a cowboy to remember:
HE IS SEATED IN A BLUE STRETCH LIMOUSINE,...
ITS PLATES AND CURVES GLISTENING IN THE SUN of late afternoon. The limousine moves in a stately way down a curving tree-lined path and slowly comes to a stop at the steps of a luxurious and well-appointed estate, where he steps out of the limousine, blinks in the bright sunshine, glances at the two men in obviously expensive dark suits standing at the top of the steps, smiles at the attractive woman in an equally expensive red dress who stands to the right of the men, patting the infant she cradles in her hands on top of its head. Then he steps into the huge Phaeton mobile home that is parked on the shoulder of the driveway, where I have been sitting waiting for him, as I hear an outside voice yell, Cut! And he says, Sorry to keep you waiting. It's the fifth time we've shot the scene. The last thing I thought I would ever do is play a grandfather in a high-priced suit pretending to be rich. I asssume that you're the guy who is going to interview me? I reply, Yes, sir, I am. He pulls a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and reaches into his pant pocket for a gold-plated Zippo lighter and says, Mind if we go outside? I need a smoke.
And when we do, everyone had had been standing on the porch had vanished and I now see busy extras, grips, and electricians moving about on the porch where the infant and woman and men in suits had once stood, all of whom were a part of every movie or commercial shooting location. He takes a drag on his cigarette and says, May I ask why we are doing this interview? I haven't done much of anything since I was on 'F Troop.' I reply, The owner of the newspaper has been a big fan of yours since he was a kid and and saw you when you were with Republic Pictures in the 'Three Mesquiteers' series. He smiles, That was one hell of a long time ago. And what about you? I reply, After 'The Three Mesquiteers,' I think the first A-list movie was when you did 'Island in the Sky' with John Wayne and then in the 'Sugarfoot Series' with Will Hutchins. He laughs. The last thing I heard about Will was that he's now living in Long Island. He was a really nice guy.
He's at least 79 or 80, and looks in good shape, given what he has done to his body over the years, the stunt work, falling off horses on cue, a broken arm in the thirties, a broken leg in the forties, horseplay with long dead actors who were his friends, men like Yakima Canutt, a close friend of his who had recently died, and Tom Mix and Chill Wills. He's about 6 feet tall and thin with a suntanned face filled with wrinkles, but he doesn't look old. He is wearing a black shirt and tan slacks and puts the cigarette t0 his mouth again, takes a puff, and blows out the smoke. The face is an imaginary western hero's delight: large peering eyes that alternately frighten you and make you somehow feel safe, a face made for expression with an aquiline nose and good cheekbones.
His name at birth was Robert Adrian Bradbury, he was born in January of 1907 in Portland, Oregon to a vaudeville family who settled in Hollywood in 1910. His father, Robert Bradbury, soon found work in the movies, first as an actor, later as a director. In 1920, he hired his son, Robert and his twin brother Bill as juvenile leads in an adventure movies titled The Adventures of Bob and Bill. Robert's career began to take off for good in 1927, when he was hired by Film Booking Company to star in a series of westerns. Renamed, Bob Steele, he soon began to make a name for himself. I was never a first-rate actor, he says, but I managed to have a pretty good career throughout the '20s and '30s and '40s in B-westerns for every minor film studio in Hollywood, including Monogram and Republic. Which isn't bad for a guy who can't really act. I was lucky though, when my career as a cowboy hero began to decline, I landed supporting roles in Howard Hawkes' 'The Big Sleep' and John Wayne, who was an old pal of mine from our days when we both worked for Monogram, hired me to do 'The Big Sky' and 'Rio Bravo' and 'Rio Lobo.'
It was true, he had been lucky. But when he had first exploded on the screen all those years ago, he wasn't just another western hero. He was our western hero. He wasn't just a Tom Mix or Hoot Gibson or Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, he was the Bob Steele, the original cowboy who swaggered into saloons filled with gorgeous women and steely-eyed men to have a final shoot-out with ogre's and villains, then go over to the bar to have a final drink before he rode off leaving the beautiful heroine who adored him with tears filling her eyes, as he disappeared into the sunset, off to save another town from an almost certain death and equally utter destruction.
He said that one of the most favorite movie sets that he had ever been associated with was when he was shooting the movie Of Mice and Men in 1938, mostly due to the fact that he enjoyed being around both Burgess Meredith and Noah Beery Jr. when they weren't busy fleeing from the angry citizens the fictional town called Weed, but was less than fond of Lon Chaney Jr. because he was always complaining that he was being belittled by almost every studio he had worked for for not being as talented as his father had been. So, he and Meredith and Beery would sneak of to a bar whenever they saw Chaney coming their way. That's true of almost all movie sets, he said, there always seems to be one prick in the crowd. And Lon just happened to be one of them. He went on to say, The actress that I liked the least was a woman by the name of Agnes Moorhead, who I worked with in 1959 shooting an episode called 'In Memorium' in a western series 'The Rebel,' starring Nick Adams. It wasn't that she was an evil person, or anything like that. She just reminded me of every teacher that had frightened me when I was a child. A real authority figure. On the set, the two of them were a match-made-in hell. He was drug addicted and she didn't seem to like anyone all that much.
His face immediately lit-up, however, when he began to talk about a woman named Virginia Nash Tatem, who had been his wife since 1939. The heart of our enduring marriage, he said, is that she has always made me feel as if we were still on our honeymoon. I never expected anything from Hollywood. I had no idea of becoming a big star, having a career, I was a kid, I was having a lot of fun, and they were paying me $250 a week during the Depression. Life wasn't bad. I'd gone through two brief marriages with women named Alice and Louise, but when I met Virginia, my life was forever changed. I love the woman as much today as I did the first time I ever laid eyes on her. The only real trouble I have these days is that most of my friends are dead. He shakes his head, and then his face slowly brightens again. But I still have her.
More than anyone else, the friend he seems to miss the most is John Wayne. He recalls one evening when Wayne was bragging what a great athlete he had been back when he had been playing college football for USC. One thing led to another and Steele said, I bet I can knock you your ass! And Wayne replied, You probably could if you weren't such a little runt. But of you did, who'd be buying you your next round of drinks? Wayne, of course, was instantly recognized wherever we went. So when we were both out on street together and someone spotted him we'd run as fast as we could into the nearest saloon or bar, the loser would have to pay the bar tab for the rest of the night. Win or lose, John always ended-up paying the tab with a great big grin on his face. When he died in June of '79, I lost a really fine friend and an equally good man.
He says that he plays a lot of golf and reads these days. I don't read much fiction, he says. My life in this business has been devoted to fiction. I prefer history with the lives and adventures of real men and women on the pages. I ask him what advice he would give to those who want to go out to Hollywood to act in motion pictures. He replies, Work at everything. Wait on tables until you get a break, and when you do, even if it isn't what you actually wanted, do it anyway. Become the lighting guy, cater the food, the stage manager, the carpenter, in order to learn the business That's the main thing. He then gives me a wink and a smile. Then pray to God that you get lucky. As for me, he says, staring at the smoke from the cigarette, All I want is what I've already had. To have someone around who still remembers me...
...He would die after a bout with emphysema shortly after that, on December 21st of 1988, in Burbank, California...
...And as we now approach the year of 2014...
...Bob Steele remains very much alive in my memory and probably always will until the day that I die...
And when we do, everyone had had been standing on the porch had vanished and I now see busy extras, grips, and electricians moving about on the porch where the infant and woman and men in suits had once stood, all of whom were a part of every movie or commercial shooting location. He takes a drag on his cigarette and says, May I ask why we are doing this interview? I haven't done much of anything since I was on 'F Troop.' I reply, The owner of the newspaper has been a big fan of yours since he was a kid and and saw you when you were with Republic Pictures in the 'Three Mesquiteers' series. He smiles, That was one hell of a long time ago. And what about you? I reply, After 'The Three Mesquiteers,' I think the first A-list movie was when you did 'Island in the Sky' with John Wayne and then in the 'Sugarfoot Series' with Will Hutchins. He laughs. The last thing I heard about Will was that he's now living in Long Island. He was a really nice guy.
He's at least 79 or 80, and looks in good shape, given what he has done to his body over the years, the stunt work, falling off horses on cue, a broken arm in the thirties, a broken leg in the forties, horseplay with long dead actors who were his friends, men like Yakima Canutt, a close friend of his who had recently died, and Tom Mix and Chill Wills. He's about 6 feet tall and thin with a suntanned face filled with wrinkles, but he doesn't look old. He is wearing a black shirt and tan slacks and puts the cigarette t0 his mouth again, takes a puff, and blows out the smoke. The face is an imaginary western hero's delight: large peering eyes that alternately frighten you and make you somehow feel safe, a face made for expression with an aquiline nose and good cheekbones.
His name at birth was Robert Adrian Bradbury, he was born in January of 1907 in Portland, Oregon to a vaudeville family who settled in Hollywood in 1910. His father, Robert Bradbury, soon found work in the movies, first as an actor, later as a director. In 1920, he hired his son, Robert and his twin brother Bill as juvenile leads in an adventure movies titled The Adventures of Bob and Bill. Robert's career began to take off for good in 1927, when he was hired by Film Booking Company to star in a series of westerns. Renamed, Bob Steele, he soon began to make a name for himself. I was never a first-rate actor, he says, but I managed to have a pretty good career throughout the '20s and '30s and '40s in B-westerns for every minor film studio in Hollywood, including Monogram and Republic. Which isn't bad for a guy who can't really act. I was lucky though, when my career as a cowboy hero began to decline, I landed supporting roles in Howard Hawkes' 'The Big Sleep' and John Wayne, who was an old pal of mine from our days when we both worked for Monogram, hired me to do 'The Big Sky' and 'Rio Bravo' and 'Rio Lobo.'
It was true, he had been lucky. But when he had first exploded on the screen all those years ago, he wasn't just another western hero. He was our western hero. He wasn't just a Tom Mix or Hoot Gibson or Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, he was the Bob Steele, the original cowboy who swaggered into saloons filled with gorgeous women and steely-eyed men to have a final shoot-out with ogre's and villains, then go over to the bar to have a final drink before he rode off leaving the beautiful heroine who adored him with tears filling her eyes, as he disappeared into the sunset, off to save another town from an almost certain death and equally utter destruction.
He said that one of the most favorite movie sets that he had ever been associated with was when he was shooting the movie Of Mice and Men in 1938, mostly due to the fact that he enjoyed being around both Burgess Meredith and Noah Beery Jr. when they weren't busy fleeing from the angry citizens the fictional town called Weed, but was less than fond of Lon Chaney Jr. because he was always complaining that he was being belittled by almost every studio he had worked for for not being as talented as his father had been. So, he and Meredith and Beery would sneak of to a bar whenever they saw Chaney coming their way. That's true of almost all movie sets, he said, there always seems to be one prick in the crowd. And Lon just happened to be one of them. He went on to say, The actress that I liked the least was a woman by the name of Agnes Moorhead, who I worked with in 1959 shooting an episode called 'In Memorium' in a western series 'The Rebel,' starring Nick Adams. It wasn't that she was an evil person, or anything like that. She just reminded me of every teacher that had frightened me when I was a child. A real authority figure. On the set, the two of them were a match-made-in hell. He was drug addicted and she didn't seem to like anyone all that much.
His face immediately lit-up, however, when he began to talk about a woman named Virginia Nash Tatem, who had been his wife since 1939. The heart of our enduring marriage, he said, is that she has always made me feel as if we were still on our honeymoon. I never expected anything from Hollywood. I had no idea of becoming a big star, having a career, I was a kid, I was having a lot of fun, and they were paying me $250 a week during the Depression. Life wasn't bad. I'd gone through two brief marriages with women named Alice and Louise, but when I met Virginia, my life was forever changed. I love the woman as much today as I did the first time I ever laid eyes on her. The only real trouble I have these days is that most of my friends are dead. He shakes his head, and then his face slowly brightens again. But I still have her.
More than anyone else, the friend he seems to miss the most is John Wayne. He recalls one evening when Wayne was bragging what a great athlete he had been back when he had been playing college football for USC. One thing led to another and Steele said, I bet I can knock you your ass! And Wayne replied, You probably could if you weren't such a little runt. But of you did, who'd be buying you your next round of drinks? Wayne, of course, was instantly recognized wherever we went. So when we were both out on street together and someone spotted him we'd run as fast as we could into the nearest saloon or bar, the loser would have to pay the bar tab for the rest of the night. Win or lose, John always ended-up paying the tab with a great big grin on his face. When he died in June of '79, I lost a really fine friend and an equally good man.
He says that he plays a lot of golf and reads these days. I don't read much fiction, he says. My life in this business has been devoted to fiction. I prefer history with the lives and adventures of real men and women on the pages. I ask him what advice he would give to those who want to go out to Hollywood to act in motion pictures. He replies, Work at everything. Wait on tables until you get a break, and when you do, even if it isn't what you actually wanted, do it anyway. Become the lighting guy, cater the food, the stage manager, the carpenter, in order to learn the business That's the main thing. He then gives me a wink and a smile. Then pray to God that you get lucky. As for me, he says, staring at the smoke from the cigarette, All I want is what I've already had. To have someone around who still remembers me...
...He would die after a bout with emphysema shortly after that, on December 21st of 1988, in Burbank, California...
...And as we now approach the year of 2014...
...Bob Steele remains very much alive in my memory and probably always will until the day that I die...
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