Sam Elliott managed to make himself a Western icon in an era where that genre doesn’t get a whole lot of traction or respect. That’s a feat worthy of respect. I’ll never forget watching rapt as he rode out of the Arizona brush in his big hat and buckskins, with a .50 caliber Hawken over his saddle in the opening scene of the 1980 mini-series Wild Times. I was 14 years old, and damned if that wasn’t exactly my image of what a man oughta be. Never mind that I was about 120 years behind the times…
And time marches on, for us all. Now Sam is an old man, and he’s playing an old man role — as an aging Western icon — in The Hero.
Lee Hayden (Sam Elliott) is an aging Western icon with a golden voice, but his best performances are decades behind him. He spends his days reliving old glories and smoking too much weed with his former-co-star-turned-dealer, Jeremy (Nick Offerman), until a surprise cancer diagnosis brings his priorities into sharp focus. He soon strikes up an exciting, contentious relationship with stand-up comic Charlotte (Laura Prepon), and he attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Lucy (Krysten Ritter), all while searching for one final role to cement his legacy.
Looks like a sweet movie.
Hillbilly Nick says
Sounds great! He (along with Selleck) solidified the Sacketts in my mind and saved the Western as a genre as well (LOL). His voice, or more correctly, the reaction of the female to it, is interesting. Women of all ages perk up and listen, LOL! In the interest of fairness (and self preservation!) Sophia Loren and Jennifer Tilly have the same reaction in men!
JimC says
My late sister swooned over that baritone.
It’s true that he and Tom Selleck really did pull the Western out of the doldrums with some solid TV movies. hats off to ’em.
deuce says
Not trying to one-up anybody, but the first time I became aware of Mr. Elliott’s coolness was when I watched I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER — in this very house where I’m typing — as a very young kid. THE QUICK AND THE DEAD cemented that opinion. I didn’t see much of his work in between because we didn’t have cable. As a matter of fact, I can say every one of my good friends in the late ’80s were also Elliott fans. The dude is just cool.
Besides Selleck and Elliott, I’d say you’d have to give Turner and TNT some credit for keeping the Western alive during that period. In the late ’80s-early ’90s, TNT was putting out better movies than the Hollywood boys; many fine Westerns among ’em.
If Sam’s folk were once the Border Reiving Elliot(t)s, that makes ‘im just a little bit cooler.
JimC says
You are right — Turner deserves a lot of credit. And Sam HAS to be of Border Reiver stock. There can be no doubt of it.
deuce says
If his ancestors were Eliott (one “l”, originally) reivers, then my forefathers rode with and against them, depending what day you pick. The Eliotts were fairly tight with the Armstrongs and the Nixons rode with the Armstrongs.
The Eliotts have an interesting history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Eliott
Robert the Bruce, Soulis, Bloody Liddesdale.
JimC says
This is the story we’re rolling with.
deuce says
This got me to thinking about my home county and thereabouts. In just my hometown of 2000 people, we had Elliotts, Armstrongs, Dixons, Littles, Doddses and Maxwells. My dad was best friends with the Noble boys and he married a Nixon. In the rest of the county — not heavily populated by any means — we have Bells, Croziers, Davidsons, Douglases, Forsters, Grahams, Hendersons, Halls, Kerrs, Moffats, Murrays, Pottses, Reeds, Routledges, Scotts, Stephensons, Thompsons and Watsons. All founding stock. My sister married a Harden and I was in a band with a Trotter.
Check this surname list:
http://www.borderreivers.co.uk/Border%20Families/BORDER%20SURNAMES%20%202.htm
Now, some of those surnames are duplicated in distinct, non-reiver families elsewhere in Britain, but many are unique to the Borders. Out here in SEK, we’re the northwestern horn of Greater Appalachia and it shows. We keep a sharp eye on those Midlanders (see map in link). I just wish we had a few Redpaths, Shaftoes and Salkelds about. That’d be pretty cool. Oh, and Erik Storey comes from English Border stock — the mangy cur.
https://images.washingtonpost.com/?url=http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/files/2013/11/upinarms-map.jpg&w=1484&op=resize&opt=1&filter=antialias
JimC says
You’re steeped in it. In every way.
lane batot says
Hey, ain’t no “one-upping” going on here, just SWAPPIN’ tales! That’s what such a blog is FOR, right? I visit here not just to blab myself, but to hear(read) other stories!!! But as for relatives’ last names, associated with the clans, my own(ma’s side) are the Murdocks(Scottish, and part of the McDonald clan allegiance on the isle of Skye, according to a dear Scottish-phile friend of mine, who brought me back my clan’s tartan–in the form of a scarf–from one of her many trips to “the homeland”!) Intermarried with the Grogans(Irish), not to mention some Cherokee blood….Typical, common Southern Appalachian ancestry! And by-the-by, Mister Cornelius, you’ll be happy to know you have throughoughly corrupted me yet again–got a used copy of “Outlander”(season one, part one) fairly cheaply, and though it took a bit for me to get caught up in it, I’m completely hooked now(hardly mushy at all! Which I was erroneously fearing), and about done with the first set, and about ready for “season one, part two”, which(ahem), I already went and got a fairly reasonable used copy! Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a cheap bass-turd, but ye kin blame mah Scottish genes!
JimC says
Yeah — not mushy. And it gets pretty brutal. The music, oh the music!
Matthew says
The movie description mentions smoking weed. Was marijuana use common in the Old West? I know in the early twentieth century it was mostly poor Mexicans and Blacks that used it.
JimC says
It’s a contemporary story. Western actor famous in the 70s. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
Matthew says
Okay, the description said Western Icon. I though it meant icon during the old west, not Western movie icon.
So did they smoke weed in the Old West?
JimC says
I think there was some use in the borderlands and Southwest. I know that Pancho Villa didn’t like his troops smoking marijuana, but he couldn’t stop them. The song La Cucaracha, which was popular in the Division del Norte has a verse:
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene
porque le falta
Marihuana que fumar
The cockroach, the cockroach
Cannot walk anymore
Because it hasn’t
because it lacks
marijuana to smoke
Meaning that the army, which moved along on trains like a cockroach, couldn’t move without some weed to fuel it.
It doesn’t seem to me that marijuana smoking was common in the West until the 20th century. There were hash eaters everywhere though.
Matthew says
That’s a different version of the song than the one we sang in Spanish class as a kid.
There’s an episode of the anime Samurai Champloo where the main characters come across sohei (Buddhist warrior monks) cultivating mary jane. Looking up online weed does grow in Japan, but I don’t know if it was ever really cultivated. The Japanese prefer booze. The sohei had ceased to exist by the time of the series. Of course, the first episode had a marker that said, “This series is not historically accurate. Like we care. Enjoy the show.”
deuce says
My mom just about had a stroke when she found out a few years ago, with all three of her children there, that La Cucaracha was about smoking weed. She used to have us kids sing it in the car, but we only sang one verse because that’s all she knew. A startling revelation.
JimC says
Hah!
john roberts says
The plot sounds like a less-violent take on “The Shootist”: Dying old Western icon comes back for one last hurrah. Wyatt Earp ended up as a near-forgotten old man in Hollywood.
And I’ve always been jealous of Sam for marrying Katharine Ross
JimC says
Over-married. One of the best fates that can befall a man.
wayne says
If I couldn’t be me, I’d be Sam Elliott. If you haven’t done so, find a copy of Wild Times and read it.
JimC says
Yep. I read the covers off of Garfield’s book.
wayne says
Speaking of Katherine Ross (let me readjust my heartbeat), did anyone mention that when they wed it was Katherine’s fifth marriage and Sam’s first? That takes a combination of confidence and courage that few men have.
JimC says
I did not know that. Maybe he figured the other four just weren’t up to the job.
Reminds me of something that Steve Earle said to the effect that when you’ve been married and divorced seven (!) times, you start to realize that it may have something to do with you.
Matthew says
When a person has a long series of bad relationships it’s usually their fault. At BEST, they just have poor taste in partners. It’s common to talk about women being attracted to abusers, but I’ve heard a psychiatrist say that if a woman who has manic-depressive syndrome starts getting a lot of attention from men he knew he had to up their meds.
Of course, most of the time they are just jerks. Also, jerks seem to attract other jerks.