The Boys by Ron Howard

Author:Ron Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2021-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

14

Wild Times in Jackson Hole

RON

The Wild Country was right in the Howard clan’s wheelhouse: a western intended for family viewing. In the 1880s, the Tanners, of Pittsburgh, seek a new start on a ranch in Wyoming. They are a father, a mother, and two boys, Andrew and Virgil—that would be Clint and me. When they finally arrive at their destination, the Tanners discover that they have been swindled into buying a dilapidated farmhouse that sits on arid land. To make matters worse, their water source is a river that flows first through the adjacent land of a rich, mean rancher named Ab Cross. It’s basically There Will Be Blood for kids.

The Tanner parents were played by Steve Forrest, a handsome actor who later starred in the 1970s TV series S. W.A.T., and Vera Miles, who had played Clint’s mother in the Gentle Giant movie. The four of us were coleads, but my story was the through line: Virgil transforms from a city boy into a capable rancher who has the guts to shoot Ab Cross dead at the movie’s climax, right when Ab is about to kill Virgil’s father.

It was a coming-of-age story for my character and a coming-of-age summer for me. We shot the movie in July and August of 1969 on location just outside the town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In a circumstance that was by now familiar, Dad was given a supporting role, as one of Ab’s henchmen, and was hired in an official capacity as a dialogue coach for Clint and me. Quickly earning the trust of the movie’s higher-ups, he also became an informal script consultant, drawing upon his ranching background and knowledge of the western frontier to correct certain turns of phrase that the writers got wrong.

Mom came along for the duration, too. We had all been together in Miami for Gentle Ben, but Mom and I were only visitors to Dad and Clint’s show. This time, the entire family was in on the same adventure. Along with the rest of the cast and crew, we stayed in town in a two-story motel called the Grand Vu.

The director was Robert Totten, who was to become a significant figure in our lives. Totten was a Sam Peckinpah–like figure whose career didn’t turn out as well as Peckinpah’s. Like Peckinpah, who earned his stripes as a director on the TV western The Rifleman, Totten established himself directing episodes of Gunsmoke. He, too, aspired to create muscular, unsentimental neo-western movies, but he never quite turned that corner. He was too self-destructive, too prone to rage and heavy drinking.

He was only thirty-two when we met him, though, still full of promise. Totten was bearded, short, and stout, built like a fireplug. And a little intimidating. But that was part of why I liked him—he was the first director not to treat me with kid gloves. The second day of shooting, we filmed a scene where I unloaded some chickens in cages from our horse-drawn wagon. I wore a

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