The Reel West, The Real West & The West Of Our Imagination
Eli Wallach was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1915, and grew up there. He received a B.A. degree from the University of Texas, Austin, and served in the Army during WWII, first as a Sergeant in a hospital unit and later as a Lieutenant in a hospital administrative position. Then, in 1945, he went to Broadway, where he won a Tony Award in 1951. And he made movies, and so on. But what about the good stuff? What about Westerns?
Eli has appeared in some classic Westerns. He was the leader of the Mexican bandits in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. In that movie, Eli was a gun totin’, hard ridin’ hombre. But he didn’t know how to handle a six-gun before he appeared in the movie. Watch the movie, and you’ll notice that when he puts his gun in his holster, he has to look it into the holster: he can’t just holster it. And he couldn’t ride a horse. So, every morning he went for a ride to learn to be convincing on a horse. Of course in Mexico in those days, there were still bandits in the hills. All of his movie gang of bandits rode with him every morning. He rode at the head of his men when the camera was rolling and when it wasn’t. And he was a bandit again in HOW THE WEST WAS WON, going up against good guy George Peppard. And Eli was Tuco, the Ugly, in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, when he appeared with Clint Eastwood. How good was he? Ask our Tucson Tuco. Eli’s Tuco characterization was the inspiration for Tucson Tuco’s alias.
The West Of Our Imagination – Josey Buckhorn
JOSEY BUCKHORN
Josey Buckhorn is a Classic Cowboy shooter. He shoots .45 caliber pistols with real loads. And he shoots an exposed hammers double barrel shotgun and a ’66 Winchester Yellow Boy and a ’73 Winchester. Of course he didn’t start out shooting Classic Cowboy. He started shooting Traditional. That was back in 1997, which was in the days before the Classic category came along. “Cooter Clinker got me started shooting. We were both in the fire department together.” (Cooter Clinker was the founder of the Tennessee Mountain Marauders and the father of Cowboy Action Shooting in Southeast Tennessee.)
“I started out shooting Traditional and using a cross draw. Now, I shoot with 2 strong hands, what you call Double Duelist. I usually use ‘73 Ubertis – Colt clones. And sometimes I shoot Rugers. I shoot real loads. I know I’m not gonna win anything, but I feel like I’m shooting like a real cowboy. I hate to see how it’s changed to race guns and that kind of stuff. I have fun shooting like we did when we started. You remember how it was. You and me and a few others are all that are left that shoot real loads.”
How’d he choose his alias? “I really wanted Josey Wales, but somebody already had that. I asked them (SASS) if I could add something on to Josey, and use that. And they told me yeah. A few nights before that, I’d watched an old cowboy movie with Peter Brown in it. He played a character called Commerce Buckhorn. So, I asked if anyone had Josey Buckhorn. Nobody had, so that’s how I got my alias.”
Josey’s favorite movie cowboys are John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, and the night before he was interviewed for this article, he’d watched John Wayne’s THE SHOOTIST, again. “That was a classy way for him to go out, with that movie.”
“1 thing that I’m glad to see is the youth who are shooting now. Tenn Smoke, Bad Eye Tom and I were talking about that the other day. Bad Eye Tom’s granddaughter, Calico Nicole, shoots, you know. I’m glad to see them getting involved.”
THE REAL WEST – SCOTT COOLEY (1845 – ????)
SCOTT COOLEY
Have you ever heard of Scott Cooley? Nope? Well, Scott was a real pistolero. He was born in Texas in1845. Raised by Texas rancher Tim Williamson and his wife, Scott grew up on their ranch, and then left to become a Texas Ranger. And he became a very good Ranger. But in September 1875, Scott turned over a new leaf and became a Texas gunman.
Deputy Sheriff John Worley had arrested Scott’s unofficial paw, Tim Williamson, on a false charge of suspected cattle rustling and was taking him to jail. Of German decent, Worley apparently didn’t put up too much of a scrap when a mob of German cattlemen took Williamson away from him and shot Williamson to death. Well, that didn’t set too well with Scott, whose reputation as a Ranger was that he was relentless in pursuing outlaws and wasn’t afraid to use his guns, if necessary. So, Scott climbed aboard his horse and journeyed over to Deputy Worley’s house, where he found Worley and another feller digging a well. Scott saved Worley a lot of work: he shot him dead. Then Scott climbed off his horse and scalped Worley, got back on his horse, rode off, gathered a few friends, went and found German cattleman Carl Bader and killed him too. He apparently had enough hair, because he didn’t scalp Bader.
The Germans didn’t take too kindly to the killing and scalping, so they hanged a couple of Scott’s buddies. For the next year, several folks were planted in what became known as the Mason County War. Scott was eventually captured and jailed, along with his friend John Ringo. Yep, the same feller who turned up in Tombstone. Scott and John escaped jail, and a posse took off on their trail. Scott was never seen again. Stories say that he was wounded and died of wounds, or that he died shortly thereafter from brain fever. But nobody knows if either story is true. Whatever happened, Scott Cooley disappeared into the Wild West. Of course, he could have changed his name to Rardin, rode east, and become Marshal Too Tall’s great grandfather. Or maybe not.
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