Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

El Indio — The Most Interesting Man In The World

July 3, 2020, by JimC

This is why I love doing what we do at Frontier Partisans. It really is a campfire, around which kindred spirits gather and swap yarns and chew the fat. David Wrolson and Ugly Hombre had a conversation about The Wild Bunch (overdue for a re-watch) that hinged around a book that the Breaker of Book Budgets is forcing me to buy.

Yeah, that one.

Here’s the exchange:

Ugly Hombre: “You no longer have beat up verified tough guys and old tarantulas who know how to handle a rifle like Holden, Ryan, Oates, the great Ben Johnson and so on. What you have today in the film world, is a bunch of foppish girl singers.”

Wrolson: There were Marines and WW2 combat veterans and real cowboys and other assorted tough guys all over that movie-not only as actors, but in all other positions as well. There is no way that can be replicated.

I was most astonished at the various first hand connections to the Mexican Revolution-too numerous to mention here-not that surprising really since it had only been about 50 years away at that point-but interestingly, the train engine had seen service during the Revolution.

Ugly Hombre: Yes Sir, that’s for damn sure. Emilio Fernández, born 1904 saw the revolution first hand, and was a force to be reckoned with, later in life lived in a hardened fortress in Mexico City- something like the hacienda in “Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia.”

*

Emilio Fernández, it turns out, was probably the Most Interesting Man In the World. Muy macho. What the kids would call Chingon. His house is the manliest abode I have ever seen. Here’s the caper, from Austin Film Society:

Born in 1904 to a revolutionary general father and a mother who was part Kickapoo Indian, Fernández first joined Mexican revolutionary forces as a teenager. When the uprising he was part of was quashed, Fernández went into exile in America. Finding a home in Hollywood, the handsome young man eked out a living as an extra and small part player in silent films. During this period he was introduced to art director Cedric Gibbons, who was designing the new statuette for the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences yearly gala. The very fit young Fernández proved to be an excellent model for the gold statuette which now goes by the name Oscar. *

 

In 1934, he and his fellow revolutionaries were granted amnesty by the Mexican government and Fernández returned to his homeland, armed with a great deal of film knowledge gleaned from his years on set in Hollywood. He became a screenwriter and actor, whose imposing presence and Indian features made him a very busy star. Nicknamed “El Indio” he became one of the most well known screen figures in Mexico.

With his great knowledge and commanding manner Fernández was a natural to direct films and starting in 1941 he directed many of them, helping to create what is now known as the Golden Age of the Mexican Cinema. In the next two decades he directed 37 features and became one the most highly esteemed of all native Mexican filmmakers. When financing dried up he continued making films for lower budget producer, many of which are held now in lower esteem than his golden age output.

As an actor he stayed very busy as well, starring in scores of films during this period. Additionally he acted in many American films such as NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, THE WILD BUNCH, PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, in which he delivers the titular death sentence. The latter three films were made by his close friend and kindred spirit Sam Peckinpah.

In 1976 the always volatile Fernández killed a farm laborer in an argument and served six months in prison. It was one of many altercations in his life. In one, it is reported that he actually shot a film critic who disparaged his work. In his old age he lived on his farm and made a living by selling produce. He died in 1986, the proud progenitor of a major world cinema.

OF COURSE he was friends with a kindred-spirit Sam Peckinpah. OF COURSE he plied Marilyn Monroe with tequila shots during her foray into Mexico (which gave the FBI the vapors because they were afraid she’d spill Kennedy pillow-talk to the leftist expat Frederick Vanderbilt Fields. No shit.) OF COURSE he shot a film critic.

Apparently, he took a bad fall and broke his femur and died because the blood used in a transfusion was tainted with malaria. Which is a crappy yet fittingly outlandish way to go.

*

And I want to live in his house…

*

I want to thank everyone who has pitched in to expand Frontier Partisans’s territories. I’m turning Lynn loose right away on constructing the trading post and designing the first items for trade. Podcast is in development.

* The Hollywood mobster Johnny Stompanado, Lana Turner’s lover, was nicknamed Oscar because his equipment allegedly matched the scale of the statuette. One of my favorite Hollywood stories is of Sean Connery, who was co-starring in a film with Turner, decking Johnny Stomp on a movie set in the UK when the jealous Stompanado started waving a gun around. Connery did not give a fuck. And, as Tom Russell recounts..

Lana Turner’s daughter killed Johnny Stompanado

Cuz Johnny beat up Lana down on Fifth and Alvarado

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Comments

  1. Matthew says

    July 3, 2020 at 7:25 am

    You know I thought this would be about the bad guy of A Few Dollars More who was known as El Indio.

    Reply
  2. John Roberts says

    July 3, 2020 at 9:02 am

    When he worked on Night of the Iguana, Indio was hugely amused at the petty bickering among the cast. He gave all the principal actors guns so they could shoot each other. There is a picture of him teaching Sue Lyon to shoot a .45. They don’t make ’em like Indio any more.

    Reply
  3. Frankie Sharpe says

    July 3, 2020 at 9:38 am

    The Wild Bunch is my favorite film of all time. The ultimate movie about changing times in the West. Bought this book when it came out. Very entertaining. If you are a fan of this movie you should read it.

    Reply
  4. Keith West says

    July 3, 2020 at 10:11 am

    That is a great house. Needs more books, but a great house nonetheless.

    Reply
  5. J.F. Bell says

    July 3, 2020 at 10:50 am

    Sometimes, direct solutions are the best.

    Failing that…hell, at least it’s funny.

    Reply
    • J.F. Bell says

      July 3, 2020 at 10:51 am

      Should have been a reply to John Roberts up there. Guess I’m just killing it with the technology today.

      Reply
  6. David Wrolson says

    July 3, 2020 at 11:40 am

    Not to spoil the story-but your line is too good not too carry out farther-but Dekker(?) the guy who played the railroad official showed up in Mexico with a 13 Year Old “Niece”-Because OF COURSE he did.

    Dekker also died of auto-erotic asphyxiation a few days after returning to the states from Mexico. Because OF COURSE he did.

    This one surprised me-for the wine vat scene, Peckinpaugh used real prostitutes-OF COURSE he did.

    El Indio also showed up for the filming with a bevy of questionably-aged beauties-Because OF COURSE he did.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      July 3, 2020 at 12:16 pm

      Jeez. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. I get the impression that El Indio was an unpleasant man in many respects, particularly when it came to the women in his life.

      Reply
      • David Wrolson says

        July 3, 2020 at 6:55 pm

        I just remembered another fun one.

        At one point, Borgnine noticed that the Mexican troops serving as extras were shooting live rounds. Because OF COURSE on this movie they were.

        Reply
  7. John Roberts says

    July 5, 2020 at 10:02 am

    I’ve had the Stratton book for over a year but I only got around to reading it a couple of months ago. It’s full of details I never knew about the movie and the people who made it, and I’ve considered myself a WB scholar since I saw it on its first run in 1969. The book should be subtitled; “How a pack of incredible drunks went to Mexico and created a masterpiece.”

    Reply
    • JimC says

      July 5, 2020 at 11:49 am

      There are a lot of high functioning alcoholics in Frontier Partisan history. Until they’re not anymore, of course.

      Reply
  8. Ugly Hombre says

    July 5, 2020 at 12:03 pm

    https://www.prensalibre.com/hemeroteca/emilio-fernandez-detenido-en-guatemala-por-asesinato/

    El Indio had a lot of notches on the handles of his pistolas..

    “Why did you leave your country?
    By instinct of freedom, since the town where the death of my attacker occurred, is small and in it they could not give me any protection, but I am not afraid to face a court.

    What was your intention when traveling to Guatemala?
    I was trying to let some time go by, so I could coordinate my thoughts. I don’t know who I killed.

    In statements given by film actor Emilio (El Indio Fernández) he said that he did not know who had killed him.

    Through several people who were aware of what happened in Coahuila, Mexico, I learned that he was an ex-convict who had just left the prison, where he served a long sentence.”

    El Indio was one hombre who Peckinpah who not try to buffalo- no way in hell. To many people got ventilated trying to do that.

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/74/92/1e/74921ec04796d4571df7d61ad99766c1.jpg

    I imagine every time you opened the mescal with Senor Fernandez you might wonder where you would wake up- Amigos or not..

    Great post damn sure a interesting guy- like to read a Mexican wrote bio of the man..

    If any one has not seen it check out “Alfredo Garcia” gives a hint of El Indio in his lair.

    Reply
  9. Ugly Hombre says

    July 5, 2020 at 12:14 pm

    Great post of course I meant to say- one more coffee will do it. lol

    Reply
  10. Aaron says

    July 5, 2020 at 8:03 pm

    Here’s a book for you JimC “Gunsmoke and Saddle Leather: Firearms in the Nineteenth-Century American West
    Book by Charles G. Worman”
    Goods photos and well written. The best part of the book is the hundreds o first hand accounts of the weapons and encounters with men and animals.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      July 6, 2020 at 6:02 am

      This looks like a must-have for the FP library. Thanks.

      Reply
  11. deuce says

    July 7, 2020 at 4:36 pm

    Great post, Jim! El Indio certainly sounds muy interesante. ZFG from the cradle to the grave.

    Reply

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