Western Legends

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595085266,00.html

Friday, August 20, 2004

Kanab rounds up screen cowboys for honors at annual Western fest

By Carma Wadley
Deseret Morning News

      Bruce Boxleitner has always had a soft spot in his heart for Kanab. "That's where I got my first big break. What an experience it was!"

      Boxleitner was chosen to play Luke Macahan in the television series "How the West Was Won," which also starred James Arness, who had just left "Gunsmoke" after 20 seasons.
      "Jim was very excited not to be playing Matt Dillon," Boxleitner said by phone from his home in California. "And I was a young, gangly looking thing. I was 25, but I looked 17. We had a marvelous cast — Richard Kiley, Eva Marie Saint.
      "And the country was so beautiful. I remember the Parry Lodge. I remember eating breakfast there. It was a huge time in my life."
      Robert Horton also got his start as a young TV cowboy. He is best-known for his role as Flint McCullough on the "Wagon Train" series, a character he so took to heart that he created a "biography" for Flint to keep him consistent for all the various scriptwriters and directors on the show.
      Between 1957 and 1965, some of that series was also filmed in Kanab.
      Horton has another connection with Utah; some of his ancestors came across the Plains with the Mormon pioneers — and his grandfather, Joseph W. McMurrin, was called to the First Council of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1898. "I still have lots of relatives there," Horton said during a telephone interview from his California home.
      Boxleitner and Horton are the latest inductees into Kanab's "Little Hollywood Walk of Fame" and will be honored at this year's Western Legends Round-up, which begins Tuesday.
      The festival celebrates all things Western but particularly Western movie lore. Included in the activities are the West's only cowboy-poetry rodeo, a Western film festival, quick draws and fiddle competitions, arts and crafts exhibits, a horse and longhorn cattle parade, an authentic wagon trek, Western dress-up contests, Navajo weavers, a Western art show, a quilt show, and headline entertainers, including Ian Tyson, R.W. Hampton and Red Steagall.

      "Each year we add features," said Robert Houston, chairman of the festival. "When you combine the Round-up's festivities with all the natural attractions in the area, it makes a family outing you can't find anywhere else in the world."
      Western movies are a focus of the festival because, dating back to 1924, "there've been more than 200 Western films, featuring 200 stars, filmed around here. That's a big part of our heritage."
      And not just for Kanab, but for America, he said. "One thing we try to do is honor the role of the cowboy and the cowboy model."
      The hard-working, country-loving, West-opening figure was larger than life on the screen, but there was a lot drawn from real life, said Houston. "I was talking to a guy the other day who said he didn't know what would happen to America when all the ranchers were gone. People don't help each other any more, like the old ranchers did," he said. "The cowboys were our Saturday heroes. They expressed the values we want to honor. We want to honor that way of life."
      In addition to Boxleitner and Horton, Adrian Booth will be on hand to accept her plaque. "She was honored last year, but she broke her hip and couldn't come," said Houston. "And we'll also be honoring Ronald Reagan, as a patriot and movie star."
      So this makes at least two awards Boxleitner and Reagan share — they both received Golden Boot awards for their work in Westerns. Boxleitner also received the Buffalo Bill Award for "his commitment to family entertainment." He starred in several "Gambler" movies with Kenny Rogers, did more Western projects with James Arness and co-starred with Marie Osmond in the TV movie "I Married Wyatt Earp." Eventually, he starred in several TV series of his own, including the short-lived "Bring 'Em Back Alive," the wildly popular "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" and the acclaimed futuristic "Babylon 5." (He recently came in at No. 9 on TV Guide's list of all-time top sci-fi icons.)

      In some ways, Boxleitner said, "the Western was the foundation for all I did. The other guys were frontier figures. They all held true to the myth and the creed."
      He says he still loves Westerns. "I still think the most exciting image on the screen is the horseman moving across the land. I'm very thankful that I got to be a part of the tail end of the golden age of Westerns."
      Boxleitner, who was raised on a farm outside of Chicago, grew up with a stick horse and a dog, but he said, "I still had to go to 'cowboy school.' I went out with the wranglers to learn the rudiments. That was not so much the stock-in-trade for young actors by then."
      He ended up buying the horses he rode on TV, and for a time had a ranch. "I'd dare anyone to outride me, even now."
      Horton, too, went on to a variety of other projects. He starred in TV's "A Man Called Shenandoah." He spent a year on Broadway in "110 in the Shade" and worked in such feature films as "The Green Slime," a sci-fi movie shot in Japan. "It was so bad that now it has become a cult film."
      But he found that he enjoyed regional theater more than Hollywood. That took him all over the country (including Salt Lake City, where he starred in a production of "There's a Girl in My Soup" at the old Tiffany's Attic theater at Arrow Press Square in 1976).
      Horton recently celebrated his 80th birthday, and he looks back on a satisfying career. He, too, feels honored to be remembered for his cowboy roles. "As actors, we don't have a lot of contact with the public. I really had no idea how fans felt about me and my shows until I started going to a few old-film festivals."

      He remembers one time a man stopped him to say "that he came from a dysfunctional family and he needed a role model growing up. 'I picked you,' he told me, 'and you've served me well all these years. I appreciate it.'
      "I've learned that as actors we have an impact on lives that we don't realize, whether it's as a role model or as a crush in a young woman's life. We have no idea what the acting profession does for the audience. But it's enormously satisfying when you find out you've made a difference."
      Just like the cowboys of the Old West. "That whole part of American history, the 'Go West young man' era, was a good time," Horton said, adding that the screen cowboys offer a lot to emulate. "They were straight-shooters. They always did the right thing."

If you go. . .

      What: Western Legends Round-up
      When: Tuesday through Aug. 29
      Where: Kanab
      How much: Daily street festival, free; major events, $20-$25.
      Phone: 1-800-733-5263
      E-mail:kane@westernlegendsroundup.com
      Web:www.westernlegendsroundup.com

E-mail: carma@desnews.com