They're Gonna Put Me in the Movies

They’re gonna put me in the movies
They’re gonna make a big star out of me
…And all I have to do is act naturally
from "Act Naturally"
written by Johnny Russell
sung by Buck Owens




Elvis did it. Pavarotti couldn’t. Gold records do not guarantee box-office gold. Presley moved effortlessly from recording studios to film sound stages in a series of popular if routinely formulaic motion pictures. Luciano’s one and only Hollywood movie, "Yes, Giorgio," lost millions in ticket sales.

Elvis’ crossover popularity undoubtedly convinced more than a few agents, managers, and producers that the success of a recording artist would unconditionally translate into success on the screen, particularly - or at least seemingly so - if the musician had roots in Nashville.


Part I - The ‘50s & ‘60s: Singin’ Shootin’ Sons of a Gun

Notwithstanding the bunkhouse of singing cowboys from B-movies of the 1930s and ‘40s - the likes of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Tex Ritter - Marty Robbins was one of the earlier country-western crooners given the opportunity to play dress-up cowboy, in a pair of low-budget westerns in 1957. Already known for such hits as "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)" and "My Woman, My Woman, My Wife," he played a blond-hair Mexican with a reportedly bad accent in "The Badge of Marshal Brennan" and also appeared in "Raiders of Old California," both films co-starring Jim Davis, famous later as the no-nonsense patriarch, Jock Ewing, on TV’s "Dallas," and Lee Van Cleef, later infamous as the angel-eyed "Bad" of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

Marty’s hit songs "El Paso" and "Big Iron" cemented his image as an Old West balladeer, and in 1964, he starred in the ultra-cheap, very forgettable "Ballad of a Gunfighter." The trade ad proclaimed, "The Nation’s Top Western Recording Star in the FIRST TRULY DIFFERENT Western!" The difference for Robbins’ fans was the fact that he didn’t sing a note as a veteran of the Confederacy who robs stagecoaches to give money to the local poor.

A race car enthusiast in real life, Robbins played a character named Marty Robbins in "Hell on Wheels," a 1967 drive-in theater staple. His last film role was as a back-up session musician in 1982’s "Honkytonk Man," director-star Clint Eastwood’s tear-jerker about a Depression-era country singer dying of TB. Robbins himself died of complications following cardiac surgery at the age of 57 before the movie’s release.

In 1960, 28-year-old Johnny Cash was cast in his first motion picture, as Johnny Cabot, a sneering, sociopathic criminal in "Five Minutes to Live." Also known as "Door-to-Door Maniac," the heist-kidnap thriller featured Vic Tayback, years before he ran Mel’s Diner on TV’s "Alice," and Ron Howard, on break from playing Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show." On paper, Cash’s role seemed to complement the brooding expression he frequently displayed on his record covers - echoed in snarling dialogue like, "I guess you gals is all alike when ol’ Johnny steps on your starter!" - but onscreen, he ended up proving he was much a better singer-songwriter than actor.

Cash had purchased the movie rights to a biopic of Jimmie ("The Singing Brakeman") Rodgers from his widow, but, perhaps discouraged by response to "Five Minutes to Live," he chose instead to appear as himself in a pair of hick-flick quickies, "Hootenany Hoot" (1963) with The Brothers Four, and "Road to Nashville" (1967), which also featured June Carter Cash, Mother Maybelle Carter, Waylon Jennings, and a who’s who of Music City USA notables.

Johnny finally got his opportunity to show what he could do on the big screen when Kirk Douglas invited him to co-star in "A Gunfight," a 1971 western about a pair of past-their-prime gunslingers who turn their imminent showdown into a stadium event for a sold-out crowd in a bullring. The film was publicized at the time for its double-twist ending - one with Cash as the winner, the other with Douglas the survivor. No doubt elevated by the presence of Douglas, Cash’s performance was singled out by "Christian Science Monitor" film critic Louise Sweeney as "a fierce and towering one. He has an almost epic presence - so strong on camera sometimes that he looms above all the other characters like some dark cliff."

"With a Guitar in His Hand, a Gal on His Arm and a Talent for Trouble in His Fists…He battled his way from the backwoods to the big-time the only way he knew how!" At least, that’s what the ad declared for Waylon Jennings’ 1966 starring role in "Nashville Rebel." In his 1996 autobiography, the star himself summed up the picture thus: "Poor Boy comes to town. Poor Boy meets Pretty Girl. Poor Boy makes good, marries Pretty Girl. Treats her wrong. Poor Boy goes off the deep end. He comes back. Everything’s okay. There wasn’t anything about a Nashville Rebel in the movie, as far as I was concerned." Although he noted, "It was corny shit from the start," Jennings at least regarded the film as a "Nashville travelogue…a souvenir time machine of the Nashville I knew then." He nostalgically recalled the live performances by the likes of Loretta Lynn, Porter Wagoner, Tex Ritter, and Faron Young as "windows into the past, home movies of Nashville as it looked in the summer of ’66."

"Moonrunners" was a 1975 drive-in cult favorite which later spawned the hit TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard," with Jennings repeating his role from the earlier film as the off-screen balladeer. He had his first million-selling single with the theme song for what he called " ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ crossed with ‘Starsky and Hutch’ " and "a moonshine excuse for car chases and watching Catherine Bach’s ass in her trademark cut-off jeans, that long-legged, good-lookin’ thing."

A true country music rebel, albeit via Bakersfield, California, not Tennessee, was Merle Haggard. In and out of juvenile detention centers and high-security reform schools as an adolescent, he was ultimately arrested for robbery in 1957 and at the age of 20 was sentenced to San Quentin for 15 years. It was there that he attended three life-changing concerts by Johnny Cash. Haggard was released in 1960 and finally given a pardon by California Governor Ronald Reagan in 1972. In 1968, Merle had a number-one record with "The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde," undoubtedly inspired by the success of the 1967 movie. In his 1999 autobiography, he recounted a telephone call from Faye Dunaway, who told him how much she enjoyed the song. "There was something magical for me," he wrote, "about getting a call from the star of one of the most popular movies of the decade and one of the best films of all time."

Coincidentally, in 1968, Haggard appeared in a poverty-row rehash of "Bonnie and Clyde" titled "Killers Three," starring and produced by Dick Clark. As a rule, he had as little to do as possible with what he called "the people who run show business." "They may know something about business," he noted, "but nothing about show." Still, he turned in a memorable performance as a well-known country singer in the final chapter of the acclaimed 1978 miniseries "Centennial."

By the mid-1960s, Roy Orbison was widely recognized for ballads of lost love in a voice that flawlessly blended alto and falsetto (Presley once said Orbison had the best singing voice he ever heard) and for his trademark sunglasses. With an eye out for acting opportunities, he was offered "only singing spots in movies," as he was quoted in a 1989 biography, "but, through going along, building contacts, and getting to know people in the business, I got what I wanted in the end." His 1965 deal with MGM Records provided a fringe benefit of making him a movie star, and he had expressed interest in composing film soundtracks and maybe even directing.

"The Fastest Guitar Alive" (1967) was offered to Roy as a serious, moralistic western about a spy for the South during the Civil War. However, producer Sam Katzman, who had worked with Elvis on "Kissin’ Cousins" and "Harum Scarum," was leery about his new leading man’s questionable acting skills and quickly retooled the story into a "rollicking western comedy-drama," according to the sleeve notes on the soundtrack recording, "in which all kinds of hot and hilarious adventures ensue." (Ads proclaimed, "Roy Orbison on the Screen at Last as a Singin’ Shootin’ Son of a Gun!") At MGM’s insistence, a last-minute cameo was written for Domingo Samudio, better known as Sam the Sham, of "Woolly Bully" fame.

What Orbison lacked in movie-star good looks was made over in a daily cosmetic ritual of makeup, contact lenses and hairdressing. According to biographer Alan Clayson, Roy’s embraces with female lead Maggie Pierce "had been shot in noncommittal shadow; Roy’s ingrained Pat Boone-prudity made him disinclined to exchange lingering kisses with a married woman, no matter how aboveboard the situation." Not even the gimmick of a guitar with a retractable rifle barrel (a trick the makers of Spaghetti Westerns would put to better use) could surmount these shortcomings, and Orbison’s feature film stardom began and ended with "The Fastest Guitar Alive."

By the time he got his big break in motion pictures starring alongside John Wayne in "True Grit" (1969), Glen Campbell was no stranger to the movie business, mainly because he was a well-known session guitarist and could effectively portray a band member in the background of films from the mid-1960s, such as "The Cool Ones," a 1967 comedy about the swinging pop scene starring Roddy McDowall. He recalled in his 1994 autobiography Rhinestone Cowboy, "I did have a brief bit of dialogue and a fight scene with Steve McQueen in ‘Baby the Rain Must Fall’ in 1965."

Campbell surmised he was cast in "True Grit," as naïve Texas Ranger La Boeuf, simply because by then his music career was hot (including the hits "Gentle on My Mind" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"), "and they thought ‘Glen Campbell’ would sell tickets. I didn’t care how or why I got the role (which included recording the theme song). I simply intended to give it 110 percent." Critic Gene Shalit would comment, "Glen Campbell has never acted in films before and his record is still clean." Unphased, Campbell declared, "I always say that I made John Wayne look so good…that he won his only Oscar."

"Norwood" (1970) reunited Glen with "True Grit" producer Hal Wallis and co-star Kim Darby, along with Joe Namath, in a script based on a novel by True Grit author Charles Portis. Campbell dismissed the production as a "corny movie. It was a ridiculous story that set back the cause of country music and perpetuated every stereotype of country musicians as hicks." He played Norwood Pruitt, "a dumb old country boy. Pruitt was a hayseed…with a pet chicken…"

"Making those movies actually cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in time away from the concert state," he noted in his autobiography. He had three movies left on his contract. "I walked away. I haven’t been in a motion picture since…" Which is only half-true, since Campbell had a cameo as himself, singing the theme song to the 1980 Clint Eastwood comedy "Any Which Way You Can" in a honky-tonk, and he supplied the voice for a singing rooster named Chanticleer in the 1991 animated feature "Rock-a-Doodle" for director Don Bluth ("The Land Before Time").


Part II - The ‘70s & ‘80s: Highwaymen and Other Outlaws

Boosted by a cast of seasoned professionals including Gene Hackman, Karen Black, Harry Dean Stanton, and Roscoe Lee Browne, Kris Kristofferson more than held his own in his 1972 feature film debut, "Cisco Pike," portraying a folk-rock singer blackmailed by a crooked cop into selling $10,000 worth of marijuana. Director Sam Peckinpah ("The Wild Bunch") took advantage of Kris’ laid-back cool factor by casting him as the charismatic outlaw half of "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" in 1973. Kristofferson has maintained an active screen career along with his continued success as a musician, notably in recent years portraying the grizzled vampire hunter and mentor Abraham Whistler in the trilogy of "Blade" movies starring Wesley Snipes.

Willie Nelson first appeared onscreen in "The Electric Horseman" (1979), a film appreciated by critic Roger Ebert as an old-fashioned "oddball love story about a guy and a girl and a prize racehorse" with "a chase scene and some smooching and a happy ending" which could have starred Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn or Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, instead of modern counterparts Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Nelson contributed five songs to the soundtrack, including the hits "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" and "Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys," but what people remember most in his effortless performance as Redford’s pal Wendell Hickson is this single line of dialogue: "I’m gonna get me a bottle of tequila and find me one of them keno girls that can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch and just kinda kick back."

A starring role of his own was inevitable, and that came in 1980 with "Honeysuckle Rose," a low-key road movie about a country musician’s romantic difficulties. Roger Ebert praised the charming presence of Nelson: "He’s grizzled, grinning, sweet-voiced and pleasant, and a very engaging actor." Willie continued to make it look easy in a number of films throughout the 1980s, including "Thief," "Barbarosa," "Songwriter," and "Red Headed Stranger." In 2005, he appeared as Uncle Jesse in the feature film update of "The Dukes of Hazzard," a role he repeated in the 2007 direct-to-DVD prequel.

When it came to the women of country music, several settled on appearing in concert footage in films or guest shots on TV series and made-for-television movies. A notable yet not unexpected exception to the rule came along when Dolly Parton made her scene-stealing screen debut in "Nine to Five," the hit 1980 feminist-revenge comedy co-starring Jane Fonda (who was responsible for casting Parton) and Lily Tomlin. (Interestingly, Dolly’s role of the nervy Doralee was reprised by her kid sister Rachel Dennison in two spin-off TV series.) For the duration of the ‘80s, "The Smoky Mountain Songbird" continued to easily steal scenes from the pros in such movies as "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and "Steel Magnolias."

On par with Parton with a singular spunk is Reba McEntire, who surprised many in her first motion picture as a heavily-armed, no-nonsense survivalist in the 1990 tongue-in-cheek monster flick "Tremors." She gave a memorable performance as Annie Oakley in the 1995 miniseries "Buffalo Girls," based on a novel by Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry, before landing the starring role as a wisecracking Texas mom in the popular TV sitcom "Reba."

Kenny Rogers achieved small-screen stardom in "The Gambler," a 1980 TV movie based on his 1978 hit, a song he recently admitted was his personal favorite. A 1982 attempt at big-screen stardom, the family comedy "Six Pack," didn’t pan out, and he went back to the well, appearing in four television sequels to "The Gambler" into 1994, including "The Gambler Returns," which co-starred Reba McEntire.

According to "Rolling Stone" magazine contributing editor Mark Binelli in the 2004 book Cash, "after the success of…‘The Gambler,’ a microgenre was spawned: the country-star TV Western," which led to a pair of made-for-television productions for Johnny Cash in 1986. "The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James" paired Cash (allegedly wearing hand-me-downs from John Wayne’s wardrobe) with Kris Kristofferson, as well as Willie Nelson, June Carter Cash, and David Allan Coe. Cash brought the whole gang of "Highwaymen" and country "outlaws" along for the ride in the TV remake of "Stagecoach," namely Willie, Kris, June, Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, David Allan Coe, even son John Carter Cash. By this time, Cash was so cool it didn’t matter if he wasn’t an actor. What he lacked in acting chops he more than made up for with sheer charisma. Willie and Kris continued the "country-star TV Western" trend in "Pair of Aces" (1990) and its 1991 sequel "Another Pair of Aces: Three of a Kind."


Part III - The ‘90s & Beyond: "Introspective Country Music Biopics"

Thanks in no small part to his laid-back personality, George Strait comfortably eased into his first and only, to date, starring role, in "Pure Country" (1992), as a country superstar who, weary of huge stadium spectaculars, longs for simpler times and abruptly goes home to his rural roots. This is pretty much what Roger Ebert dubbed the "introspective country music biopic," a subgenre which also included, according to Ebert, Willie Nelson’s "Honeysuckle Rose."

. . .And John Mellencamp’s 1992 starring debut, "Falling from Grace." From a script by Larry McMurtry, of Lonesome Dove fame, Mellencamp also made his directing bow with this bittersweet tale of a country-rock star who returns to his small Indiana hometown and looks up his former girlfriend only to learn, of course, that you can’t go home again.

Continuing the tradition, if not the cliches, in 2006, Toby Keith took a break from growling out flag-waving anthems to star in his first motion picture, "Broken Bridges," as a washed-up, alcoholic music star who returns to his hometown, where he finds his childhood sweetheart and meets his teenage daughter for the first time. Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds had small roles.

The oddest entry in the "introspective country music biopics," albeit a pretentiously fictitious premise, was Garth Brooks’ misfired introduction of his mop-top rock-singing alter ego named Chris Gaines. "…In the Life of Chris Gaines" was the title of a 1999 CD intended as the soundtrack for a forthcoming movie that would star Brooks as the rock star, reflecting on various episodes from his life. The early release of the CD was designed to spark interest in the picture, which was never even filmed because of financial and management difficulties. For whatever reason, in the wake of the Chris Gaines fiasco, Garth pulled a professional vanishing act. November 2007 will see his comeback of sorts in mainstream recording with the release of "Ultimate Hits," a two-CD, one-DVD collection, including - after eight years - all of four new songs.

Worth mentioning at this point is the 1994 feature film version of "Maverick," starring Mel Gibson, when everyone liked Mel Gibson. While the climactic riverboat poker tournament featured fleeting glimpses of a number of then still-living icons from such classic TV westerns of the ‘50s and ‘60s as "The Virginian," "The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp," and "Wagon Train," the movie is peppered throughout with cameos by country music luminaries Clint Black, Waylon Jennings, Kathy Mattea, Vince Gill, Reba McEntire, Carlene Carter, and Hal Ketchum.

Since the mid-1990s, Randy Travis has remained active in film and TV roles, often as the hero’s good-ol’-boy sidekick, while sustaining a still-thriving country and gospel music career. Considered by mainstream country radio an outsider, honky-tonk musician Dwight Yoakam is himself a veteran actor, having appeared in over 20 movies and TV shows, including memorable performances as the abusive, beer-swigging Doyle in "Sling Blade" (1996) and the sociopathic killer Raoul in "Panic Room" (2002). More recent roles have been in "Hollywood Homicide," "Wedding Crashers," and "Crank."

Country superstar Tim McGraw turned in a vivid, noteworthy portrait of a one-time high school football star who has become a drunkenly abusive father of one of the current players in "Friday Night Lights" (2004). Roger Ebert singled out the role as "a grown man still living life in terms of high school…played with great power by Tim McGraw." Tim presented a more sympathetic characterization as the stalwart but loving father in his next film, "Flicka" (2006). Incidentally, McGraw’s lovely wife and a superstar in her own right, Faith Hill, created sparks of her own as one of "The Stepford Wives" in the 2004 campy remake of the 1975 feminist sci-fi thriller.

As for the current crop of rising country superstars, including New Zealand-born Keith Urban and Jimmy Buffett-wannabe Kenny Chesney, although they have yet to commit themselves to the big screen, their roles in "introspective country music biopics" are seemingly inevitable.


Postscript

Which brings it all back to the song "Act Naturally," and the man who made it his first number-one chart-topper - country legend Buck Owens. "Hee Haw," co-hosted by Owens and Roy Clark, premiered in 1969 as a countrified "Laugh-In" and ended up outliving its hellzapoppin’ Burbank-based rival by 19 seasons. During that time, Buck took a break to star in his one and only acting role, in the television movie "Murder Can Hurt You," a 1980 spoof of then-popular TV cop shows "Starsky and Hutch," "Ironside," "Baretta," "Police Woman," and "Baretta," with Owens lampooning "McCloud" (obviously inspired by the Neil Simon-scripted "Murder by Death," a big-screen parody of such classic literary sleuths as Charlie Chan, Miss Marple, and Sam Spade). Owens became convinced that his exposure on "Hee Haw" effectively ruined his integrity as a musician, redefining him as a TV comedian, and he left the series in 1986 in an attempt to re-establish what he believed was his deserved musical legacy. At least, for the duration of his career, until his death in 2006, he could at least act naturally.