RANDOLPH SCOTT

Movie cowboys didn't get any rougher and tougher than Randolph Scott, especially in the late '50s/early '60s in a string of film noir-like cult Westerns directed by Budd Boetticher that included "The Tall T", "Seven Men From Now" and "Ride Lonesome." Scott, along with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy, was a childhood hero. You can imagine how excited I was when one night at a play in Cowtown (Fort Worth) with my parents, he was in the audience and was introduced from the stage. I wasn't sitting close to him, but in my child's mind's eye he stood 10 feet tall.
     Incidentally, Scott, whose movie career began in the 1920s, played many a comedic and leading man role, but it was in the Oaters where he achieved his biggest successes and enduring fame.