CHEYENNE'S Clint Walker the Most Decent Man I Ever Met says co-star Ann Robinson. War of the Worlds

[Music] clint walker big sturdy cheyenne bodhi and in the pilot was you what do you remember about that i was just so lucky to be in it i remembered that he was six foot six an enormous man awfully sweet i think i think clint walker perhaps was the most decent man i have ever met [Music] welcome to award on westerns where today we have a leading lady who was in the premiere of the cheyenne episode with clint walker and james garner her name is ann robinson and she's our guest right now thank you thank you so much well i want to hear about cheyenne right away well right away i want to hear about this hat oh now i want you to read this please who gave this to me we're going to get a close-up of this hat later because inside it says this stetson 4x beaver was made especially for president ronald reagan [Applause] and it doesn't fit now i'm very proud of this nancy reagan gave it to me after the president had passed away knowing how much i admired him so it was a gift or what a surprise it was to get through the mail so i wanted everyone to be able to see a copy of president president reagan's hat we never knew his head was so small well no the hat or the head that is a special treat and it's a treat to have you here thank you it was my pleasure when cheyenne first premiered it was part of a rotating one-hour anthology series called warner brothers presents because none of the studios wanted to enter television they felt it was competition so they had their top movies made into tv shows casablanca king's row and this little throw away that they thought well maybe maybe people will watch cheyenne based on a dennis morgan movie that they had done in the 40s but totally new scripts created by roy huggins the cheyenne character all these names are coming back to me thank you you're welcome [Music] so it premiered on a rotating basis clint walker big sturdy cheyenne votey and in the pilot was you what do you remember about that i was just so lucky to be in it i remember that he was six foot six an enormous man awfully sweet i think i think clint walker perhaps was the most decent man i have ever met he made you remember that you were a lady and you never dared even say the word hell or damn it would embarrass him and he would look at you with i'm so disappointed in you i didn't expect that so i mean you really i admire that man so very much and and uh james garner i went to high school with him he was about two or three years ahead of me at hollywood high school when i entered in the tenth grade i think he was graduating james bumgarner yes james bumgarner and sue whitman was there too oh we had a lot of handsome men at hollywood high school it was his first his first screen kiss and i think uh he hadn't been in front of a camera that much either well whatever happened the camera loved him indeed indeed they did he turned to be a very successful actor [Music] stay free [Music] to [Music] is [Music] don't forget the things you have seen [Music] i had a wonderful wonderful horse that i will do the whole series except now and then we do a chelan where i had to write a different course but i also used him when i did four dots right here and uh i used him uh in the gold of the seven saints with roger moore and chill wills and also used him in yellowstone kelly and i think that's one of the things i miss the most because brandy i could never have had a better horse than that horse and uh when i left warner brothers jack warner invited me for the first time to have lunch with him and and his brother dining room and said he'd like they'd like to have me stay on social media i could do china they'd give me another serious order i told him i would prefer to do features for a while but uh it's still like home now at a world of other scenes like home because it's been eight years there but uh the business has been good to me but it's not the same business anymore they don't make that many things that i'd really want to be a part of the show then that you were in just kicked off a huge success for abc and warner brothers and suddenly warner brothers was owning all the time slots on on abc with 77 sunset strip and surf side six and uh you even came back and did another episode of cheyenne yes the second season another second i don't know second season or year i it was quite a while later though what is it about westerns uh for you i know you were telling me a story about bud better and uh doubling for uh roddy mcdowell well not for him for the girl that was in in the motion picture with him um it was my first time on that's how i got into motion pictures was as a stunt girl i have to start from the very beginning because i my mother and i were going to the broadway hollywood one day on hollywood and vine and we parked across the street and in those days someone would park the car for you and this man came up and i looked at him and i said good lord you're johnny carpenter he was a a b western star that i had loved all my childhood life and he said oh he was thrilled to death that someone recognized him because he i guess hadn't worked in quite a while and he still had horses and a stable that was over on riverside drive in las vegas which is now where swimming pools are and there had been a drive-in movie was there but there was a huge stable there and he had his horses and he invited me down and he said you know you can you ride and i said well i've ridden all my life on a flat saddle on an english saddle and so he said i'm going to make a cowboy out of you and so he put me on his horse paddlefoot and taught me how to be a cowboy and how to ride western style and that's how i got into motion pictures he had he was training or uh young boys he liked to uh take a blind um people of handicap and he had some boys called the blind rhythm riders and he was making a half hour or an hour i'm not quite sure how long it was about training these boys on how to ride horseback so they had a movie oh the rock the stagecoaches being robbed and all this and that wanted me to be his leading lady and ride his horse and so in our road on this and uh on his horse and um it was on television one afternoon and our neighbor saw it and uh one a neighbor a an elton carpenter was a a grip at the newspaper at the newspaper at the studios and he knew cliff lyons who was also in motion pictures and yakima canad great stuntman yes and they thought you know this girl can ride and also she looks like she could be a pretty good actress i was about 18 or 19. and uh so they helped me get us a um a screen actors guild not a screen a train extras card so after i got my extras card i was able to get a screen actors card and meanwhile i doubled for shelly winters i doubled for quite a few people what did you double shelly in frenchie oh that was uh another remake of frenchie i think it was about the third one yes yes the horseback riding was natural for you yes it was did that help when you were cast in the tv series fury oh very much so very much so because they i'd already done uh two shows for them uh was with them uh george montgomery and buster crabbe and they said well we don't have to hire a stunt girl it'll save on the budget if we get iran i know in in gun brothers with buster crabb and neville brand they were they were brothers and your sweetheart was buster kraft yes it was and it was my sweetheart as a child too that's splash gordon he was flash gordon and that's the first thing he said to me when we got on a horse together he reached over and he poked me and he said go ahead go ahead and say it get it over with it and i said okay what is it he said you used to see me yes i did used to see you when i was a little girl at the carmel theater on saturday afternoon i'd go see yeah boy he was a great flash gordon adorable man too he was so sweet and just as handsome then as he was he's a flash garden he was an olympian yes he an olympic uh gold medalist for swimming yeah swimmer he would have been the first tarzan had he not hurt himself and they replaced him with johnny weissmuller the first sound tarzan i had no idea oh no but johnny weissmuller he was also my hero never got to meet him but he was my favorite tarzan with buster and neville brand neville was kind of a rowdy guy wasn't he but he was a delightful person he was a actually he was very quiet he wasn't a boisterous man or a crude man whatsoever i think that was just his features he was the third most decorated man in world war ii i didn't know i thought it was second no i thought it was the second for the longest time until uh i asked him and i said that well you were the second most like i know what like i know what i'm talking about and uh and he says no rob i was the third third i had no idea and he never talked about it no no there was a word about it boy he had some hits uh the laredo the tv series that he did too no he was marvelous and then you did after that feature the the george montgomery movie and then fury and then fury you you did quite a few fury episodes i did 13 episodes what a great cast that was with peter graves peter graves william fawcett oh william fawcett you know he cut his teeth on a branding iron are you serious what are you doing they said that in the opening crowd i don't recall that yeah morning miss helen good morning pete keeping that date with your new young boo huh yes but he's not in his room have you seen him why no ma'am reckon i'm still asleep i didn't notice fury was gone either oh i know what joey is doing he's trying to get that mare back wait what do you know the little see miss helen that ain't good i better roust out jim why well some of the boys was telling me only yesterday there's a fighting fool of a pinto stallion in that wild herd the white mayor come from oh pete you don't think joy will be any danger you never can tell what'll happen in a horse fight oh you better wake up jim yeah you did so many western uh series in in the heyday of the westerns a shotgun slayed with scott brady i was in that too yes i forgot that's why i brought it in well thank you i don't remember my credits that's terrible well here i'll remind you remember a show with a tall lanky guy with a big adam's apple clint eastwood he was in one called rawhide oh that's true yeah you were one of those too yeah yeah yeah uh so i was an indian princess well we've had a run on those today i was a daughter of a kessel mexican indian god i have no idea with michael pate i think was it i don't recall i think he was and the texan another great uh series you were in that with rory calhoun that's right i was thank you i'm gonna surprise you with some remember my copy of everything stefan where are you stefan is her son and uh he's gonna fact check this later you're gonna help me with my credits i didn't know how to work that much well how about another one then we talked about cheyenne and you did two of those at warner brothers they cancelled casablanca and king's row and put in other westerns on rotation with cheyenne and one of those you did as well sugarfoot oh i remember remember i remember him because uh enough the second horse that johnny carpenter owns his name was sugarfoot so i should remember that well will hutchins play tom brewster the the wannabe lawyer he was a sweet young man a very quiet young man lovely and he was tall too he was like six four well i think warner brothers they'll hire tall people i i made a screen test for king's row and they were going to do that series and they cast me in the ann sheridan part but i'd already signed for fury and so they they uh canceled they cancelled king's row because i couldn't be in it and that's very flattering very flattering that was that was a lucky dis another great western series from the 50s wyatt earp with hugh o'brien you worked on one of those oh we've known each other for years and years and years we used to do a lot of openings together back in las vegas opening for a hotel there and he was the best dancer oh could he roomba he was a wonderful dancer i miss him now well he he did a lot for westerns but he met albert schweitzer uh in africa just as the white earth show was winding down after six years and as he was leaving africa schweitzer said what is it that you're going to do with your life hugh and it made him think about it he came back to the states and created the hugh o'brien youth organization hobie yes and which took kids he took the brightest he was very interested in the brightest children that were getting sort of left behind but the legacy he left with wyatt earp that was a number one show an excellent actor and just a and a good-looking fella he was he was that when you were growing up watching westerns going to hollywood high with all these future stars were there western stars that you had as your favorite well i guess it was johnny carpenter evidently uh i i don't recall why i liked him so much and i looking back on it now i can't remember one western i saw him in i keep looking trying to find it on the internet why did i like this man so much and recognize him when i saw him he was my hero and i'm i'm ever so grateful well he saw something in you obviously to put you on a horse and well once he got me on a horse and saw he couldn't ride then he put me in a movie there's something else i want to talk about before you go and it's a film that is a classic the star of war of the worlds the original version [Applause] this this movie was a serious science fiction scare still holds up so beautifully and if you look at it again now it's during the mccarthy era the red scare and the analogy that you can make between the martians uh well exactly well i mean as it started out with h.g wells in 1897 i believe it was for british imperialism and then orson welles now we have hitler on the rise in 1938 and then george pal in 1953 52 he made it came out in 53 it was communism and then when steven spielberg decided it was his favorite favorite movie and so many people criticize it and it's not fair because it is a wonderful movie and there is no comparison with the with the original i mean the terrorists now are on the rise so every time the movie is made there's a metaphor for something something is going on but the reason that movie still holds up i mean it's 300 years the special effects have changed so much but they work so very well in the george powell oh it's all done by hand you know all done by magic by hand by by brilliant people how large were the alien ships oh they were about a meter they were solid copper they weren't solid because you had the wires inside but they were a meter wide but they were all made of copper how did you get cast in that film i was under contract to paramount at the time i was a member what they called the the golden circle which had been oh they started that in the 20s and gary cooper and fay ray were one of the original people in the golden circle and so i was lucky enough to get a contract milt lewis saw me in a movie and a play called win without rain with martin milner who passed away this year also i'd like to mention he was a dear dear friend of mine um i did a play and milt lewis saw it opening night and uh i went to paramount several several several times and they just weren't gonna they i don't know how many times i read for those people and they just weren't the least bit interested in me and one day he called me on the phone and said can you get over here right away uh robert walker was ill and they were doing re pickups or remakes or whatever you know on the film and they had an entire crew standing by and he said get over here as fast as you can i'm going to give you a screen test and i raced over and fortunately i had very very short short curly red hair so they ran me through makeup stuck a dress on me put me on the set and they said you have anything memorized and i said yes but it's a scene with gaslight two people make a monologue out of it and so there you are here i am when i'm 20 21 22 years old that's how long ago were the worlds was made in 1952 i was 22. so uh i i don't know how i don't know how the brain works when you're well i think when you're that young it just doesn't work it just works you don't think and so i didn't i made a monologue on the spot and uh i had remembered there was a kiss in the in the in the scene and there was a picture a movie i had seen years ago with the robert montgomery you only see him if he looks into the mirror because he is the camera looking at everything and i remembered when he had to kiss i think it was audrey todder i'm not sure yes and he was she had to come up to the camera and kiss the lens and at the last moment i remembered that movie because there was a kiss in the in the in the scene and i stepped forward and walked right up into the to the lens and and didn't leave my lip print on it but and then back off and i perhaps got my contract because i had the nerve to do all that well that was great and so i was just very lucky to get the part i was the last person read and um they didn't like the way i looked i was far too glamorous far too sophisticated and i uh charlotte clary who was the woman who did the talent and the at the um at the school over there she she had given me a breath exercise where i had to do two voices simultaneously and the breath was not taking a breath just before you say that you know speak the words of of the other person i had to do a very low violent voice and a very high innocent voice where the low voice tells the innocent girl to kill kill people and so i had to learn how to do this without taking a breath before each different person and so they played the record for them and they said oh this is they she did it twice and they put them together and they said no she did it by herself so i had to stand up in what they call the fishbowl which is a horrible room that they had the talent go in and there's a big plate glass window and and behind it are chairs very much like this but you really can't see anybody except when they're smoking their big cigars you could see the the red tip you know through the glass and so i did read it had to set it down because i was shaking so hard i couldn't hold it and so i was hired because i had a couple of good screams in it so george pal hired me and that's how i got the part of more of the worlds and they said well you don't look the part but we'll we'll do our best to make you look the part so they put a wig on me and cover that right here look that's right cover the red hair and make me look as as pomona as possible well you were terrific in the film and it is a classic and we thank you for joining us here today i have one thing i want to mention about the gene autry gun my family comes from a small town in ohio called kenton ohio and the kenton ironworks became very famous because they're the ones who made the gene archery cat pistol the walk-elect people that my father worked for the walk-a-lect people they made the the cap pistol from in i want to kenton k-e-n-t-o-n don't ever forget that they they did the cat pistol and and i'm very proud of that did you keep any did you keep any of the cap testimony that would be nice isn't that awful i didn't even keep one comic book john wayne asked me who my favorite cowboy was in motion pictures we were on a tour together through texas he said you'd like horses who's your favorite uh who's your favorite cowboy in movies and i looked him straight in the eye and i said joel mcrae thank you thank you very much and thank you oh my pleasure my pleasure thank you thank you so much don't forget your help now i won't let me help you then oh thank you yes i'll need to watch these steps yes [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: A Word on Westerns

Views: 91,064

Keywords: Clint Walker, James Garner, TV, TV westerns, Top 10, cowboy, western, Ann Robinson, Ronald Reagan, cowboy hat, hats, horses, stunts, stuntman, Budd Boetticher, movie director, B western, classic, kid show, child star, character actor, Warner Brothers, Jack Warner, Sugarfoot, Maverick, Cheyenne, Fury, leading lady, actor, muscleman, L.Q. Jones, Peter Graves, James Arness, Gunsmoke, Clint Eastwood, A Word on Westerns, interview, celebrithy, talk show, Rob Word, war of the worlds, gun, sci-fi

Id: tYuj1FILIVA

Length: 24min 12sec (1452 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021