VIRGINIAN ON SATURDAY, DEAD MEN COMING SOON

 

AUTRY & INSP CELEBRATE ‘THE VIRGINIAN’S’ 50^TH ANNIVERSARY!

 

On Saturday, September 22^nd, the Autry will mark the landmark television series’ half century with a day and night of activities.  Simultaneously, the INSP network will present a marathon of episodes, to welcome the series to its regular Saddle-Up Saturday programming.  The series was a landmark for many reasons.  The first non-anthology series to run 90 minutes, it was essentially a whole movie every week.

 

Happily, many of the stars of the series will be attending the Autry event, including James Drury, who played the title character of The Virginian (his character had no other name), in all 249 episodes.  Also attending will be Clu Gulager (Emmett Ryker), Randy Boone (Randy Benton), Gary Clarke (Steve Hill), Sara Lane (Elizabeth Grainger), Diane Roter (Jennifer Sommers), Roberta Shore (Betsy Garth), and Don Quine (Stacey Grainger).

 

James Drury

 

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., THE VIRGINIAN stars will be signing autographs in the lobby (I assume on a rotating schedule, and they charge for this). 

There will be screenings of episodes in the Wells Fargo Theatre, and at 1 p.m., the stars will take part in a panel discussion, moderated by the Western Clippings website author Boyd Magers.

From 2 to 4 in the Autry Cafe, Stuart Nisbet, the bartender in the series, will present ‘Saloon Stories From Bart the Bartender.’   

And from 5 to 9 p.m. in the Heritage Court there will be a chuck-wagon dinner with the cast (this even is sold out).  To learn more about the event at the Autry, go HERE.

INSP will begin their marathon at ten a.m. western time, with THE EXECUTIONERS, the first episode of the first season.

Incidentally, THE VIRGINIAN is, of course, based on the novel by Owen Wister, published in 1902, and which has been filmed at least five times, starting with Cecil B. DeMille’s 1914 film, starring Dustin Farnum.  It was filmed again in 1923 starring Kenneth Harlan, and the first talkie version was in 1929, with Victor Fleming directing  star Gary Cooper.  It was done again in 1946, starring Joel McCrea, and a TV movie version, starring Bill Pullman, in 2000. 

If you’ve only seen the series, you’d be surprised to read the novel, and learn that Trampas, Doug McClure’s character, and close pal of the Virginian, is his deadly enemy in all of the other versions, my favorite being Brian Donleavy opposite Joel McCrea.  And if you read the book, then watch HIGH NOON, also with Gary Cooper, you’ll be struck by the fact that, despite its claims of being based on the story THE TIN STAR, the movie is largely plagiarized from the last few chapters of THE VIRGINIAN. 

 

SPEAKING FOR THE DEAD (MEN – THE SERIES) – An interview with director Royston Innes

 

To see the DEAD MEN: THE SERIES TRAILER, go HERE.

 

On Wednesday, September 26^th, the first two episodes of a new Western web series will premiere on the internet.  It’s entitled DEAD MEN – THE SERIES, and if you click on the link above, and watch the trailer, you will have seen as much as I have.  But while 2 ½ minutes can’t tell you everything, it can tell you this: it looks like a real movie.  Unlike most of the made-for-the-web western and pseudo western programming I’ve seen, it isn’t green-screened, it isn’t CGI’d, and it doesn’t have any zombies.  It’s clearly shot on real locations, with professional camerawork and costuming and art direction.

 

It’s the brain-child of a pair of men, Australian co-creator and director Royston Innes, and Texan Iraqi War vet co-creator, producer and co-star Ric Maddox.  It’s the story of a man named Roy Struthers and his family, a Civil War and Indian Wars veteran who left the battlefield owning precious little until a small piece of land in the Arizona Territory turned out to hold an immensely valuable gold vein.  Needless to say, there are folks willing to do whatever it takes to steal the claim away from the Struthers family. 

When I spoke to director Royston Innes, he told me how the project came to be, and what he and Ric Maddox envision for its future. 

ROYSTON: The time is right for westerns, although my next project is a film noir.  For me, it’s not so much about the Western; it’s more what’s behind it.  I go to films these days, and there’s just no real men.  I’m Australian, so you grow up with a certain ruggedness.  Every child has moments when you come home from a fight, and you’ve gotten mangled.  And your dad says, “Well, you did good.”  There’s something a little tougher.  But you find with so many actors these days, they come out to L.A., and they get ‘into the program.’  And slowly but surely they become part off the machine, and they lose what was so interesting about them.  Know what I mean?

 

HENRY: Yes, it sorts of vacuums the personality out of them.

R: Yes it does.  And I believe it’s because they think there is something further ahead of them, almost like an idea of who they should be.  It’s all created by fear.  So when we decided to go to Arizona to shoot, it was really important to me to get real cowboys.  And my strength, because in my youth I was very devoted to acting, and I studied with the very best in the world – I spent two years studying with Mike Nichols.  I went to the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and I sought out the best teachers around.  I was very happy to finish it at the time I came out to L.A., I quit.  What I really like to do is (work with), I wouldn’t say unknown actors, but with people who just aren’t actors.  But what they are is they’re character.  For example, the gentleman who plays Virgil (friend of Roy Struthers), Brent Rock, you would have seen him in the trailer –

H: He reminded me of a younger Sam Elliot.

 

Brent Rock

 

R: He is; he’s got the presence -- he’s on-screen, and he electrifies.  And he’s a real cowboy, a real horseman who lives in Tombstone, Arizona.  He’s on his horse every day; he does it for a living.  That’s who I want in my films: real men.  Because of the, as you say, the vacuum of personality that happens, you have to go and search these people out.  And I want to give them the opportunity.  Because if you cast right, and they trust in you, and they believe in you, and I do my job, you’re going to get a better performance than any actor could give you. 

 

H: That’s very interesting, that you’ve devoted so much time to your study of acting, and concluded that you don’t need professional actors. 

 

R: Well, yes and no.  It takes time.  I have another picture I’m doing next year, a semi-western very similar to LEGENDS OF THE FALL, shooting in Canada.  And I have an unknown in the lead role.  And it’s going to take time.  Vulnerabilities in untrained actors, they take more time.  But when you have someone, in this case a Virgil, who is a leading-man cowboy, you just have to get him to get out of the way of himself.  Because it’s already there; he already has the grit in his fingernails.  It’s one of those things that bug me, in westerns in particular, is they’re too bloody clean.  At a time that was so rough and tumble – I want to see the sweat!  Back in the pioneering days of the Wild West, water was as expensive as a dollar a glass.  You could drink liquor for cheaper.  It does something to the way they look, the way they smell, the way they sweat.  And authenticity is very very important to me.

 

H: I understand you grew up, in Australia, watching an awful lot of movies.

 

R: I was obsessed with film.  I’d watch three movies a day, every day.  Obviously you had to go to school, but every waking moment I could, I watched.  I was a bit of a shut-in child, really, I was very anti-social.  I’d go to the video store each and every day, and in the ten-minute walk it took me, I’d audio-taped movies, and I listened to them on my Walkman.  They’d become such a huge part of my life that even when I wasn’t watching them, I was listening to them.  SCENT OF A WOMAN had a huge impact on me.  Because it had a standard first act.  And you think you know where it’s going, then suddenly they pack for New York.  It’s electrifying; and I don’t know what it was, but it sparked something in me.  I didn’t actually fall in love with acting until I saw a man named Daniel Day Lewis in a film called MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE.  I was 11 or 12, and it had a real impact on me.  And not long after I saw him in MY LEFT FOOT.   I didn’t know acting could be like that.  And that is what I aspired to.  And it took me away from my real love, which is film, and I eventually found my way back.  Life has a funny way, in retrospect, of showing you, ‘see, this is where I was leading you all along.’ 

 

H: Any particular western filmmakers have an impact on you?

R: You know who had a big impact on me?  It was about ten seconds, in a film by Jim Jarmusch called DEAD MAN.  It’s a fantastic film; it’s one where you can almost sense the sweat and the grime.  There’s a scene when he’s coming into town, and it’s his point of view, what he’s seeing through the carriage door.  And it’s so dangerous, it almost feels unlivable, and pioneering, and there are no rules.   That moment had a massive impact on me.  Is there a western director who’s had a massive impact on me?  No.  It’s more about authenticity, and celebrating the real man. 

H: How did you and Ric Maddox get together?

R: I directed Ric in a play, here in Los Angeles.  Ric had been in the armed forces in Iraq, and this was a play about Iraq, and I chose him specifically and another fellow who had just come back, and they were amazing.  Ric and I struck up a friendship, and we were talking one day about business, and what films he’d seen recently.  And gotten a bit nostalgic about certain actors, like the Yul Brynners, the John Waynes, and where have these men gone?  We live in an amazing time where there’s no excuse now for anyone not to pick up a camera and create something.  There’s so much available.  So on that idea, of the real man, and there’s no better genre (for that) than the western, we started to create something.  We kind of inspired each other, and one would write, wouldn’t it be great if this would happen?  And it turned into a series that I’m really proud of.  Each episode is ended with a little twist. 

 

H: Did you always see DEAD MEN as a web series, or did you see it as a feature, and figure out how to break it down? 

 

R: I was enticed to the web because it was still underground.  It still hadn’t laid its roots yet.  I wanted to come along and shock them.  I really think that this is going to be one of the premiere quality pieces on the web.  We put a lot of effort and a lot of energy and a lot of money to make it that good, so it could be real entertainment, and it’s for the web.  Eventually the web and web series are going to be the norm, and people will get most of their content there, just right now people don’t know how that’s going to happen.  And if I could say that DEAD MEN contributed to that, I’d be very very happy.

 

Ric Maddox

 

H: How long is each episode?

R: From seven to ten and a half minutes.  We’re premièring the first two episodes on Wednesday, September 26^th.  I’m not going to give anything away, but the first episode sets up where things are going, and I just wanted to give people a little bit of a taste of the speed and the action that they can expect with episodes. 

 

It has a genuine viciousness to it.  There’s a lot of knife fights, and a lot of spilled blood.  Eventually we’re going to get this done in all the different languages, so people can enjoy it.  Westerns are huge in Asia and France and Germany. 

 

H: I’m very aware of that because the Round-up is read everywhere around the globe.

 

R: Well, tell them that they can expect it to be translated into German, French, Japanese and hopefully Cantonese as well. 

 

H: I’ve heard that you’re planning to do five seasons of DEAD MEN.

 

R: Yeah.  It’s funny, we’re getting a lot of heat from this trailer, and because it’s taking web series where they haven’t been before; we’re getting a lot of heat from distributors who want to turn it into something else, something bigger.  Maybe a TV show.  I’m going to all these meetings.

 

Aiming low

 

H: You wouldn’t object to that, would you?

 

R: (laughs) Are you kidding?  Given a bigger budget, this could be amazing.   We already have episodes through season two planned out, and it’s going to take it to a different level – I wish that I could tell you what’s going to happen.  We have it all planned out – guaranteed five seasons.  And if TV picked it up I’d be so happy!  I’m particularly a fan of TV shows where it doesn’t stay in the typical three or four locations.  Almost like an on-going movie. 

 

H: Speaking of locations, how did you like shooting in Arizona? 

 

R: Loved it.  It’s my people.  I love communities.  I moved from Australia to New York when I was nineteen.  I love communities and eventually, my films are going to be more of the inspirational film type.     When you’re walking through Tombstone…some of my actors really got into it.  One of them, he plays Billy Walters, every day after shooting he loved to walk the planks of Tombstone, still in his costume, and it gave him a real thrill.  If you’re going to shoot a western you should shoot it in Arizona, because this is where it all happened.  When I was an actor, I did a war film called THE GREAT RAID (2005), and we did an eleven-day boot camp, and nothing could have been better to get us into the mind-set, what it felt like to be a soldier during World War II.  I would love to have done a western boot-camp for these guys, in Arizona.  It would shock their system in a way that nothing else can.

 

H: I’ve been talking to some actors in the new LONE RANGER movie, and they had a crash course, and they absolutely loved it. 

R: Going back to Arizona, Ric had shot a film there before, called MATTY, and when he told me about the people in Arizona, it just felt right.  We made a half dozen trips up there, scouting locations, and our budget, while big for a web series, is rather small.  And when people understood what we were trying to do, for the western, they opened up their homes to us; they opened up their land to us.  Amazing group of people called the Bell Boys, they have a livestock company, and they helped us with all the horses and the cattle, for next to nothing.  Amazing individuals –friendships that I will keep.  Couldn’t find a better place to shoot than Arizona – now I’ve just got to get those damned tax credits. 

 

(We talked a bit about the perils of the tax credit money that states provide to encourage filming, particularly that director Daniel Adams is in prison for inflating his expenses to get bigger tax credits – read last week’s BIG VALLEY article for details.)

 

R: I grew up with strong principles, and I was taught to hold on to your principles at all costs.  And it’s a daily struggle.  Part of it is believing in a higher force, and that you’re answerable.   That’s one thing I loved about Arizona is I’m a straight-shooter; I’m dealing with straight-shooters. 

 

H: How long a shoot was it?

 

R: It was a decent one; it was close to a month.  (laughs) And it was a tough one, Henry.  Low-budget; everyone doing everything.  Putting the scarves in the ice water, and putting it around my camera-operator’s neck so he doesn’t pass out.  We were there in June, We’d put ourselves in a position where we had to come back for something, and our locations were rough.  We had a thirty-minute four-by-four ride down to these locations.  Someone put a porta-loo down there, and that was it.  If the car went down, you were in trouble!  But again, no place better to get real vista shots.  We didn’t have all those luxuries, and at lunchtime we didn’t even always have shade.  But we came together as a unit, and it was a helluvah experience for an up-and-coming director like myself. 

 

H: Who is your cinematographer? 

 

R:  I actually had two D.P.s.  Bruce Logan, who shot the original TRON, and was involved with the original STAR WARS and 2001.  And Paul Hudson, he has a place called Lizardland Studios in Phoenix.   We shot on the Red One and the Scarlet.

Director Innes, D.P. Hudson

 

H: It’s been so long since I talked to anyone who actually shot film.

 

R: I’d love to shoot film.  There’s just a couple of things; when I’d be taking takes, in the back of my mind I’d be thinking of the cost.  I want to get the best performance, the best take, and sometimes that takes ten or fifteen takes. 

 

H: As you said, there’s really no excuse to not go out and make a movie, now that the changes in technology have brought the prices down. 

 

R: There’s no excuse not to be the master of your own creation right now.  If you’re not creating your own reality right now, you’re being a little lazy, to be blunt. 

 

H: What do you think of recent westerns?

 

R: TRUE GRIT was wonderful – I’m a huge fan of the Coen brothers.  And they’re writing – they’re in my top five.  They have an amazing D.P. in Roger Deakins, who gets them exactly what they want, and they take care of the rest.  3:10 TO YUMA was fantastic, and a real inspiration to me.  I still love the original 3:10.   You know, I take it back (about not being influenced by western directors); there are certain things I love from those old westerns.  I was recently watching Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, and I just love the starting.  I’m doing an homage to that; where they’re waiting in the station for the train to come, for (Charles) Bronson to get off the train.  There’s just that little vignette, the water tapping on the cowboy-hat brim -- it’s just brilliant!  And they don’t take that kind of time anymore.  They’re all in a rush, and that’s what he did so damned well.   He was amazing.  He was a man’s man.

 

H: And as you say, there are so few actors that you can take seriously as a man.

 

R: And that’s why there are so many cuts.  Because the camera doesn’t lie.  And if you’re comfortable in your own skin, and comfortable as the man that you are, the camera can stay on you for that much longer.  We need to be on the lookout for more of those kinds of actors. 

 

To learn more about DEAD MEN: THE SERIES, visit their website HERE. 

 

CHEYENNE WARRIOR II, HAWK -- Screenplay reviews

 

There’s a saying among magicians that if you know a hundred ways to control a selected card, but only one way to produce it, you know one card trick; but if you only know one way to control a card, but a hundred ways to produce it, you know a hundred tricks.

In some ways screenwriting – in fact any kind of writing – is like performing magic.  While there are a limited number of plots, there are infinite ways to tell them.  As Alexander Pope said, you should write, “…what oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”

Michael B. Druxman proved his abilities as a story-teller with his screenplay to CHEYENNE WARRIOR (1994), which I have described here as not only the best micro-budget western I’ve ever seen, but also one of the best Westerns of the last twenty years.  The movie, directed by Mark Griffiths, is one of the most successful that Roger Corman has ever produced.  It’s combination of solid western qualities, plotting and believable romance has generated a considerable international following and fan base. 

Not surprisingly, Druxman immediately set to work plotting the sequel.  Unfortunately, Corman, who owned the characters in the story, was not convinced a sequel was warranted.  When Corman couldn’t be convinced, Druxman rewrote the sequel to make the characters similar, but not the same, with an eye towards making it with the same leads, Pato Hoffman and Kelly Preston.  Sadly this did not produce a movie, but it did produce a very fine script, entitled SARAH GOLDENHAIR.  Thinking it some of his finest work, Druxman took the very unusual step of publishing this unfilmed screenplay.

Well, no follow-up to CHEYENNE WARRIOR has happened yet, but Michael Druxman has revealed the further machinations involved in the attempt, with the publishing of his new book, CHEYENNE WARRIOR II / HAWK.  You see, Roger Corman eventually came around and hired Druxman to write a sequel after all, and he wrote CHEYENNE WARRIOR II.  Upon reading it, Corman felt certain changes were necessary, in order to give the film a stronger female lead – ironic considering he had grave doubts about the original CHEYENNE WARRIOR because Kelly Preston’s part was so prominent.  

The second draft became HAWK, and as Corman was getting ready to put it into production, Canadian tax-shelter problems stalled and eventually killed the project.  Druxman has printed both drafts of the screenplay in one volume, providing readers, and especially writers, with the rare opportunity to compare different versions of what is substantially the same story. 

The similarities are obvious: both versions, as well as SARAH GOLDEN HAIR, revolve around the infamous Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.  Many of the characters are the same.  The differences are often more subtle: a white man is caught by Cheyenne poaching rabbits on their land.  In one version, the action is seen from the white man’s perspective; in the other, from the Indians’.  A Scandinavian couple are father and daughter in one version, and husband and wife in the other.  Then there are the major changes: Rose, a ‘Calamity Jane’ sort of character, is one of the two leads in one version, and doesn’t exist in the other.

CHEYENNE WARRIOR II / HAWK is a terrific read, and one of them would make a terrific film (and one would make a good film).  Michael Druxman’s character, Soars Like a Hawk, usually just called Hawk, was one of the great strengths of the original film, and he’s a great strength here, because he is a ‘noble’ Indian, but not of the incredibly stoic, humorless sort. 

Over the years, I’ve always warned beginning screenwriters to make a script the absolute best that they can before showing it to a potential buyer, since it’s nearly impossible to get them to read another draft: you get one shot.  Here you can compare two different versions of the same story, and see which you prefer.  I have a strong opinion as to my favorite, but ironically, I believe the other version is the more commercial. 

Reading CHEYENNE WARRIOR II / HAWK, whether you’re a fan of the original CHEYENNE WARRIOR, and wanted to know what happened to those characters, or whether you want to deepen your understanding of the screenwriting process by comparing the two different versions, offers a unique opportunity for the reader that should not be passed up.  If you’d like to read my interview with Michael Druxman, and  my review of CHEYENNE WARRIOR, go HERE. For my review of the SARAH GOLDEN HAIR screenplay, go HERE. To purchase CHEYENNE WARRIOR ll /HAWK, or any of his other published screenplays, contact Michael B. Druxman at druxy@ix.netcom.com or PMB142, 6425 S. IH-35, Suite 150, Austin, Texas 78744.    

 

KIRK DOUGLAS ATTENDS ‘LONELY ARE THE BRAVE’ AT EGYPTIAN WEDNESDAY NIGHT!

 

Just found out that on Wednesday, September 19^th (tomorrow) at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Kirk Douglas will be appearing before the movie, at 7:30.  Details HERE.

SEE ‘NOW THEY CALL HIM SACRAMENTO’ ON THE BIG SCREEN!

 

If you’re going to be in Portland, Oregon on Sunday, September 23^rd, run, don’t walk, to the Mission Theatre to see NOW THEY CALL HIM SACRAMENTO (1972).  This rarely seen and quite amusing Spaghetti Western comedy is a fake ‘Trinity’ film, with Michael Forest playing the Terence Hill role, and Fred Harrison as Bud Spenser.  And Michael Forest, famous for STAR TREK, and various Spaghetti Westerns and Roger Corman movies, will attend!  Also, Roger Browne, the English voice for Terence Hill, and former president of the E.L.D.A. (English Language Dubbers Association) will attend.  To learn more, go HERE.  To read my review of SACRAMENTO, and to contact video distributor Dorado Films, go HERE.

Okay, that’s gotta be it for this week’s Round-up!  Sorry for delaying this until Tuesday night. 

Next week I’ll tell you about a Cowboy Church you can attend, a partial staging of the RAMONA pageant at the very place where the book was written, and more!

 

Happy Trails,

 

Henry

 

All Original Contents Copyright September 2012 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

 

 

BRONCO LAYNE TALKS!

(picture from a Swedish gum-card)


Ty Hardin interview conducted August 11th 2010

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

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

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

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

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

H: Are any of them from the Western days?

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

H: That’s a good thing.

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

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

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

H: I was wondering what show that was from.

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

H: You were also Mac Brody.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

H: Did you go to the movies much?

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

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

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

H: And you were studying what kind of engineering?

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

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

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

H: Wow!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TY: (laughs) That’s it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

H: What was he like?

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

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

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

H: Did you have any particular favorite episodes?

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

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

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

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




DISCOVERY ANNOUNCES ‘GUNSMOKE’ DOCUMENTARY SERIES

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

GUNSLINGER JOEY DILLON MAKES THE FRONT PAGE!

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

Read the Daily News article HERE.



http://www.dailynews.com/ci_18635677

JOHN FORD TO BE HONORED WITH STAMP NEXT YEAR!

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

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

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








THURSDAY IS BEN JOHNSON DAY ON TCM

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

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

TCM FANATIC - WESTERN NOW ONLINE!

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




THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

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

HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

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

WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

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


FREE WESTERNS ON YOUR COMPUTER AT HULU

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

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

TV LAND - BONANZA and GUNSMOKE

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

NEED YOUR BLACK & WHITE TV FIX?

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

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

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

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

That's it for now!

Adios amigos!

Henry

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