The Last Horseman by Neala Ames

I GREW UP LOVING westerns. Western television shows, western movies, western songs, and western merchandise from furniture to curtains to toys filled my childhood. Two of my favorite television shows were Laramie and Wagon Train. When the opportunity came to interview my favorite actor from those two shows, Robert Fuller, I leaped at the chance.

I sat down with him in early September of 2020 to talk about his long career in early television and movie westerns. I’d like to thank him for taking the time to share his memories with me. Here’s what he had to say.

“Laramie and Wagon Train were two series done at Universal Studios. As far as I’m concerned that was a much more important studio for westerns than Warner Brothers, who did other series like Cheyenne. They had something like 30 westerns, and most of them were done on the back lot or sound stages. Wagon Train and Laramie, at Universal, had a very good budget, good producers, and I think, some very good actors, particularly our guest stars. Those are the main reasons these shows are still so popular. They also had some of the best writers to write the one hour shows.

“When I talk to fans or get fan mail, they always talk about how great the character actors were and how good the scripts were, what great sense they made. I saw that from the beginning, and I was very proud to be part of those shows.

“Not only that, we had the best crews. On Laramie, I had a cameraman whose name was Ray Rennahan, who invented Technicolor. He was the Technicolor advisor on Gone with The Wind. So, how much better can you get for a young actor starting a TV series? I mean, a cameraman like that was unbelievable. Plus, we went on location and filmed all around the country. Of course, on the back lot, we had Laramie street, that’s where our set was. We shot in Kanab, Utah, and Lone Pine and several other places in Utah. So that was kinda nice.

“When you look at a show like Gunsmoke or Wanted: Dead or Alive, and you hear people walk, you can hear that they’re walking on a boardwalk down the main street. It’s on a soundstage. I’m sure you’re aware of that, shooting the whole thing on a sound stage.I was fortunate to be in a good series in a good studio.

“Now, Laramie ran for four years. That was longer than many shows, but we had the same crew for those four years. That’s a great memory because I knew every crew member. I knew their names. I knew their wives and their children. I worked with them every day. It was a family, and that was so important to Smitty and me, to work with people who knew us better than anything in the world. So, we only had five or six directors. You know, they knew us like a book—and sometimes a bad book! No, they loved us— they really did—and that made it enjoyable.

“When Laramie ended, they asked me to go into Wagon Train. I jumped at the chance because one of my favorite actors of all time, John McIntire, was the wagon master then. I knew Terry Wilson and Frank McGrath who played Hawks and Wooster. Because Wagon Train was shooting on the lot at the same time Laramie was, that was an incentive, to go and work with those guys. Those are great memories, very special.

“If television created westerns today, I don’t believe that people would watch them. I’d say, in the last twenty-five years, possibly thirty, anybody who’s tried to make a western for television has failed because number one, there’s no actors that can play a good cowboy. There’s no western horses. There’s no western writers. There’s no western directors anymore, so it’s impossible to make a good western for television.

“As far as western movies are concerned, there have been some good ones. Of course, Clint Eastwood stands out over everybody. The Outlaw Josie Wales and others, they’re fantastic. But then we had two great western actors, Bob Duval and Kevin Costner. They made one of the best western movies in the last five years, Open Range. Did you see it? Well, put it down on your list to see one of the best westerns ever made. It is a western of all times. There are some western movies today that are good. Still, there’s nobody who can ride a horse anymore.

“I had a chance to do a guest spot on the movie Maverick. I loved it. I got to work with thirty of my favorite western friends that I’d done westerns with over a thirty-year period. Guys like Denver Pyle, Waylon Jennings, my buddy Doug McClure… we had a fabulous time.

“When you watch that film and see the dynamics among all the actors, you can see we were having fun, and believe me, it was fun. There wasn’t pressure. It was done very well. We had a good time.

“You know, I learned… let me see if I can phrase this right… Dick Boone was my acting coach. Richard Boone, you know who he is? Well, when I got out of the Army in 1955, I started studying with Dick Boone. I hadn’t planned on becoming an actor, but my buddy Chuck Courtney got me involved in it, and Dick pointed out several things about actors and taught me two things. One— to act believably under imaginary circumstances as if it was happening to you. So, when you say, did I ever have a role where I played myself, rather than a character, when I get into the wardrobe in the morning before I go on the set, regardless of whatever show I’m doing, I become that character in my mind. As I look in the mirror, in the wardrobe, and know the part I’m playing, when I start to act, I act every scene, in the picture or television show, as if it was happening to me, “to act believably under imaginary circumstances.”

“You know, when you ask me if there’s a role I would have liked to play but didn’t, I can’t think of one. I guess, if I could have, I’d have liked to have played Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. Anyway, no, my God, I can’t think of one. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve played all the roles that I’ve wanted to play and didn’t play roles that I didn’t want to play.

“There is one western film I’d still like to see made, but it’s too late, it could never be done. I would like to have seen a real, well-done western movie about John Wesley Hardin. Nobody has ever done it right. I always wanted… I would have loved to play John Wesley Hardin in a major motion picture, you know, done right with good writers and directors. It never did happen.

“Well, Hardin was an interesting character, you know. He was a cowboy, a killer. He was a good guy who had a tough life. I sort of have empathy for him, you could say, even though he was a bad guy in the end. But his story is a fabulous story, and if it’s done right, it could have been fun to do. “God, I would have loved to work with Bob Duval or Kevin Costner. Those two guys are the only two guys left, along with Clint, today, who know how to ride a horse, how to wear the right wardrobe, know the western genre, the scene. They actually have horses on their own, anyway. They can portray a cowboy better than anybody on TV or in western movies today. I know Bob, but unfortunately, I don’t know Kevin. I would have loved to work with the two of them in a movie, particularly a western. But I’m retired. I retired in 2004. I turned down a part in Yellowstone, turned down a major motion picture last week. I’m a rancher. I’m a cowboy. I have horses. I fish. I spent fifty-two years in this business. That’s enough! You couldn’t pour me into Hollywood.

“Oh, I’ve had so many opportunities to work with great actors. One who comes to mind quickly is… I had the time of my life working with Yul Brynner during The Magnificent Seven. Such a great, incredible man to be around. He is the king.

“He and I got along so well, you wouldn’t believe it. The two of us are alike in some ways. Some people say he can be difficult, but he certainly wasn’t with me, and he certainly wasn’t with anybody on Return of the Seven. We had good people. You know, Yul can ride a horse. Yul was exactly my size and my weight at that time, and he likes to ride. Every day, in the morning, before it was shot, he’d have everybody go out and ride a little bit. I respected that because in all the riding scenes people look good in that.

“No, Yul was great like that. One of the first things Yul said was “if you need anything while you’re on this show, don’t go to anybody else. Go to me. I will see that you get it.” And I thought, wow, that’s pretty cool.

“My other favorite, oh my God, my idol, Joel McCrea. I grew up idolizing him. Fortunately, I got to work with him in Mustang Country. In fact, my producer, John Champion, from Laramie, wrote the script, and the two of us got Joel out of retirement to do that movie. Patrick Wayne and I got to go up to Canada with them and a couple of the cowboys from the movie and spent some great time with Joel, and that was the thrill of my lifetime. it really was because he was my idol. There’s never been a better cowboy in the picture business than Joel McCrea.

“Then Dan Duryea did several Laramies. In fact, he did the very first one. Dan and I became very close friends, and I loved Dan. Marvelous man, and I loved working with him. I’ve been very fortunate working with some really great actors, great people.

“But it’s interesting. Dan was in the business for a hundred years! He was not a kid and started out in the thirties and forties doing all the contemporary-type films. Then, all of a sudden, he turned up doing westerns and doing them very well because he was such a good actor.

“I’m not from the east! We’ve got to get this straight. I was born in Troy, New York. I left there when I was six years old and moved to Florida. I was raised in Miami and Key West. It’s not the east. It’s the south. I went to Miami Military Academy when I was a kid. I grew up in Key West, fishing and going to high school there. I didn’t move to California until 1950. I claim Florida as much as anything as my home, growing up in my younger years. I had to live in California because my parents moved there, and I went with them. I was sixteen years old.

“Fortunately, I got into the motion picture business, and television, so I had to live there. I stayed there and worked there for fifty-two years. When I decided I’d had enough of it, I retired in 2004. We wanted to go someplace where we could have horses and fish and have a ranch, and we did. “In 2004 we bought this ranch outside of Gainesville, Texas, and here we are. She still works—I retired—but Jennifer still works. So, I’m not an easterner!

“When I was ten years old in Miami, I’d go to the Saturday matinee, you know, and watch three westerns a day for ten cents. I grew up just loving westerns, all those great, great westerns in the forties, when I was a young kid. When I got to Hollywood, I was sixteen years old. I hadn’t graduated from high school. I quit high school in ninth grade. So, I had to work. My dad said, “If you’re going to quit school, you’re going to work.” Well, I went to work the next day, and I was never out of work since.

“I met Chuck Courtney, who played Dan Reid on The Lone Ranger television series. He rode the white horse, Victor, and played the Lone Ranger’s nephew. Well, he was doing that show, and he and I met and became friends. He was a cowboy. He had horses, quarter horses. I’d only ridden one horse in Florida in my life before I met him. Well, Chuck put me on his horses. I started to ride a little bit, you know, with him. Not much for a while, then, because we were friends, and he was a cowboy, we’d go to the western movies. Pretty soon I found myself wearing boots and Levis, western shirts and big hats and becoming more of a cowboy than anything. I was hanging out at amateur “ rodeos and did all that kind of stuff with Chuck.

“Then I got drafted. The Korean War was on. I was nineteen at this point. So, I spent seventeen months over there, two years in the Army, came back home, and Chuck and I picked our friendship up immediately. In the meantime, I had gotten into the Screen Actors Guild and done some acting and dancing work. That was just to make some money.

“When I got out of the Army I decided that I was going to get a real job, doing something, I didn’t know, with a future, and Chuck said, “No, no, no! There’s a new acting coach in town, Dick Boone, and you’ve got to go to his class.”

“So, I did, and Dick liked what I did in class. Chuck had been at it for about a month before that. Westerns were big at that time. There were over 32, maybe 34, westerns in prime time, in television. This was 1955. Dick knew that Chuck could ride a horse, so he had his class take riding lessons from Chuck. That’s where I learned how to ride.

“Every Saturday, Dick Boone and the whole class, fifteen or seventeen of us, would go down to the stables, rent a horse, and Chuck would teach everybody how to ride a horse. He was a tough teacher! If you were flapping your arms, he’d ride beside you with a stick and bat your arm. I tell you, when he came close the next time, you kept your arms still. If you bent over in the saddle, he’d come by and crack you in the back with that stick. Then you’d sit up straight.

“Well, it didn’t take long to learn how to ride a horse the right way. So, it was Chuck Courtney who taught me how to ride a horse, without a doubt. And since we’re on him, well, Chuck was one of the fastest draws in town. Chuck taught me how to draw that gun. He was fast, one of the fastest in Hollywood. He taught me how to do it, and I did it. That’s how I learned to draw. So, in a nutshell, that’s how I learned to ride a horse and draw a gun.

“Hoot and Gambler were my horses. I owned them. My God, I had two of the best picture horses in the business. In fact, Hoot is a bit of a legend, as far as old wranglers would say because he was one of the best picture horses who knew “camera” better than the actors.

“He was a ham! I’m telling you what. I could do anything off those horses. I could shoot off them with my .45 or my Winchester with no problem whatsoever. They would stop for the camera, on their mark, and never move while dialog was going on. That’s opposed to John Smith’s horse, Alamo. Boy, if we had a two-shot together, we’d ride up to the mark, and the camera is on us, all Alamo wanted to do was bite my horse! So, I spent half my time kicking him in the head to stop him from doing that while we’re trying to do a scene. Of course, you never saw that. Then he would stop. But I’m just giving you a story about two types of horses. “Alamo in the long run, of course, was a good horse. He was John Wayne’s old horse, and Smitty got him from him. But Gambler and Hoot, well, they were both quarter horses, but Gambler was a cutting horse, so if I ever had any scenes on Wagon Train when cattle were around, then boy, he was perfect. He was a great horse. Both of ’em. They made me look good, let me just say that. Both of those horses made me look good.

“Gambler was sixteen hands, sixteen something, and God, his conformation was fantastic. He had a great attitude.

“Nowadays, I do festivals every year. What I like most about doing them is the fans. The fandom is up to 4,500 people. It blows my mind. I can’t believe it. But anyway, I can’t wait to get on the plane to get there and see them. They’re all so much fun! You know, everybody is so different. There’s always at least 200-250 at each festival that I do now. I know them all. I have a personal relationship, in a way, with each and every one of them because they’re individuals. I don’t treat them as a group of fans. I treat them as the people that they are. I just have so much fun! I want to know all about ’em.

“I got to see all my old western pals that I worked with throughout the years at these film festivals. Unfortunately, year by year, they keep passing away. I just lost Jim Drury, who was with me all the time. Dan Haggerty… you know, I always looked forward to being with these guys for three or four days, having fun all the time. And the fans have so much fun together. I mean, they go horseback riding, they stay where we are, in groups, and go visit the Grand Canyon. They post some great pictures on the internet. My God, there’s groups of them. They’re friends, and they support each other. This is one heck of a fandom. It’s not easy to organize, but we have the time of our life. At every one of these, we have a private session, a Q and A. There’ll be a hundred fifty people in there a couple of hours, and boy, do we have fun.

“I treat people as my dad taught me. He said, “Do unto others as you’d have others do unto you.” That’s the way I treat everybody. I’m not one of those actors that thinks he’s a big star actor. I don’t even like the word “star.” I’m just a motion picture and TV personality. Humphrey Bogart is a star. So, I just enjoy people, and I am who I am. My dad brought me up the right way, my stepdad. Jennifer is the same way. We just like people. I’ve never thought of myself as a star. I’ve been in Hollywood for fifty-two years, and I’ve seen actors, young actors, who were good, fun, nice people. As soon as they get a movie or TV series, they turn into the biggest jerks you’ve ever seen in your life because now they’re an actor. Well, that taught me a lot of lessons. They’re not friends of mine anymore, that’s for sure.

“My mother got divorced when I was very young, six years old, when we moved to Florida. I went to Miami Military School while she was dancing in the chorus. She met my stepdad, who was in the Navy, and married him when I was ten. I call him my dad, he’s not my stepdad, he’s my real father as far as I’m concerned. He’s one of the greatest guys I’ve ever known and taught me everything I know today as far as being a human being.

“God, I love Texas. I’ve lived here sixteen years now. I love the Texas people. I love that I’ve got a concealed handgun license and shoot in my back yard. Texans are tough people and country strong. I like the old farmers and ranchers. They’re just great people, people from the area. I like the fact that they stand up for themselves here. I like Texas. I guess I’m just going to say that.

“I just want the readers, I guess they are going to be fans at the same time, too, I just want to thank them for the great support that they’ve given me throughout my whole career. I’ve been very, very fortunate to have the fans and the fandom that I do today, and I can’t tell you how personally great it makes me feel that I’m well respected as an actor, and more than that, as a person, from all these people and fans, friends of mine. I don’t call them fans. I call them friends. Yes, that’s what I’d like for them to know.

“Hands down, Jess Harper in the Laramie series was my favorite role! How could a guy get any luckier than to be able to play that character, written that well, as Jess Harper? It’s unbelievable. I’m one of the luckiest guys in the world, no doubt about that. I have several favorite episodes. Most of my favorites are where I do my own stunts and my fighting. I love Duel at Alta Mesa. I loved working with Fay Spain. I think she did three or four episodes. Fay was a great actress to work with. Oh, I don’t know, Star Trail, getting to work with Lloyd Nolan. I could go on forever. I mean every one of those shows had a great guest star, a great story, and were a lot of fun. The best part of doing it was getting to do it with John Smith. Smitty was the best to play Slim, and he and I got along so great for four years and helped to make that show what it was.

“It was the same thing with Wagon Train. I hung out with Terry and Frank. They were pals. They were stunt men. They were cowboys. They were old John Wayne and John Ford people. Their dressing rooms were right next to mine. All of us had a, might as well tell you this, we had a bank of dressing rooms at Universal Studios, and it was called Whiskey Row. The reason it was called Whiskey Row was because in the first dressing room off the main road was Ward Bond, the second dressing room was Terry Wilson, the third dressing room was Frank McGrath, the next dressing room was John Smith, then came mine, and the last dressing room was Lee Marvin. It was called Whiskey Row.

“We had lots of fun after work.

“Why did I wear gloves so much? It’s a cowboy thing. There’s barbed wire, riding horses all the time. I get asked that question all the time. Cowboys wear gloves. I wish I could say, “I wore ’em because,” but it’s part of my wardrobe. If you look at my wardrobe, at the red long johns that were ripped and hanging out of my sleeves, I don’t know, it was part of Jess Harper. That’s how I explain it. It didn’t hinder my draw, and in the fight scenes I did it protected my hands a little bit. I hope you know that I did all the horse falls, all the saddle falls and everything. I did every stunt that was required. Hitting the ground like that, wearing gloves saves your hands a little bit. It was part of Jess Harper’s costume.

“No one ever coached me on fight scenes. Did you ever see The Range Rider with Jock Mahoney? Remember how Jocko fought? Every punch I ever threw I studied Jock Mahoney. He’s the man that I patterned every fight I ever did after. He was the best fight man, actor, in the business. That’s the way I fought, I learned it from Jocko.

“No, I’ve never considered a biography. No! Absolutely not. When you do a biography, you have to tell the truth. I do not want to tell the truth about my life. And all my leading ladies? No. Nope. It’s nobody’s business. Nothing to tell.

“My favorite western song? Oh, of course. “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,” by Willie Nelson. Oh, my God, that’s it. That’s the song of all time. That suits me perfect.”

N eala Ames is a retired teacher who has loved to write since she was five years old. While on a family vacation she saw the Washita Massacre site in Oklahoma, and it affected her deeply. Growing up in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Ms. Ames enjoyed all the television westerns, and the American West captured her mind. She loves writing stories about the American experience. Now a resident of Arizona, she is surrounded by the history she loves so well. She lives in the central highlands with her husband and her three dogs. Ms. Ames maintains a Facebook page where she keeps her followers updated on the short stories that find a home. She has recently placed stories with Soteira Press, Ariel Chart, Scarlet Leaf, and Wild Violet. Work on more short stories as well as a full-length novel occupies much of her time. She welcomes all new readers to join her established base. “As Good a Man” is her third short story to be featured in Saddlebag Dispatches.