Browning in Buckskin Read online

  'This is a stroke of luck, Dick.'

  Pure Hollywood, you see – start with the good news. The right response is to jab. 'What brings you here, Art?'

  'Cigarette?' He extended his silver case and I took one and lit up. I've been smoking ever since. 'Location filming for De Mille. You must've heard about it. We wrote to the Indian Department and . . . God, I don't know, other people.'

  I hadn't heard anything, or maybe there were some letters lying around I hadn't bothered to open. I was careless like that; well, I had other things on my mind. 'So what's the movie?'

  'It's called Buffalo Bill.'

  'Christ, we've only got about twenty of the bloody things.'

  Rosson threw his cigarette into the fireplace. 'That's a working title. It's about Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Custer and the Little Big Horn – everything.'

  'Who's in it?'

  'Cooper, Jean Arthur, Bickford, Gabby Hayes.'

  'De Mille's producing?' I was enjoying the cigarette, drawing deeply on it and sucking it down.

  'And directing.'

  Hollywood protocol was different then. You didn't say, 'So what the fuck are you doing here?' You didn't say anything.

  Rosson cleared his throat. 'I'm the assistant director. We're shooting the Little Big Horn stuff and the Beecher's Island battle here on the Tongue.'

  Reluctantly, I tossed the butt into the fireplace. 'Well, it's authentic, I suppose, and that's what De Mille's famous for.'

  Rosson laughed. 'Not this time. He's got Hickok in love with Calamity Jane and scouting for Custer and God knows what. Still, it's a big picture. Lots of Indians. Know the Indians around here, Dick?'

  I nodded. 'A bit.'

  'You ride, don't you? I seem to remember you did.'

  'Sure, that's my job here.'

  Rosson leaned forward, rubbing his hands. 'Listen. Dick. I got a bad feeling about this. Did you know I worked in Nevada before I got into theatre?'

  I shook my head.

  'Well, I did – in the goddamn goldmines. It was tough, but it was a hell of a long time ago. I been on Broadway and in Hollywood for twenty-five years. I don't know shit about working out here in the sticks. You do. And you know movies.'

  I reached for the cigarette case. 'I've never worked with sound.'

  Rosson flicked his lighter for me. 'Have to admit I found it tough myself. Never quite got back to where I was in the silents. Doesn't matter. I need an organiser, unit manager, whatever you like to call it. Sixty a week and you know how it works, Dick. You can make more on the side.'

  'How long?'

  'Got to be out of here in a month with everything in the can. I've got the crew and all the works. No big-name actors to screw things up. It's all long-shot, bang bang stuff. But it's got to be right.'

  'For De Mille?'

  'Right. You never worked with him?'

  'No.'

  'Between you 'n me, he's . . . well, I won't say it. He does great pictures though. I've got to make good on this, Dick. I'm nearly fifty and I need the work.'

  I drew smoke into my lungs, held it, and expelled slowly. 'I don't know, Art.'

  Rosson looked around the room, taking in the battered rug, the dusty floor and the dried-up bunch of wild flowers in a vase on a window ledge – a legacy of Glenda's last vist. 'You were a guy that liked a little action, as I remember. You getting any action here?'

  I shook my head, letting him make the pitch. 'I've been pretty sick.'

  'You look fine to me. Tell you what, I can get you work back at Paramount on the main shoot of the picture – some riding and shooting. You've got a good voice, maybe get you a few lines.'

  I smoked and said, 'I had some trouble in Hollywood after the Hughes picture. Maybe you heard?'

  He shrugged. 'Who hasn't had trouble in Hollywood? That's why the town's got the best lawyers in the country. You need a lawyer?'

  'Maybe.' I was thinking it might be time to find out how I stood with my wife and the Australian army, government and police.

  Rosson smiled, showing the gold capped front tooth I remembered. 'Get you the best, Dick.'

  'I know Cooper,' I said. 'Well, I did.'

  'Coop's a good guy. He'd put in a word. Could pick up a nice piece of change, Dick. What d'you say?'

  We shook hands, and I was back in the movie business.

  14

  It took me about two minutes to rediscover the pleasure of having people at my beck and call. Rosson assigned an assistant to me, an eager young Hollywood type, and the first thing I did was have him take the hired car back to Hardin and send a telegram to Waldo and Glenda. The message was something like: 'Recovering from temporary relapse. Overwhelmed by your faith in me. Will see you in Butte next month. Much love, etc.' I figured that would give me all the breathing space I needed.

  Then I went to work. De Mille had permission to use the ranch as a base for what would now be called his second unit filming, then it was just called location work. The plans had all been drawn up, and the carpenters built a fort on the banks of the Tongue where the river forked. The fort was supposed to be on an island and where we set up it could be made to look that way. Hollywood. There were Indians to hire, horses to buy and prepare, trees to chop down and cattle to move about. I was able to pad out some of the bills and make a few bucks on the side, just as Rosson had anticipated. We did some filming of the buffalo, but I can't remember whether the shots appeared in the picture or not.

  Unusually for the movie business, everything went right. The weather was perfect for one thing, none of the animals or people got sick, and the equipment didn't break down. It was a pretty big operation – several thousand Sioux and Cheyenne, a couple of hundred soldiers from a cavalry unit and the Wyoming National Guard, all riding and strutting about.

  Rosson was worried that the Indians and the soldiers might decide to stage the battles for real again to see if the results were the same. In fact, there was a bit of friction between them, but I managed to settle it. I'd been a soldier and an Indian (after a fashion), so I was the perfect mediator. After a nasty fight between a drunk half-breed and a still drunker soldier, I got the cavalry major and Medicine Hand, one of the Cheyenne chiefs, together over a bottle of whisky.

  'Indians are not allowed to drink whisky,' the major said.

  Medicine Hand sank a couple of inches of scotch and stared at him. 'Before the white man came there was no whisky here.'

  I poured a slug and drank it before I realised what I was doing. It was my first drink in almost a year. It went down fine and I had another. 'Now that's what I mean,' I said. 'There's an answer for everything. I'm counting on both of you to keep your men in order.'

  'My men are disciplined,' the major said. He took a sip of his drink.

  'It is a good time of the moon for fighting.'

  It wasn't going quite the way I intended. I poured another round. 'Look, we've got an honourable situation here.'

  'How?' Medicine Hand said.

  The word 'honour' seemed to make the major lift his chin and clench his teeth. Maybe he would've saluted, but he had a half-full glass in his hand.

  'We've got two battles to film. The Little Big Horn and Beecher's Island. The Indians win one and the cavalry wins one. What could be fairer than that?'

  It was eight o'clock on the night before the first day's shooting. We were all camped out along the west bank of the Tongue. Looking back, it would've made a good scene: the cavalry officer, all spick 'n span but starting to loosen up a bit with the whisky; the old, hatchet-faced Indian chief and me, the tall, bronzed hero, weary from a long day in the saddle, bringing the opponents together. Great stuff. Rosson should've shot it instead of some of the junk De Mille ended up with. Anyway, it worked, and the soldiers and the Indians were happy with one win each and didn't go for a decider. We shot the stoush22 the Indians won over a couple of days. It was late in May and already hot out on the plains. It was mainly a matter of crowd control – getting the soldiers to bunch up and spread
out and fall down in the right way, and persuading the Indians to move into the right places while making the right warlike moves. We had people running around shouting orders while the dust rose and the smoke from the blank rounds drifted over a couple of acres of hill and plain. It looked like chaos on the ground, but the cameras and the editing made sense of it. Rosson was good at placing his cameras, and he must have shot thousands of feet of film. I had a hell of a good time ordering people about, and I even got into the act as one of the Indians. I'd made pals with Medicine Hand, by way of a few bottles of whisky, and he had some of his boys paint me up and fit me out with feathers. I did a lot of whooping and hollering and riding around looking fierce. I didn't try my hand at the bow and arrow stuff – archery from horseback is a specialised skill, and if you don't believe me, try it – but wear a hard hat and plenty of padding.

  John Miljan, who played Custer in the movie, wasn't there of course. They filmed his gallant death on the Paramount lot, probably burning old car tyres to create the smoke. It's amazing how much easier filming is without prima donna actors and directors around. De Mille left Rosson alone to get the Little Big Horn footage and, as I say, he did a good job of it. In those days they didn't indulge themselves with re-takes from every possible angle and interminable waiting for the light to be right. The directors knew their jobs – they put the cameras in the right places and made sure there was film in them. You didn't shoot in the rain unless you meant to – there weren't many other rules. I exclude Stroheim from this, of course. He once shot twenty takes of a bare foot that he knew would appear in the movie in a boot. God knows why. It was lucky they never let him loose after sound came in.23

  With Custer and most of the cavalry and National Guard dead, we turned our attention to the battle of Beecher's Island. In case you haven't seen the movie, this is where the ammunition detail, on its way to supply Custer, is besieged on an island in the middle of a river by the Indians. Naturally, Custer arrives in the nick of time to save them. Again, it was mostly a matter of galloping and shouting and shooting and falling off. The Indians had to charge full pelt into the river, which was tricky, and the shots of the hard-pressed soldiers on the island had to fit in with the stuff De Mille would be shooting on the Paramount lot. But Cecil B. wasn't leaving anything to chance. He had a ten foot scale model of the Beecher's Island fort built and installed in his office at Paramount. He put toy soldiers and Indians in position, and he had a field telephone rigged up so he could direct Rosson's direction by remote control.

  I'd had enough of riding by this time. Those sharpboned Indian ponies were hell to ride, especially with a blanket and no saddle. The Cheyenne and Sioux had the game pretty well under control anyway, and Rosson got some great shots of them charging into the water, sending up spray and dying in vain. I was occupied mainly in keeping gawkers, who'd drifted in from miles around to watch the filming, out of the way and making sure the river was clear of debris, and that the bottles the Indians and soldiers left lying around weren't winking in the sun. I was pretty busy, but I also found time to do a stint in the fort, potting away with smoky blanks, helping to run the flag up the pole and keeping the bugler's throat (and my own) well oiled with Montana pilsener. So I fought on both sides in the Indian wars, Hollywood version, and had a lot of fun doing it.

  But don't imagine I wasn't thinking while I was enjoying myself. I made the most of my scenes as an Indian, wearing a distinctive head-dress and trying to keep well in shot. And I stuck real close to the bugler at the fort who was often picked up by the camera. I knew De Mille liked to get things right, and that meant paying attention to continuity. I was taking out insurance, just in case Rosson thought of reneging on his promise to get me into the shooting back at Paramount.

  There was no rain, no whirlwinds, and in those days you didn't get the sorts of holdups you get now, when jets roar across the sky in mid-take, or a helicopter arrives with champagne for the wardrobe mistress. We finished shooting on schedule. Most of the crew left for Billings, but Rosson and a couple of cameramen spent a last night back at the Pratt-Carlisle ranch. We had a bit of a party – that is to say, everyone got drunk. At one point in the evening, Rosson took me aside.

  'You did a great job,' he said.

  'Thanks, Art.'

  'Health all right?'

  'Sure.'

  He handed me a series of still photos. A couple were of the fort, and various faces and figures were circled in white oil pencil. I was in several shots, half turned away, but recognisable, holding out a canteen to the bugler. 'Nice shots,' I said.

  'Yeah, De Mille likes 'em. He wants everyone marked to be on the lot in three days.'

  I nodded. 'I'm ready to go.'

  'Thought you might be.'

  His tone was severe, and I knew what was in his mind; I'd manipulated him, and no one likes that. I grinned at him and shuffled the photographs. 'Look at it this way, Art. You win some and you lose some.' I spread the photos of the Sioux and Cheyenne out on the table. Several faces were circled, but not mine. 'After all, I didn't make it as an Indian.'

  Glenda had bought me a set of scales as a present, and I must admit I had a few pangs as I stepped on them in the morning. She'd helped to pull me back from the edge, and I knew I'd always be grateful to her for that. She shouldn't have plotted with Waldo behind my back, but women are like that. I suppose because they haven't got any real power, they have to play things tricky. I said something like this to Jane Fonda once, and she said that if I worked at it I could become a feminist. I've always wondered what she meant by that.

  Well, I'd been on the go all day for four weeks, eating like a horse and sleeping like a lamb. I was drinking some, but sweating it out. Stripped to the waist after a wash, I could see that I'd filled out a bit, but I was never one of those chaps to examine himself all over for imperfections. The needle settled on one hundred and sixty-five. I cleared my throat and sucked in a deep breath. My lungs filled easily – no wheezing, no pain. I was clear-headed, apart from a slight hangover, and my hands were steady. I felt fine. I got the gold out from under the bed and packed my few possessions into a small bag. I tried another deep breath – same result. I lit a cigarette (I think that's when I fell into the habit of having one before breakfast), and went through to the kitchen to put on a bit more condition before travelling.

  15

  We went by first class rail to San Francisco, where Rosson had some business, and I took the chance to cash in my gold. What with that, my salary from the job at the ranch and my earnings for a month on the picture, I had a couple of thousand dollars to take into Hollywood. I stuck like glue to Rosson although I knew my presence was irritating him. That didn't worry me; once we got to Paramount and he'd made the introductions, I'd keep out of his hair – hanging around an assistant director is a sure way to get yourself classified expendable.

  We caught a train to Los Angeles, and there was a limousine waiting to take Rosson to the Paramount studios on Marathon Street in Hollywood. I bummed a ride and also one of Rosson's cigars. With money in my pocket, a job to go to and a good Havana in my fist, I was feeling pretty chipper.

  'Art,' I said, 'you were going to tell me something about De Mille, but you clammed up. What's he like?'

  'Wait and see,' he grunted.

  I puffed luxuriously. 'Can't be that bad. I worked for Doug Fairbanks and Howard Hughes. They were both crazy. I've seen a couple of the mad Huns in action. De Mille can't be any worse than them.'

  Rosson said nothing.

  I was starting to feel a little insecure as we got closer to Hollywood. I'd never worked on a sound film – maybe it'd be harder than it looked. I know I'll just be a bit player,' I said, 'and they get treated like shit. But, hell, I have to rate higher than the Indians.'

  'Don't be so sure,' Rosson said.

  We arrived at the studio. Rosson got me through the gate, and at an office I got a blue pass stamped 'Player'. Rosson gave me a print of the still photo with my face circled; then he poin
ted to a door, waved and disappeared. I sat around in the foyer of a stuffy building where nothing seemed to be happening. The girl behind the receptionist desk ignored me. I felt foolish and rural in my Montana duds. Should've bought some clothes in 'Frisco, I thought. Then Gary Cooper wandered in to ask the girl the time.

  'Gary,' I said. 'Hey, Coop.'

  He turned slowly and warily to look at me. He'd aged a bit since I'd last seen him in '29, but he still had the same half-asleep look. He scratched his eyebrow. 'Ah . .. ?'

  I advanced fast, sticking out my hand. 'Dick Browning, don't you remember? I was working on the flying picture with Hughes.24 We got drunk and I told you about sniping in the war . . .'

  'Say, yup. Why hullo there, Dick. Where've you sprung from?'

  'Montana, I've .. .'

  'Montana, eh?' His eyes seemed to glaze over, making him still sleepier-looking than ever. 'I was raised on a farm in Montana. Prettiest place you ever did see.'

  'Is that right? Well, I . . .'

  'Good to see you, ah . . . ' He turned away. 'What was the time again, honey?'

  'Fifteen of two, Mr Cooper,' the girl said.

  'That right? Gotta rush.' He smiled at both of us using, I suppose, about fifty per cent of his available candlepower, and ambled away through a door marked Private. The girl looked at me with eyes as wide as the sky.

  'Do you know Gary Cooper?'

  She was a pretty little thing, dark and well-groomed. Not a bad place to start in Hollywood, I thought. I straightened my shoulders before leaning casually across the desk. 'Sure I do. And I'm looking forward to working with him again.'

  'My goodness. On what picture?'

  'Buffalo Bill.'

  'What?'

  'The picture he's working on now, Buffalo Bill.'

  That told her all she needed to know. 'Mr Cooper's current picture is The Plainsman,' she said. 'Have you got an appointment with someone?'

  I showed her my card.

  She consulted a pad on her desk. Her voice became thin and hard. 'Plainsman extras're expected in back lot 3 at two fifteen. If you run, you can make it.'