Richard Dreyfuss Goes West to Yellowstone City!

His thoughts on Murder at Yellowstone City, his other Westerns, American Films in General, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in Particular

By Henry C. Parke

Richard Dreyfuss, an Oscar winner for The Goodbye Girl, beloved for Jaws, American Graffiti, Close Encounters and so many more, has finally made a Western movie.  It’s about time: after all, the American history enthusiast is a Civil War reenactor.  “Why wouldn't I be? When you realize how heavy their packs were, and what they did with all that weight on them, it's astounding. We made America to build a different and better country than any other country had ever tried. I have a great deal of pride, however badly we might have done it. I call it an imperfect miracle.”

Isaiah Mustafa and Richard Dreyfuss

In Murder at Yellowstone City, a forlorn former goldrush town in Montana gets a sudden influx of hope when a man dynamites the old mine, and creates a new gold strike!  Then a freed slave (Isaiah Mustafa) arrives in town just as the gold striker turns up dead.  Gabriel Byrne is the law, Thomas Jane is the pastor, and Anna Camp is his wife. Richard Dreyfuss is the Shakespeare-quoting saloon proprietor. Produced by RLJE Films, distributed by AMC, Murder at Yellowstone City is available on AMC+, for rent or sale through Prime, and on DVD and Bluray.  “What appealed to me about the film was that it was a kind of metaphor for America,” Dreyfuss explains. “About people who had come to America, who were being given a second chance.”  It’s actually Dreyfuss’ third chance at a Western; the first two were for television.

   

Svetlana and Richard Dreyfuss on the red carpet

The Big Valley episode, Boy into Man, was a star-turn for young Dreyfuss as a boy trying to protect his younger siblings when his mother disappears.  And in addition to the Big Valley stars, his mother was Diane Ladd, and he was directed by Casablanca star Paul Henreid.  “I worked with Barbara Stanwyck, and that's no small thing: she's part of my innermost fantasy of what it's like to be a movie star. And when I got to work the first morning, she had been there since 4:00 AM, and the crew made it crystal clear to me that they were Missy's crew and they were proud of it. And they didn't want to hear any criticism of Missy. And I had seen every film she'd ever made. So my tongue cloved to the roof of my mouth for most of the time that I was on that show.”

Richard Dreyfuss, Lee Majors, Darby Hinton 

and Margot Jane on The Big Valley

“I walked in and there was Paul Henreid, and I said, ‘Oh my God, it's an honor to meet you, Mr. Henreid.’ And he then asked the question, which is always answered with the actor's oath. The question was, do you know how to ride a horse? And I said, ‘I was raised on a ranch outside of Las Vegas: of course I do!’” Actually, he grew up in Brooklyn. 

There was a scene where Dreyfuss had to drive away in a buckboard with his younger brother and sister beside him.  On the day of the shoot, Dreyfuss pulled the wrangler aside, “And I said, ‘Excuse me, how do you do it?’ And he went, ‘Oh my God, this is really hard, and you've got two little kids sitting next to you on this wagon.’  So I was terrified, and I put the two kids on the buckboard and they yelled, Action!”

Darby Hinton, the boy in the wagon, remembers, “He only had to go three or four feet, pull up, and stop.  But when they said action, he did the only thing he’d seen in the Westerns.  He yelled “Yee-haw!” and they took off!” 

Dreyfuss recalls ruefully, “And away they ran!  Cut! Cut! Cut! I was out of control,” he remembers with a laugh.  “They were afraid that I was gonna kill these kids.”  The wranglers eventually caught up with the wagon, got control of the horse, and brought them back.” Henreid was furious with me. And he said, ‘Do you know why you got this part from me?’ I said, ‘I did a good reading?’ And he said, ‘No!  It is because you said it is an honor to meet you Mr. Henreid!’”

Dreyfuss got through the show somehow, “And at the end of the show, Barbara Stanwyck came up to me and she said, "You know, you're the best actor that's ever guested on this show." And walked away. And I believed her, and I did something I'd never done before, or since. I invited my family and my friends to watch it with me. And I realized, as we all were watching, that what Barbara Stanwyck had done was to say to herself, ‘If I don't say something nice to this kid, he's gonna blow his brains out because he's such a terrible actor.’ So she said this nice thing, and I watched that performance, and I wanted to chop my tongue off. But it certainly did provoke me into being better.

“I did the first Jewish Gunsmoke.” “This Golden Land” won the Mass Media Award from The National Conference of Christians and Jews.  Hal Sitowitz’ script was nominated for a Writers Guild award for Best Episodic Drama. Dreyfuss plays a Russian-born Jewish son who is furious with his father for refusing to bring charges against the three cowboys who killed his brother. Here he gets to ride horses and fire shotguns. It felt good to play a Jewish character in a western, “in the sense that, yeah, I'm Jewish and I like being Jewish. And so it was an opportunity to kind of flaunt my being Jewish. But I didn't think it was a particularly subtle, well-written script.”

Growing up, Westerns were not Richard Dreyfuss’ primary focus. “I was a fan of movies, sound American films. What my daughter disdainfully calls ‘black and whites’. I had probably seen every movie ever made by an American studio between 1931 and ’60, I knew everything about everyone. I used to set my alarm for three o'clock in the morning and watch A Guy Named Joe with Spencer Tracy. And I would sit this close to the TV so I could keep it quiet, but my mother would inevitably wake up and come down the hall looking very much like the Wreck of the Hesperus. She would say, ‘What are you doing?’ And I would say, ‘Spencer Tracy.’ And she said, ‘I'll get some cheese.’ And we would sit there together and watch Tracy, and [Charles] Laughton movies, and wow: they do not make them the way they used to.

“You know the story about when the Germans occupied Paris? They said to the film theater owners, we’ll give you a week to play anything you want. And then the German films will come in. And every theater in Paris played Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And at the end of the occupation, every theater in Paris again played Mr. Smith. You know why and I know why.  I once was the keynote speaker to a room of about a thousand people, and Jimmy Stewart. And I described Jimmy Stewart as a metaphor for America, that he was the perfectly innocent American before the war. And I was specific about saying, in Mr. Smith, there's this scene when he meets Claude Rain's daughter. And he's so nervous, he keeps dropping his hat. It's hysterical. And then he went to war, a very real war. His war was from the sky. And when he came back, he never made another innocent American film again. And he never made a film that blamed the Indians for everything. He was a complicated guy. At the end of that luncheon, I was on my way out, and his daughters ran up to me and said, our dad can't talk to you right now because he's crying. But he wanted you to know that he never knew that anyone had ever watched him that closely. And I thought, God, this guy's been a star since 1934. And he didn't know that people watched him that closely.”

AND THAT'S A WRAP!

I hope to see many of you good folks starting this Thursday at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood! It has the best Western representation in years, beginning at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, with the premiere of the restoration of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo! And yes, the lovely star Angie Dickinson will be there! They'll also be showing the great noir Western Blood on the Moon, the great musical Western 7 Brides for 7 Brothers -- Russ Tamblyn will be there (!), plus the great silent Western Clash of the Wolves, plus The Wild Bunch, and Treasure of the Sierra Madre!

And the following weekend, it's the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival! It's a wonderful free event -- if you'd like to attend, go HERE for the official website. And be sure to visit the Buckaroo Book Shop at the Festival, where you can meet your favorite Western authors, and hear their presentations.  Click the  Rendezvous with a Writer Facebook Page link to get the details!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright April 2023 by Henry C. Parke. All Rights Reserved

  

HENRY’S WESTERN ROUND-UP IS BACK! ‘THE COWBOYS’ 50TH ANNI CELEBRATION AT THE AUTRY! PIONEERTOWN FILM FESTIVAL! SAN FERNANDO VALLEY MOVIE HISTORY AT VALLEY RELICS! INSP DUKE DAYS OF SUMMER CONTINUES! AND MORE!

 

CELEBRATE ‘THE COWBOYS’ WITH ‘A WORD ON WESTERNS’ TUESDAY AT THE AUTRY!

It’s been over two years since Western historian, master interviewer and host Rob Word has held a live A Word on Westerns event at The Autry!  And he returns right on time this Tuesday, May 17^th, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the classic John Wayne Western, The Cowboys.   Western fans know that May is the month of the Duke’s birth, and Rob has always found a new Wayne theme for the Word on Westerns celebration, but he’ll have a hard time topping this one.  For anyone who doesn’t know the film, when Wayne’s ranch-hands run off after a gold strike, the only way he can bring his herd to market is to hire a dozen school-boys for his cattle-drive.  Few boys, or men who once were be boys, have ever seen the film and not ached to be a part of it.

Cowboys stars scheduled to attend include:  Robert Carradine, who plays Slim; Nicolas Beauvy, who plays Dan, the kid with glasses that Bruce Dern terrorizes; Alfred Barker Jr., who plays Fats; Steve Benedict, who plays Steve; Stephen R. Hudis, who plays Charlie Schwartz; and Sean Kelly, who plays Stuttering Bob.  A Martinez, who plays the outsider cowboy Cimarron, planned to attend, Word explains, “But he got a job in Vancouver, and he said, ‘I’m really anxious to get back to work.’ The COVID has been tough for everybody. So he came to the house and we shot an interview,” part of which will be shown at the event. 

And don’t think Rob has taken the last two years off.  With no live events, he became even more committed to posting weekly videos on his Word on Westerns YouTube page, interviewing so many Western filmmakers from both sides of the camera.  And all through COVID, “we've never missed a Sunday, and it's been over a hundred shows now.  I'm using more clips and more stills. It takes 30 to 40 hours a week, every week. There is no break, there is no vacation.”

And the fans are appreciative.  His 9 Stars Over 90 Share Hollywood Secrets has been watched more than 279,000 times since posted.  Among his many great ‘gets’, Rob has recently posted an interview with the great actor – and villain of The Comancheros – Nehemiah Persoff, “and then he passed away in April. But I'm so lucky to not only have talked to him, because he was a wealth of wonderful memories, but he got to see the episode. He’d written his autobiography, and at the end of the Zoom, he says, ‘Hold that book up one more time!’ And so I held it up.  Then he calls and says, ‘I sold 150 copies that day!’  He was just thrilled. I'm so glad that he saw that.”

The celebration of The Cowboys will be Tuesday, May 17^th, at The Autry, in the Wells Fargo Theatre.  Doors open at 10:30, and the program begins at 11 a.m.  I hope to see you there!

Here’s a link to the Nehemiah Persoff interview, which will lead you to over 100 more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLaT2UzNocc

PIONEERTOWN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL May 27^th - May 29^th!

The movie town located in the San Bernadino Desert, where hundreds of Western films and TV episodes were shot, will play host to the Pioneertown International Film Festival from Friday May 27^th through Sunday May 29^th.  The first of what is planned as an annual event, it was an unavoidably long time in the making.  “It's been about five years since we started this idea,” festival founder Julian Pinder recalls.  “We did all kinds of legwork, launched a website and announced the festival; and about a month later, suddenly the whole world was shut down. We're really happy that we survived COVID.”

Back in 1946, Western movie villain Dick Curtis, Roy Rogers, and the band Sons of the Pioneers pooled their resources and bought the 32,000 acres of desert that started out to be the movie town of Rogersville, before it was decided to name the ranch after the band.  Unlike other movie towns, this one was built with not just facades, but practical buildings, and real motel accommodations, so crews could actually live there during production rather than commuting.  Hopalong Cassidy wing-man Russell Hayden joined in, and soon he was shooting the Judge Roy Bean series, Gene Autry was shooting The Gene Autry Show, and Duncan Reynaldo and Leo Carrillo were filming The Cisco Kid on the lot.

Nearly 70 years later, the joint is once again jumping, and featuring a remarkably eclectic mix of Western films and entertainments.  Events will be happening at five venues: The Desert Willow Ranch, The Historic Soundstage, Pioneertown Motel, Historic Red Dog Saloon, and the Super X Ranch.  Among the films being screened are a double bill of “Acid Westerns” directed by Monte Hellman and starring Jack Nicholson, and presented by their daughters; Buck and the Preacher, starring and directed by Sidney Poitier and co-starring Harry Belafonte; the premiere of a documentary about the Durango Kid films; and From Dusk Till Dawn, introduced by producer and special effects creator Robert Kurtzman. 

Pinder notes, “The traditional classic westerns obviously were made to be seen on a big screen.  We really wanted to reintroduce folks to these great classics like they should be seen. So we partnered with Paramount to screen some of their recently restored westerns.”

There are plenty of new films as well.  “Inglorious Serfs is a Ukrainian Western that was made in the last couple years. And the director, because of the war he's been exiled in the U.S., so he's able to come.”  There will even be the premiere of the much-anticipated The Last Manhunt, produced by Jason Momoa.  Inspired by the same events that were the basis of Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, this version is based on the oral history of the Chemehuevi tribe and, Pinder notes, “The Last Manhunt was shot actually all around Pioneertown.” 

And in a wonderful sort of homecoming, there will be a performance by the current Sons of the Pioneers, fronted by Roy’s son Dusty Rogers, and peopled by sons of the sons.  And if that isn’t your musical taste, there will also be a performance by The Dandy Warhols.

For tickets and information, go here:  https://www.pioneertownfilmfest.com/screenings-venues

 

VALLEY RELICS MUSEUM PRESENTS MOVIE HISTORY OF THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY MAY 28TH

On Saturday, May 28^th, from 4 ‘til 6 p.m., Hollywood Film Historian Dennis R. Liff will share a Powerpoint Presentation about the movie-making history of the San Fernando Valley.  Joining him will be special guest Darby Hinton, a busy and talented actor, and so well-remembered for playing son to Fess Parker on Daniel Boone.   To learn more, go here: valleyrelicsmuseum.org

INSP’S ‘DUKE DAYS OF MAY’ CONTINUES!

I hope you’ve been enjoying the Duke Days of May on INSP, but if you’re a little late to the party, you happily have two more weekends left in May, including Memorial Day Weekend, and 14 more John Wayne movies to watch on INSP.   And there are quizzes and contests going on.  Check out their Facebook page for details!

ONE MORE THING…

Obviously, it’s been a long time since I wrote a new Round-up – last July, to be specific.  This has caused some readers to ask questions like, “Hey Henry, did you fall off a cliff or something?”  Happily, no.  The fact is, in addition to writing the Round-up, I’ve been the Western Film & TV Editor for True West magazine for about seven years, and starting this past September, the INSP Channel hired me to write regular articles for their blog.  So, while I haven’t been writing the Round-up much, I’ve been writing about Westerns elsewhere. 

I’m going to be updating this Round-up post next week, and I’m going to add links to all of the articles I’ve written for True West, and INSP in the last six months or so, as well as links to the Writer’s Block podcasts, where I do an update on the Western film biz on the first Thursday of every month.

Happy Trails!

Henry

All Original Content Copyright May 2022 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

THE FESS PARKER ISSUE! DARBY HINTON – ISRAEL BOONE – INTERVIEWED, PLUS ‘DANIEL BOONE’ SEASON ONE, ‘CLIMB AN ANGRY MOUNTAIN’ REVIEWED!

DANIEL BOONE – SEASON ONE – A DVD Review

One of the true pleasures of home video viewing is discovering a hidden treasure-trove from a series you thought you knew completely.  Fess Parker, fresh from his success playing Davy Crocket on Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, starred as DANIEL BOONE for six TV seasons, from 1964 to 1970.   There were 165 episodes in all, and you can catch one daily on INSP.   But you can’t catch the first season – no one airs it because it was in black and white!  Now that entire first season is available from TIMELESS VIDEO, and it’s not only entertaining, it’s something of a revelation.  

Just as the black and white GUNSMOKEs are a different animal from their color descendants, these early BOONEs, while as warm as the later tales, are tougher, more historically based adventures.

While most Western series and movies center around the post-Civil War era, the real Daniel Boone lived from 1734 to 1820, and that’s the time period the plots are drawn from.  These stories have the novelty of an earlier time, when relations with different tribes varied, and where the English and the French were still involved.   In the pilot episode KEN-TUK-E, Daniel is sent by General Washington to build a fort, soon to be known as Boonesborough, in the Kentucky Territory (not yet a state), located to hopefully prevent several Indian tribes from joining forces  with each other, and with the British.  Here he rescues and befriends Mingo (Ed Ames), an Oxford-educated Cherokee half-breed who will be Dan’l’s closest friend throughout the series.  (While I always thought the Oxford business was pretty random, I suspect the idea was to have an Indian character that didn’t speak like Tonto.)  

At the end of the pilot, Dan’l is joined by his family; his wife Rebecca Boone (beautiful Patricia Blair), daughter Jemima (Veronica Cartwright) and son Israel (Darby Hinton).  It was scripted by the brilliant Borden Chase, who wrote WINCHESTER ’73 (1950), and was Oscar-nominated for adapting RED RIVER (1948) from his own short story. It was directed by George Marshall, one of the all-time great studio directors, who started out making Westerns with Harry Carey Sr. in 1916!  A master of Westerns, comedies, and noirs, he directed some of the best work of Hope and Crosby, Martin and Lewis, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, and directed both James Stewart and Audie Murphy as Destry.  His skill at combining good-natured humor with serious danger was ideal for Fess Parker’s personality and talent.  With the pilot, Marshall and Chase set the adventurous tone for the series – and they set the bar high. 

The second episode concerns a white girl, stolen by one tribe as a child, rescued by another tribe later on.  In what world does she truly belong?  In succeeding episodes Daniel deals with a Welsh family trying to escape indentured servitude, an accusation of murder against Mingo, a French river pirate who was once a friend, a seemingly minor injury that gets infected, leaving daughter Jemima to have to protect her father against outlaws.  There is a powerful sense of home just under the surface, which makes the adventures of the Boone kids that much more compelling.  One of my personal favorites is the Val Lewton-like, atmospheric DAUGHTER OF THE DEVIL, which was broadcast in April, but is ideal around Halloween. 

Albert Salmi with Fess

The talented Albert Salmi plays Yadkin, Boone’s often blustery right hand aside from Mingo, but only in the first season.  Dal McKennon, who runs the fort store, a very busy voice-actor in cartoons, was in the show from the first season to the last.  So were Patricia Blair and Darby Hinton, but Veronica Cartwright only lasted a few episodes into season two, and another brother didn’t survive the pilot – read my interview with Darby to find out why.      

Interestingly, while Ed Ames was in until the last season or two, Mingo changes quite a bit.  In season one he is surprisingly, and cheerfully, bloodthirsty, always eager to slay one or many Shawnee, enemies.  And his weapon of choice is a bullwhip!

The set from TIMELESS MEDIA/SHOUT FACTORY contains all 29 hour-long episodes from season one, as well interviews with Darby Hinton, Veronica Cartwright, Ed Ames, and the late great man himself, Fess Parker.  Of particular fun are the kids’ memories of working with animals on the show, especially bears, panthers, and Israel’s pet goose, Hannibal.  The set is available exclusively from Walmart, either in-store or HERE.

SON OF DAN’L – A CONVERSATION WITH DARBY HINTON

Fess and Darby

Looking at the muscular, handsome bearded man who plays George Donner on The Weather Channel’s THE DONNER PARTY, and who portrays Texas’ first president in the blockbuster mini-series TEXAS RISING, it’s hard to reconcile the fact that said man was once a tow-headed sprite named Israel on DANIEL BOONE, back in the 1960s.  But they’re both Darby Hinton, an actor before he was a year old, and an international TV star before he was 7. 

When I made contact with Darby, to discuss Fess Parker, the series, and his career since, he was in the midst of putting together an awards banquet.  I asked him who it was for.

DARBY:  It’s called Looking Ahead.  It’s an organization I’ve been involved with since the beginning – over a dozen years.  It looks out for young performers in the business.  We make a nice little community; we take them down to community service, and take them paint-balling.  Child actors can be very isolated, and feel left apart, so this is an organization that tries to do things for them to make them feel better, and then we look ahead and see what they might want to do after acting.

HENRY:  That’s a terrific cause, because as you say, child actors do get very isolated, and it’s not a kind business when they get a little older. 

DARBY:  I know, because I’ve lost quite a few friends, so that’s why I’ve gotten involved, and glad to do it.

HENRY: I talked to Paul Peterson (note: Jeff Stone on THE DONNA REED SHOW) about his organization, A Minor Consideration, about similar concerns.

DARBY:  I’ve been a member of that for a long time.  As a matter of fact, Paul Peterson will be at my table for the awards on Thursday night, along with Tony Dow (note: Wally Cleaver on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER) and some other fun people.  

Darby today

HENRY: What was the earliest show you remember doing?

DARBY: I started when I was six months old.  The earliest one that really stands out was a MR. ED (1963) I did, because I remember watching the show, and I was a little disappointed to learn how they made Mr. Ed talk (note: pulling a nylon string under Ed’s lip made him appear to talk).   I remember when I did BROTHERS GRIMM (1962), they had a fake snow-machine, and they kept saying, “Don’t look up at the snow.”  So of course I would look up at the snow.  And I would have to keep going to the nurse because I would have these plastic pieces of snowflake stuck in my eye.  (LAUGHS)  So I guess it’s those painful things that stick out. 

HENRY:  Before DANIEL BOONE, you did a couple of episodes of Western series, WAGON TRAIN and BIG VALLEY.  Were you a fan of the genre as a kid?

DARBY:  Oh sure, I still am.  I think it’s great; I love being a cowboy.

HENRY: Do you remember how you got the part of Israel Boone?

DARBY: Yeah.  My mom came and picked me up, said “Come on, we’ve got an interview at Fox.  It’s for a movie.”  And she dressed me up in lederhosen and knee-high socks, and all the way to 20^th she had me singing ‘Edelweiss’, because it was for THE SOUND OF MUSIC.  In the original (story) the youngest one was a boy, and that was what they were casting.  And my mom, God bless her, was always late to everything.  We were late to the interview, we got to the casting building, and she said, “Quick, go run in there!   They’ll be waiting.  I’ll park the car and I’ll come right in.”  I ran in; saw a line of kids, so I jumped in that line.  I saw the secretary, and she saw me, and she must have cracked up.  All of a sudden she took me to the front of the line, into a room full of adults.  “I think you might want to see this guy.”  And that was it.  Fess was in there.  They didn’t really even have a part for me.  I had an older brother called Israel Boone, and they wrote a part for me for the pilot, called Nathan Boone.  I came out of there, my mom saw me in the hall, and was upset.  “What are you doing?  They were just looking for you!”  I said, “I don’t know, but whatever’s in there, I just got that!”  And that’s how I got the DANIEL BOONE SHOW.  I’m sure I made a sight in lederhosen.  

HENRY:  What happened to your older brother?  I don’t remember him.

Fess, Darby, Veronica Cartwright, Patricia Blair

DARBY:  It’s really funny.  Now thanks to DVDs you can see all this.  If you watch the pilot, the last shot, Daniel’s walking out of the fort with his family, he’s got two kids (Israel and Jemima) in tow.  But in the very beginning, there’s two boys (and the girl).  George Marshall was the director – he was one of those old-time directors who yelled and screamed at everybody.  I liked him; we got along great.  Anyway, he got to like me, and halfway through it he added a scene to the pilot, where a flaming arrow goes into a powder-keg, and I run out, grab the flaming arrow, pull it out, stomp on it, put the fire out, run back to Becky, who goes, “Awww!”  They saw that in dailies and said, “We don’t need the older one.  The little one seems able to handle all this stuff.  Let’s just go with him.”  So right in the middle of the pilot, Daniel went from having two sons to having one son.

HENRY: You were certainly involved in a lot of action.  Was that a plus or a minus?

DARBY:  Loved it!  Are you kidding?  That’s all the fun of it.  I remember when I did that BIG VALLEY (BOY INTO MAN 1967) you were talking about, Richard Dreyfus was my older brother.  They had asked him, can you drive a team of horses?  He said, “Oh sure I can.  No problem.”  (LAUGHS) He was a New York actor just out here: he didn’t know which end of the horse to feed.  We got on the set to do the scene, we’re on the wagon.  There was a little girl between us, playing my sister, and I was on the outside.  Ricky had the reins, and when they said ‘action’, he only had to go a three or four feet, pull up, and stop.  But when they said action, he did the only thing he’d seen in the Westerns.  He yelled “Yee-haw!” and they took off!  That was quite a stunt scene, even though it wasn’t supposed to be.

HENRY: After the first season, the show went from black and white to color.

DARBY: I remember everyone as very excited about it.  They knew it was a real tip of the hat by NBC because we were one of their first to go to ‘living color.’

HENRY: How old were you when the show started?

DARBY: For that pilot I was five and a half.  By the time we started shooting the full lot of thirteen, I had just turned six.

HENRY: Did you attend school at the studio?

DARBY:  Three hours a day with my tutor.  It was interesting.  You know, Veronica (Cartwright) was my sister for a couple of years, so I had her.  But then she left the show, and it was just me and any young kid guest stars.  So it was good one-on-one education, but I kind of missed the sports, being with the kids, playing on a playground and having that kind of fun.

HENRY:  So you weren’t with a group of kids from other shows or movies.

DARBY: We filmed out at Sunset and Western Avenue, which was the smaller lot for Fox.  So there was LANCER and HIGH CHAPARRAL and 12’OCLOCK HIGH, but nothing else with kids, so any time we were shooting there it was just me.  Now if I was off the show for a number of days, then they would have me come to the Fox lot (in Century City), and I went to the schoolhouse there, with the teacher who taught everyone from Shirley Temple on up.  And at that time there was Billy Mumy, Angela Cartwright, Veronica’s sister, doing LOST IN SPACE.  All the young actors at Fox came through there.   Tammy Locke with THE MONROES was another.  

HENRY: Did you have kid friends who were not in the business?

DARBY: One; there was one guy who lived down the street for a while, and we got along really well.  But there was just no time. 

HENRY: What was your schedule like on an average week?  How long did it take to shoot a show?

DARBY: I believe they could work me – was it eight hours?  And one hour off for lunch.  Once we were on location we had an hour and a half for lunch.  Then it just depended what we were filming.  I might be there all day to shoot one shot.  The teacher would go out with me, and I might have school in the back of a car, or on a walk, or in a trailer somewhere.  That’s the thing about the business.  You never know what you’ll do – there is no normal.

HENRY: Looking back, are you satisfied with the education you got?

DARBY:  Oh sure.  I’m dyslexic, and back then they didn’t even know what that meant.  But it actually served me to be able to have a teacher to work with one-on-one.  Because I could communicate and learn and study, but when it came to getting something from the chalk-board to the paper, that’s where it gets tricky, and I didn’t have to do that so much.  And my mom is also a schoolteacher, so education was always important to her.  And as I got off (the show), I went to a junior high school, found out what real life was like, got beat up and everything.  Then I got myself to Switzerland, so I graduated high school from The American School in Switzerland.  I came back and went to college on World Campus, which was the floating college that went around the world.  You’re only supposed to go once but I loved it so much I went three semesters on that.  Then I studied at Pepperdine under Cousteau with Project Ocean Search.  I kept my studies up at UCLA.  I still consider myself learning. 

HENRY:  That’s terrific.  Because I’m sure you’re aware, when you speak to former child actors, they often missed out on a lot of education.  You said that you shot in the Fox lot in Hollywood.  Was that for interiors or exteriors? 

DARBY: Both.  They had two sound stages, and one was the Boone cabin interior, and the Cincinnatus interior; all the interiors.  And the other soundstage was for all the exteriors.  And when they needed bigger exteriors we would got to the Fox Ranch out in Malibu.  We shot some of the pilot and one other episode in Kanab, Utah.  And we went to Fraser Park up in the snow a couple of times.

HENRY:  What was the best part of doing the show?

DARBY: I think Fess, and the family that I just kind of had there.  You know, I lost my father when I was a year old.  I only had my mom and two older sisters, so I really liked the male influence.  One of the prop guys was an Eagle Scout leader, so when we worked together he would show me knots.  So when you talk about education, it might not all have been calculus and reading, but I had great pyrotechnics teaching me about gun powder and all different kinds of weapons.  Indian history I always found fascinating, and I got to spend time on Indian reservations.  I look on it as a rounded thing more than the academics. 

HENRY: What was Fess like to work with?

DARBY: Fess was a lot like what you saw on the screen.  A great family guy – look how long he was married to Marcie all thorough his successful career.  Two great kids.  Ron Ely, who was a great friend of his, spoke at his wake right before I did.  And one of the things that got me was he said, “When I came to visit on the BOONE set, I couldn’t believe that it was a working set.  Nobody was yelling at anybody, there were no tempers flaring, there were no drama queens.”   And that was all Fess.  You did your job, we had fun, and that was it.   

HENRY:  Were you close with Fess after the show?

DARBY:  Yes, I was.  There were a number of years in between when I didn’t see him as much.  We would run into each other and it would be great.  But towards the end, I started going up to Santa Barbara a lot and having fun up there – Ely, his son, and Ashley I really enjoyed.  I know it sounds weird, but on Marcie’s birthday, I just woke up and I told my wife I have to go up and wish Marcie a happy birthday.  She said, were you invited?  I said no, but I just feel that I really need to go up and wish Marcy a happy birthday and give her a kiss, and see Fess.  And she said if you feel that strongly, go do it.  I’m driving up, and just as I’m at the spot where you hit the Pacific Ocean, Ashley called me up and said, “Darby, I just wanted to tell you before you hear it on the news that Fess just passed away.”   I said, “You know what? I’m driving up there now.  Is it okay if I just swing by?”  She said, “We’d love to have you.”  So yes, we were close.

HENRY:  You mentioned Veronica Cartwright, who played your sister Jemima.  What was your relationship like?

DARBY: She was a lot of fun.  You know I had sisters, so I didn’t need any more of them.  (laughs)  I still see her today, and we have fun doing things.   I think she’s a wonderful actress.

HENRY: Why did her character disappear after the second season?

DARBY: (laughs) For all these years, I was always told that she left because she asked for too much money.  It wasn’t until Fess has us up when he got the DVDs released, and he had a big party at the vineyard.  We tried to get everybody back – we had Ed (Ames) and Rosey (Grier), and a lot of people; it was fun.  I sat down with Veronica, hadn’t seen her in ages, and we started talking about that.  And she laughed, and said, “Darby, we didn’t ask for too much money.  We were thrilled to be on the show – that’s not what happened.”  (On one episode), a young Robert Logan was flirting with her; actually gave her a kiss.  Evidently Pat Blair said, “No! No! No!  I don’t have a daughter old enough to be dating, and becoming a love interest.  Either she goes or I go.”  And that’s why, Veronica told me, she was off the show.  But they told my mom she had asked for too much money, so Mom didn’t ask for any more money.

HENRY:  Over the years there were several players that came and went, and I was wondering what they were like to work with, starting with Ed Ames.

DARBY:  Wonderful.  Saw Ed not too long ago.  He sang at Fess’s internment up on the hill in Santa Barbara. He broke into Amazing Grace, and it was just spiritual.  His voice is still that dreamy; wonderful.  Great guy.

Fess and Ed Ames

HENRY: Rosey Grier?

DARBY:  Fabulous guy; talked to him not too long ago.  You know he’s a pastor now, doing wonderful things.  Actually I shouldn’t say anything, because it was one of the world’s worst movies, but we did a thing called (THE TREASURE OF JAMAICA REEF, and we got Rosey to come down to Jamaica for that.

HENRY: Jimmy Dean?

DARBY: Jimmy was fun. Evidently they had warned him, ‘There’s a minor on the set; you’ve got to watch your humor.’  I could tell he was a little like – uh-oh, it’s the kid.  So I just came out with the dirtiest joke I knew at the time.  It cracked him up, and we had a little thing every morning in make-up, where we would trade dirty jokes with each other.  Which I’m sure didn’t make the school teacher happy, but it was sure fun.  Jimmy was a great guy, great talent.

HENRY: Dal McKennon?

DARBY: Dallas was great fun.  He did a lot of voicework, Archie and Jughead, lots of cartoons.  He’d always get me cracked up telling me stories in the different cartoon voices – it would just come alive in front of me.  We used to have the stretch limo, and he would get in the back, and he could do such a great police siren that he kept pulling the driver over.

HENRY: Did you have favorite episodes? 

DARBY: ‘THE OLD MAN AND THE CAVE (1965) is one.  I liked the one with Vincent Price (COPPERHEAD IZZY, 1969), because there were a lot of other kids; that meant I got to hang out with a lot of kids for that week.  One was Butch Patrick; he went on to do THE MUNSTERS, and we’re still friends today.  We had great guys that did come through: Kurt Russell, Ron Howard.  Jodie Foster was going to be Jimmy Dean’s adopted daughter if the show had gone another year, because I was getting too old to be the kid in danger any more – I’d hit my teens.  So they brought her in and a young boy, in one of the last episodes, where Jimmy had found them in the forest and was going to adopt them.

HENRY:  I remember one with you and Michael Dante as a Shawnee Chief who’s kidnapped you.  You’re really the center of that one, working one-on-one with a very interesting actor.  

Neville Brand with Darby

DARBY: I remember that one; that was a lot of fun, and the one where Neville Brand kidnapped me.  That was a really great one – I loved working with Neville.  I did a show called HERO’S ISLAND (1962) with him when I was maybe 3 ½ or 4.  Then we worked on DANIEL BOONE together.  Then I did two or three for Greydon Clark that Neville was in.  It was fun that I got to touch base with him all along the way.  It kind of amazes me: I’ll go back and see some of the DVDs and I forget that I worked with Dick Sargent, Darrin from BEWITCHED, and all these people who went on to do other things. 

HENRY: Did you have any favorite directors? 

DARBY:  George Marshall, who directed the pilot, and for a couple of years after he would just pop and in out (of the series) a lot.  I got along with all of them.  Like I said , I got along with adults really well; I grew up in an adult world, and learned to take direction early.

HENRY:  In the late 1960s there was a lot of pressure to tone down the violence on TV. Were you aware of that?  Did that affect DANIEL BOONE?

DARBY:  Absolutely: I think it’s what killed BOONE.  Once Martin Luther King was shot, there were no more gunfights on the show.  There was no more shooting Indians – there were no more heathen savages either; there were just Indians.  Couldn’t call them redskins, couldn’t say anything derogatory.  You took all the gunplay and Indian fighting out of the show, and it basically became a family show, and for that they had FAMILY AFFAIR, and other places to go.    

HENRY: What was the work schedule like?  How many days did you have to shoot a show? 

DARBY: Usually we did it in a week, which means the five days.  Occasionally it would go over to six days, but usually you’ try to get it wrapped up in a week.

HENRY: What was working at Fox like compared with other studios?

DARBY: Well, the smaller lot was like my back yard; I knew everything there.  The big Fox lot was fun because Friday was ‘arts & crafts day’, so we’d go where we wanted.  It was huge!  We’d go to the metal shop and use the welders.  Or the wood shop.  I loved going into make-up – I helped make the masks for all the PLANET OF THE APES movies.  I used to have a great collection of everyone, all the way down to the mutants.   VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA also had great sea monster that we would make masks for.  That always seemed like home because I grew up there.  Disney was fun; I did things there.  I love a movie lot: once you get behind the guard gate, it’s a very freeing feeling for me. 

HENRY:  I’ve asked you about the best part of doing the show.  Was there a worst part?

DARBY:  No; I could harp on some bad things, but it was great!  I was a very lucky kid, and I feel very blessed that I had that opportunity, so I don’t spend any time visiting the negatives. 

HENRY: Between 1964 and 1970, 165 episodes were produced, and eventually folks run out of ideas.  Some of the ‘lost civilization’ episodes were kinda out there.  Did you feel there was a point when DANIEL BOONE jumped the shark?

Patricia Blair

DARBY:  You know it’s funny.  I think Pat (Blair) was the one who first pointed it out to me.  “We just did this script two years ago.  All they did was change the names.”  I guess that’s what happens. 

HENRY: You all had a good, long run, but after 6 seasons, the series was cancelled.  Were you surprised, or did you see it coming?

DARBY: No, I didn’t see it coming.  Mom just said, it looks like we’re not going back there to work.

HENRY: How old were you then?

DARBY: I was twelve.

HENRY: At that point, did you want to keep acting, or did you want to do something else?

DARBY:  I was very curious to see what school was like.

HENRY: Having been so visible for so long as Israel Boone, did you have trouble with typecasting?

DARBY: I got to do THE BOLD ONES: THE NEW DOCTORS (1970).  I got to play a young drug addict in that, which was a lot of fun, and helped me to shake that image.  Then of course on DAYS OF OUR LIVES I was ‘The Salem Rapist.’ I guess I kind of had the gamut of characters.

HENRY:  You mentioned earlier about going to school and getting your ass kicked.  Was that just average school rough-housing, or was it the problem of being a well-known kid star?

DARBY: Oh no; I got my nose broken a couple of times.  As I said, I only had two sisters, so I didn’t have any brothers to rough-house with.  I grew up in an adult world, so I did what I was told.  I kind of identified with the teachers more than I did the kids.  And you know, kids can be bullies.  ‘Let’s see if you’re as tough as you are in DANIEL BOONE,’ or, ‘My girlfriend thinks you’re cute.’  And they pushed me, and I didn’t know to fight back.  But it was great; it led me on a quest to learn martial arts.  Which lasted quite a long time, so I was very happy with it. 

HENRY:  How did you get involved?

DARBY: On the Fox lot, one of the sets I liked to visit was THE GREEN HORNET (1966/67).  I used to love to watch this little Kato (Bruce Lee). They told him, you need to slow down your attacks; the camera isn’t catching it.  He said, “I don’t slow down my attacks: you slow down your camera.”  That was one of the first times they started using slow motion for fights.  He intrigued me so much that I went to Hong Kong, found out who he studied under, which was Grand Master William Chung, who’s now in Australia.  We became good friends.  Then out here Danny Inosanto, who was Bruce’s number one student – I studied under him for many, many years.

HENRY: I don’t know if you have kids, but if so, would you want them to act?

DARBY:  I have five kids, and one of them is at Cal Arts; he’s an actor getting ready to open in a play.  All my kids, I told them, if you want to do it, that’s great, but you’re going to wait until you’re sixteen, so you’re old enough to drive yourself to the interviews.  I’m a lousy stage mother.  But he’s the only one who’s got the acting bug and pursued it.

HENRY: You attend a number of film festivals and western events.  What are these events like?  What is it like to meet fans?

DARBY: Oh, it’s fun; I love that.  That’s how Dan Haggerty (GRIZZLY ADAMS) and I became such good friends.  I shied away from doing those for a long time.  Then somebody invited me to go, and all of a sudden it was all the kids I knew, and all the actors I’d grown up with.  It was like having a school reunion, and I never had that, because I never stayed in one school long enough.  During the day, meeting everyone’s lots of fun.  It’s nice to be appreciated, and people are coming up to you and appreciating you.  And the fun really starts afterwards at the bar, when we sit down, trading war stories and talking shop.

HENRY: Last year you were in the blockbuster mini-series TEXAS RISING, playing Texas President Burnet.  How did that come about?

DARBY:  I’d taken a lot of time off from making movies and doing things that kept me away from home, because I’d be ten weeks in Romania, and off to Bulgaria, and my kids started having birthdays and stuff that I was missing.  I had my four boys, and then my littlest, my little girly, when she came around…  Without stating it, I started backing away, except I kept doing a play that I love, that I do in Beverly Hills, called THE MANOR, which is up at Greystone Manor, and all about the Dohenys, and we get to actually do it in the Doheny Estate.  It’s such a wonderful, fun, dynamic play that I enjoy doing that.  That’s the only thing I did to keep the acting chops up, that and commercials that are done locally.  This casting director I love came to see the play, and then she came back a couple of nights later with the producers.  They said, we have this thing that we think you’d be great for.  Would you like to go down to Mexico and do it?  And I said, you betcha!  Because now my daughter’s old enough where she’s got her driver’s license and ‘see ya’, so now I’m having fun getting back into it.  And I’ve just done THE DONNER PARTY.

HENRY:  I was just watching that.  It’s very good, and you’re excellent in it.  You’ve played a lot of real people – Israel Boone, the first President of Texas, George Donner.  How do you feel about playing real people over invented characters?

DARBY: It’s great, because I love history.  I’d heard about the Donner Party in school, but I didn’t read up on it, because it was gross, and who cared? So I didn’t appreciate it back then. But to go up there and live it for a few weeks, oh my goodness!  As soon as I knew I was going to play the role I read three or four books and did the homework.  It’s fun to keep this alive and show it in a way that people might really get it.  What it took to come out here and settle this.  We should be so grateful that we’re already here.   Think of that every Thanksgiving, as we overeat, and here’s people stuck in the snow that didn’t eat for four months.  When I’d heard about the cannibalism before, I thought that’s terrible.  Until you realize that the little girls are there; six, seven, eight-year old daughters.  You’re going to watch them starve?  I think it’s great, any time you can bring a thing to life like that, shine a light on it, that people haven’t seen. I think it’s a good thing.    

HENRY:  Did working on a period piece again spark a lot of memories?

DARBY:  Oh yeah; it’s all fun.  The equipment is a lot different from when I was a kid, that’s for sure, but a set is still a set.  It’s the circus comes to town.

HENRY: What’s next on the horizon?

DARBY:  We’ve got things in the fire.  Nobody likes to talk about those things until they’re done.  I just voiced a video game I can’t talk about until it’s released.  But my kids’ll be happy about that because they’ll be playing it.  We just move onward and upward, and are grateful for each day. 

CLIMB AN ANGRY MOUNTAIN - a DVD Review

Fess Parker’s final film performance came just two years after the end of DANIEL BOONE’s run, after which he devoted himself fulltime to his business interests.  Available from the Warner Archive Collection, CLIMB AN ANGRY MOUNTAIN (1972), a made-for-TV movie, is a modern-day Western.  It’s a variation on TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE, of two years earlier, which starred Robert Redford and Robert Blake as white lawman and Indian escaped killer.  In this version, shot in and around the beautiful snowy peaks of Mt. Shasta, Fess is Sheriff Elisha Cooper (Elisha was Fess’ real middle name), a pre-LONGMIRE lawman going after Indian acquaintance Joey Chilco (football legend Joe Kapp), an escapee convicted of manslaughter. 

Chilco is planning to scale the highest mountain in the range, following his peoples’ belief that if he does so, his sins will be forgiven.  And he wants to meet his baby son, and see his wife Sheila (Stella Stevens).   The Sheriff must track him, at the same time dealing with snow-related problems, and an intrusive New York City cop (Barry Nelson), who lost Chilco in the first place.

A feature-length unsold pilot for a TV series, there are extraneous characters who would no doubt have become regulars, the most welcome being Western stalwart Arthur Hunnicutt as housekeeper and babysitter to the widowed Sheriff’s two kids.   One of the writers, Sam Rolfe, had already created THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and co-created HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL. 

While it seems contrived that, of all possible kids, it’s the Sheriff’s son that Chilco happens to be forcing to help him climb the mountain, it’s all played with sincerity. Stella Stevens is memorable as the wife who doesn’t want Chilco there, but can’t bear to keep saying no.   While it didn’t go to series, the movie works fine as a stand-alone, and is a cut above most TV movies of the period.  CLIMB AN ANGRY MOUNTAIN is available from Warner Archive as a made-on-demand DVD HERE.

WESTERN WEEKEND CELEBRATION AT THE AHRYA FINE ARTS!

The Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills, part of the Laemmle family of theatres, was recently the venue for two Western premieres, TRADED and OUTLAWS AND ANGELS.  This Friday, Saturday and Sunday they’re celebrating a Western weekend as part of their Anniversary Classics series.  On Friday night at 7:30, they’ll be showing THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, celebrating its 50^th anniversary. Saturday at 2:15 pm, DANCES WITH WOLVES, 25^th anniversary, will screen, and star Mary MacDonnell will be a guest speaker.  That night at 7:30, they mark the 50^th anniversary of THE PROFESSIONALS.  Sunday at 2:15 they’ll mark the 60^th anniversary of THE SEARCHERS, with Lana Wood, the little girl kidnapped at the beginning, as a guest speaker.  Then at 5:30 pm, it’s the 55^th anniversary of THE MISFITS.  All films will be introduced by Hollywood Reporter film critic Stephen Farber.  To learn more, and order tickets, go HERE.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

In the next Round-up I’ll have details about a whole slew of new and returning Western and Westernish TV series on the way!

Happy trails,

Henry

All original contents copyright August 2016 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved