting off to his
obsession with Don Quixote. In many
ways, the series resembles an international spy version of classic ‘guys on the
road’ series ROUTE 66.
with Boris Karloff
The series was created and produced by writing
partners Martin S. Fine and David Freidkin, who had worked together on series
like THE VIRGINIAN and THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR. The Executive Producer was Sheldon Leonard,
who started out as an actor, his unmistakable Brooklyn accent making him famous
as the Racing Tout on Jack Benny’s radio show.
He’s probably best-remembered as Nick the impatient bartender in IT’S A
WONDERFUL LIFE: “We serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk
fast. And we don’t need any characters
around to give the joint atmosphere.” He’d already had tremendous success as a TV
producer, with comedies like MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY, THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, THE
ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and GOMER PYLE, U.S.M.C., when he decided to switch to drama
with I SPY. He also shook up the
industry by casting Bill Cosby – the first time an African American had ever
been cast as a lead in a TV series.
Leonard also went along on the foreign sojourns, directing
much of the on-location footage: the exteriors were shot all around the globe,
while the generic interiors were shot in L.A.
The tone of the series was freewheeling and hard to pigeonhole; Sheldon
Leonard was EMMY-nominated for Best Director in a Drama Series in the first
season, and next year the prolific Earl Bellamy (who also directed my first film, SPEEDTRAP) was nominated
for Best Director in a Comedy Series.
The show’s accolades were many. Eartha Kitt won an EMMY for her guest performance. Robert Culp and Bill Cosby were both nominated
for Best Actor every year the series was on, and ironically, all three years,
Culp lost to his best friend, Cosby.
When Culp died unexpectedly in 2010, Cosby told Greg Braxton of the L.A.
Times that they were so close, they practically had their own language. “Bob was the
actor and I was the entertainer. The day after each of those awards, I went to
work with a feeling of guilt and darn near embarrassment. As soon as Bob
appeared at work, he would come and say, ‘How you feeling?’ I said, ‘OK.’ The
next thing I knew, I had forgotten all about the Emmy.”
Culp was active behind the scenes
as well. He directed one episode, and
one of the seven he wrote – more than any single author except the show’s
creators – was Emmy-nominated. The guest
casts were full of big stars and familiar character actors. Because so many shows were set in Asia, every
Asian actor who was ever in a CHARLIE CHAN movie, or who would soon be in
HAWAII FIVE-0 was represented. So were
much of the soon-to-be casts of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and STAR TREK.
I know I SPY is an odd series to
review in The Round-up, even though Bill Cosby starred in MAN AND BOY, and Culp
had a long career in the western genre, from starring in the series TRACKDOWN, and
features like HANNIE CAULDER, to his work and close friendship with Sam
Peckinpah. But sometimes you need to ‘cleanse
the pallet’ with a non-Western, and I SPY – THE COMPLETE SERIES is a terrific
way to do it.
EDITH HEAD FILM SERIES STARTS AUG 8TH AT
UCLA!
Edith Head, the Hollywood costume designer with more
than 400 movies to her credit, will be th subject of a retrospective of her
work entitled WHAT I REALLY DO IS MAGIC: EDITH HEAD AND HOLLYWOOD COSTUME
DESIGN, from August 8th through September 27th at The
Billy Wilder Theatre. Among the many
Westerns she designed costumes for were THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN,
TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, CHUKA, EL
DORADO, THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL, ROUSTABOUT, THE MAN WHO
SHOT LIBERY VALANCE, HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS, THE LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL, THE
TIN STAR, GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, all the way back to THE TEXAS RANGERS in
1936.
While none of her Westerns are
being screened, some terrific non-westerns are, including SUNSET BLVD., THE
LADY EVE, SHE DONE HIM WRONG, and others, many with guest speakers. Friday night’s opening program will feature
DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID, introduced by director Carl Reiner and costume
designer Deborah Nadoolman. Learn more
here: http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2014-08-08/what-i-really-do-magic-edith-head-and-hollywood-costume-design
THAT’S A WRAP!
I’m finishing the Round-up around nine tonight –
three hours earlier than usual – to prepare for my big adventure of the week: acting! I’ll have a small bit in a
turn-of-the-20th-century western called BOONVILLE REDEMPTION – the picture
shows me in costume (my dog, Dodger, isn’t in he movie). I’ll be playing a man whose leg gets busted
in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, so go ahead and tell me to break a
leg! I’ll have much more about this
movie soon in the Round-up!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright August 2014 by Henry
C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
Break a leg amigo!
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