Ben Johnson

[JackFavell]

Wow, that clip with Jonathan Winters is amazing! The fine art of ad lib, completely off the cuff. I don't think anyone can do that anymore.

[MissGoddess]

For those who missed Bonanza's "Top Hand" or don't get Encore:

[youtube][/youtube]

[JackFavell]

Oh thanks for that too! It's my favorite.

[MissGoddess]

Anyone who's a western fan HAS to see that episode.

[pvitari]

I will be very happy to make a DVD of Top Hand for anyone who wants one . Just PM me your address. :)

[pvitari]

The news has not been nice the past few days. :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

And then on Sunday a wonderful young (40 years old) poet I knew slightly when he taught at Emory last year, Jake Adam York, died suddenly, from a massive stroke. :(

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/j ... 3904.story

That newspaper piece is OK but it doesn't really convey the power of his poetry and its subject matter -- he wrote about the Civil Rights movement, Southern history and racial injustice, something that had impacted his family directly although he was white.

I posted this picture today, without any words. Kind of speaks for itself.

[tinker]

That's a lovely photo Paula, but the little girl looks very nervous ( not of Ben but the horse).

And a "real" cowboy being seen in public with his horse's mane in plaits!!!! In Australia if a guy gets caught out doing something to make his horse look pretty (like plaiting) he pretends its his wife's horse.


dee

[pvitari]

If I were the little girl, I'd be nervous too (of the horse). :)

As for the plaited mane, well, Ben apparently did borrow horses! Maybe he did for the ride with the little girl. :)

Here is one of my all-time favorite Ben anecdotes, which involves a borrowed horse. It's from an article in American Cowboy magazine, September-October 2004, and you can read the entire article online here:

http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly. ... abilia/367

The article is about cowgirl/rodeo competitor/stuntwoman/actress Sammy Fancher Thurman Brackenbury. I've posted this particular story from the article before but for anyone who missed it, here it is:

Ben Johnson was [Sammy's] friend. Once she saw him prove how good a hand he was. At a rodeo in Las Vegas, he borrowed cowboy Lucy Ashley's brown mare for the calf roping. Ashley was sitting with Sammy and her dad when Johnson rode into the barrier to ask for his calf.

Ashley saw that Johnson was wearing his spurs and said, "You know, I never rode that mare with spurs before."

"Well, you better tell Ben, because he's got his spurs on," Sam said.

"Oh, he'll find out when he spurs her," Ashley said.

Johnson broke out to rope his calf, the mare scotched, and he spurred her. She started bucking. Johnson caught his calf at the top of the first jump, stepped off, tied him, and won the go-round.

****

I love that story. Roping a calf while riding a bucking horse! Amazing. :) And how about all of them just sitting there knowing the mare wasn't used to being spurred and waiting to see what would happen. :)

[pvitari]

Posting pics from The Last Picture Show this week, with a surprise finale I think you will all enjoy. ;) Here's the first one. :)

[pvitari]

Another Last Picture Show publicity still.

[pvitari]

I posted this story with the picture above and can't resist re-posting it here. I've been chuckling over it all morning. :)

::::

An anecdote told by Peter Bogdanovich in his book Who the Hell's in It: Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors. The following took place at a reception at the White House for 400 Hollywood film people.

[President Nixon] shook hands with Cybill [Shepherd] and we started away. "You ought to put her in a picture!" he called after us.

"I did. That's the one you haven't seen."

"Oh?" He came after us and leaned in toward me confidentially. "What was the name of that production?"

"The Last Picture Show."

He looked up at me and there were several seconds of silence. He knitted his brow intently. "Ahm -- the one in Texas?" he said tentatively.

"That's right."

"In -- ahm -- in black and white?"

"Yes."

"But I saw that! Why, that's a remarkable picture. We ran that at Camp David!" And to my amazement, he launched into a very flattering paragraph about the movie and the actors in it -- Ben Johnson in particular... Then he turned to Cybill, putting a hand on her arm. "And what part did you play?"

She said, "Jacy."

I said, "She was the one who stripped on the diving board."

The President paused. He looked at me, but kept his hand on Cybill's arm. "Well, everyone gave a remarkable performance in that film," he said, and then, still not looking at Cybill, but patting her arm as he spoke and with the barest flicker of a smile. "And, of course, I remember you very well now, my dear."

We said good-bye again, shook hands and left.

[JackFavell]

That's too funny! I can practically see it happening in front of me from the way he writes.

[pvitari]

I noticed it because Nixon singled out Ben for praise, but upon reading the whole thing, I thought it was so funny I had to post it all, not just the line about Ben. :)

Will have some more about quotes from TLPS with the picture I post tomorrow. And then something a bit fun on Friday relating to TLPS. :)

[pvitari]

Some more quotes, from Ben and from Peter Bogdanovich. I would like to think the Bogdanovich's recollection one is 100 percent accurate because I want to believe that Ben used some (mild) swear words to accept the role of Sam the Lion -- a role he had rejected several times because of swear words in the script -- and finally would only agree to do if Bogdanovich agreed to let him remove them. :) These quotes are from a retrospective about the making of The Last Picture Show in the Feb. 1999 issue of Texas Monthly... which eventually I'll get scanned in and posted. ;) I should add that Bogdanovich first met Ben back in 1964, when he spent some time on the set of Cheyenne Autumn to interview John Ford.

BEN JOHNSON [on his big scene at the stock tank]: I'll tell you why that was pretty easy for me: My growing up on those old ranches. I have seen those old cowboys outgrow their usefulness, get old and try to retire and move to town. Well, it never works. And in my growing up I had seen two or three of those old guys who was worn out and wanted to retire but just couldn't. So that's the way I created my character...But what made that scene work, [was that] this storm came in and the waves on this lake kept coming up and finally they white-capped. And the eerie background in that scene, I think is what made it work as well as it did.

[Bogdanovich] got out of the car, and he came over there to me and said, "Ben, do you know your dialogue?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Do you mind running it?"...We ran it one time, and he told the camera guy, "Set the camera up right there." And here's this storm, it's rolling in all the time, and a drop of rain once in a while, and the wind ablowing and the waves coming up. We sat down there on that log and we got it the first rattle out of the box.

PETER BOGDANOVICH: Tex [Ritter] wanted to play Sam the Lion; he was sort of the runner-up for that. And he would have been good. I thought Ben was wonderful, though. Ben turned the picture down four times. I finally got John Ford to call him. Ford told him, "What are you gonna do, be Duke's sidekick the rest of your life?" Of course, Ben called me after that, and he said, "You put the old man on me." I said, "Ben, I really want you to do this." "Oh, Pete, I don't know," he said. "There's too many words in this picture. There's too many words." I told that to Ford, and he said, "Yeah, he always says there's too many words. He said there was too many words in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. He just likes to ride." Finally, in the last meeting with him, I said, "Ben, you don't understand. If you do this picture, you're gonna get an Academy award; you're gonna get a nomination at least." When I said it to him, he got angry. He said, "Why do you say that?" And I said, "Because I think so." "Goddammit," he said. "AU right. I'll do the goddam thing."

From Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career, by Joseph McBride:

Welles thought there was too much sex in the script Bogdanovich and McMurtry had written for The Last Picture Show. But Welles coveted the role of Sam the Lion, the grizzled owner of the local pool hall and diner who serves as a mentor to the local boys and embodies old-fashioned cowboy chivalry. Welles told me, "Anybody who plays that role will win an Academy Award." But Peter [Bogdanovich] said, "I didn't want a movie star in the role." Instead he cast the veteran character actor Ben Johnson, whose weathered face spoke volumes about western values and his own sense of disillusionment. Just as Welles predicted, Johnson won the Oscar for best supporting actor. Judging from the hammy southern accent and makeup Welles used in the 1958 Faulkner adaptation The Long, Hot Summer and his remoteness from the kind of simple dignity Sam the Lion represents, his casting might have ruined Bogdanovich's film singlehandedly.

****
Sam Peckinpah weighs in... always the contrarian. :) This is from an interview with William Murray that appeared in Playboy magazine and was reprinted in Sam Peckinpah: Interviews. I had to bleep two words because a) Shutterfly is a family site and b) SSO will bleep them if I don't, I'm pretty sure. Apologies, Sam, wherever you are! I definitely agree with him about Two Lane Blacktop, which happily Criterion will release on Blu-ray and DVD on January 8.

PECKINPAH: I think the role of the critic is very important to films, and that's why I get so goddamn angry when the critics don't pick up on good films and go along with bulls---, as they did on Bogdanovich's film, The Last Picture Show, which was a crashing bore, and ignore something like Two Lane Blacktop, which I thought was a potential work of art. The Last Picture Show was artsy-craftsy, jacksy-offsy and a real pain in the ass. I was supposed to have dinner one night with Ben Johnson, who was superb in it, but I knew Peter would be there and I'd have to hit him right in the [f-word] mouth, so I didn't go. I really hated that film.

[JackFavell]

That's HILARIOUS! I can see why Peck hated it, even though I love the movie. Think about how he would have made it. It's a fascinating idea.

I also love the part about Orson Welles, but I think they do a disservice to him by suggesting that he was always hammy. They should have taken a look at his performance in Compulsion.

I love the descriptions from Ben and Peter about the making of the movie and their discussions. I always thought Ben knew his characters well, from the old days working with his dad.