The Silver Screen Oasis

They are beautiful Paula. I'm sure its no coincidence that so many of those images show Ben's beautiful smile.

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I'm sure its no coincidence that so many of those images show Ben's beautiful smile.

Tinker, you know me too well. ;) Ben's character is a real sweetie in Ride a Northbound Horse, under his tough trail boss hide. :)

Just added to the Ben page: 20 Mexican lobby cards. (Go here to see them all: https://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.co ... allery/480)

Ben's in four of them. Here they are.

Ben in a helicopter in The Sugarland Express. Whenever I see Ben in or near aircraft, I think of that passage in Harry Carey, Jr.'s Company of Heroes where he describes how Ben had a massive fear of flying and during a flight to the Wagon Master location in Moab, Utah, kept clutching at Dobe's arm, as if that would keep the plane from falling. ;) John Ford up front relaxed and smoked and read a book. :)

In case anyone's interested, I posted an article from the July 1991 Texas Monthly at the Ben page. The author is Don Graham, an English professor at Univ. of Texas at Austin, whose books include the Audie Murphy biography No Name on the Bullet. The article is entitled "Texas Videos: The Best Texas Movies on Tape" -- it's his list of the best 20 movies that take place in Texas. Ben is in four of the films (The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, The Last Picture Show and The Sugarland Express) and Graham singles Ben out for praise in his reviews of The Last Picture Show ("Many memorable moments...Ben Johnson, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor, every time he is on the screen") and The Sugarland Express ("The carnival atmosphere is counterpointed beautifully by Ben Johnson's law enforcement officer, a sad-faced man who has to make the decision to employ the expertise of two deadly sharpshooters to end the chase once and for all").

You can download the entire article from HERE:

https://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com/print/894

Happy St. Paddy's Day! I don't have anything specifically Irish for today but there is a lot of Fordian-Irish humor in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, so here's a publicity portrait of Ben for SWAYR. *melt*

Sorry I've been so slow with posts on the Ben page -- it's that time of year when I barely have time to turn around so things are going to be slow through the middle of May. After that, I will actually have some free time again. :) But I do have some good things coming up even during the slow period.

I did just post a great story and photo on the Ben page but you're going to have to go there to look at it. http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com

I met via Facebook (thank you FB!) a writer named Kenneth Kieser who went on a turkey shoot with Ben in Missouri probably sometime in the early to mid 80s. (He's not sure of the exact date.) He wrote a story about the experience which he very kindly sent me and also sent me a great photo of him with Ben and the turkey Ben bagged. As you'll see in the story, Ben was always the most down to earth of men -- it must have been so great to get to meet him.

Bob MacDonald, to whom Ben autographed this photo, was a San Diego area reporter who knew a lot of the cowboys, ranchers and horsemen in the Southern California area (according to ebay seller).

Here's one from Wild Stallion.

Wagon Master pic. :)

Here they come, walkin' down the street again...

This one's from Soggy Bottom USA.

Can you name everyone in this publicity photo from Slim Carter? (No peeking at the IMDB!) :) Three of the names are listed on the photo, including the little boy seen from the back -- Tim Hovey. Tim grew up to have a lot of problems with drugs and died of a drug overdose at age 44. :(

Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood-Elsewhere.com has a nice post about Ben's monologue in The Last Picture Show today. Here's the link:

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2014 ... more-45932

I have another Slim Carter pic to post but it's going to have to wait. Here are two pics from My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys -- the bottom one is a great shot of Ben with Mickey Rooney and Scott Glenn.

More Ben in Oklahoma? I need your opinions -- what do you think?

Check out the cowboy in the gray shirt and red bandanna behind the "surrey with the fringe on the top." ;)