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Cowboy Bob's Trading Post #3

Beaudine: Never say cut.	Unimpressed by Hollywood's *Open Range* and *Deadwood? Reckon they just don't make 'em like they used to? Then spare a thought for William "One-Shot" Beaudine* (1892-1970). In a 50-year career, One-Shot directed TV series and B-movie westerns including *Westwood Ho the Wagons!, Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid versus Dracula, and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter*. And he earned his nickname. It didn't matter to this auteur if scenery wobbled during a saloon punch-up or the "dead" cowboy who thought the cameras had stopped rolling crawled off stage. He printed the first take anyway. Famously, possibly apocryphally, he fell a whole day behind his shooting schedule and the studio demanded he speed up to meet their deadline. Said One-Shot, having considered whether this order compromised his artistic integrity, "You mean someone out there is actually waiting to see this?"

	For folks on the move, the most common drink in taverns and hotels throughout the Old West was whiskey. Corn was plentiful and the distillation process simple. In more recent times, Black Horse Westerns on the move have provided an unintentional link with the western aqua vitae. Customers around the globe buying multiple copies of the hardback books reported they'd arrived in excellent condition from the publisher's warehouse in Kent, England — conveyed in the stout cardboard cartons that started life carrying bottles of fine Scotch from distillers like Bell's and Ballantine's. "Extra Special" were the words emblazoned on a red panel on one such box. BHW readers agreed!

Alias Sandy.	Singing cowboys — a phenomenon of the 1930s and '40s — are back with DVD releases featuring Gene Autry and Roy Rogers . Even the celebrated John Wayne began as a warbling westerner. He went under the handle Singin' Sandy — and hated it as much as he did "communists", a group in which he included John F. Kennedy! A little fame, some nascent ducal power, and Wayne demanded scripts in place of song sheets. So Republic Studios, his main employers, gave Autry his big break

Bing shaded from skies.	Another musical note . . ."Blue skies smiling at me," sang Bing Crosby, "nothing but blue skies do I see. . . ." But the artists who provide the bright covers for BHWs have more startling ideas. Apart from sunset reds and golds, purples and night-time murk, they continue to provide numerous yellow skies (*Wanted: McBain, Longhorn Country, Bender's Boot), green skies (Ride Out To Vengeance, Kansas Fury, The Ten Per Cent Gang) and even brown skies (Fast Gun Range, Kinsella's Revenge, The Hanna Gang*).

	BHW writer Jeff O'Donnell, author of *Broken Bow, Dismal River, and the forthcoming Man from Pine Ridge, hails from south central Nebraska. He has returned to the Hale series "because getting a western published in the USA is dang near impossible, what with the Louis L'Amour* and Max Brand books taking up all shelf space". Even Jeff's membership of Western Writers of America didn't help. "All of the publishers I have tried are sticking with current authors which is very frustrating. This means I am very grateful for the Hale company." Unlike New York publishers, the British firm will read western submissions from authors living aound the world. Currently the list of countries represented on its list also includes Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Barrett . . . unthanked.	Reader Rashid Rasool writes from London to tell us he read the lead article on Geoffrey John Barrett and "was amazed to recognize this author as the man who had written to me three times after I sent him a fan letter." Rashid confirms mass-market success eluded the author who wrote westerns under a string of names including Cole Rickard, Sam Gort and Bill Wade. "He was a nice guy but very realistic and a little bit bitter about writing in general. He always tried to put me off writing, saying you will never get famous and it's a thankless job."

	Bibliographer and publisher Pat Hawk, of Greenville, Texas, is hard at work compiling an encyclopedia of western authors. The authors' "brands" on the more than two thousand books published as BHWs often prove hard to check. But Pat knows all about branding. Until eight years ago he had a ranch raising Bramah cattle near Comanche. His registered brand was the Flying H which looked like an H leaning to the right with wings at the top of both legs. Very appropriate! When Pat sold the place, he kept the brand and his branding iron.

Family spurred on.	Much of the literary world continues to look down its nose at the western novel. Lately up against the sad fact were Alden and Alan Joscelyn, son and grandson of author Archie, better known to us as Al Cody and Tex Holt. "My father wrote and produced more than 200 novels, but westerns are held in low repute," Alden told a Montana newspaper. "For most of his life, his writing wasn't a big deal. It's just what he did." Alden didn't realize what his father had accomplished until after he'd died in 1986. Then it was too late to ask key questions, but he began tracing and cataloguing all his father's books and stories. "I'm still working on the project." Alden sees little of the man in his writing. "I look for it, but haven't found it. Maybe it's there in the fact that his bad men aren't really that bad. They usually have redeeming features. His bad guys weren't evil."

Grey . . . shelf champion.	Folks travelling the Outlaw Trail Scenic Byway, once used by legendary characters of Western folklore, are detouring to a new attraction at the tiny town of Monowi near the South Dakota border. It's the Rudy Eiler Library, established by Rudy's widow, Elsie, as a memorial to her husband, whose lifetime passion was collecting books — from Shakespeare to westerns. The five thousand plus volumes include two shelves holding the complete works of Zane Grey. But what you won't find in this unusual public library is a Louis L'Amour western. Rudy's leather-bound set was regarded as very special and Elsie keeps it safely in her home, not far from the library.

	Mark Bannerman (Anthony Lewing) , author of June 2005's *Legacy of Lead, advised Writers' Forum magazine subscribers to do their research after composing BHW submissions. Use Google, he said, and insert the discovered facts into your novels, making them grow by roughly 10%. Well . . . if that's how Bannerman does it, it doesn't show! He also said central characters had to be male. Meanwhile, it was reported elsewhere that Hale had accepted Misfit Lil Rides In* by Chap O'Keefe, featuring a Calamity Jane type. Maybe BHW authors planning to give advice on how to write the novels should amend that to telling how they write them!

Angel dust in their eyes.	The April 2005 BHW *Ride Out To Vengeance* by Daniel Rockfern was the latest hardback edition of the 1973 Sphere UK paperback *Find Angel* by Frederick H. Christian (Frederick Nolan). The BHW title is the one used for the second US paperback edition, published by Pinnacle Books. Meanwhile, mystery continued to surround *Standoff at Liberty, a Dec '04 Rockfern BHW about special investigator Frank Angel. Did Nolan write this book, too? Or was it ghost-written by another of the Piccadilly Cowboy authors for 1978 publication only in Germany? The case kept the experts at an online Yahoo discussion group conferring for days. Then a telling paragraph was spotted on page 153 . . . and, later, author Mike Linaker's* memory was jogged. Eavesdrop on, or join in, the friendly chat. Subscription cost is nil. Better yet, you could be the one who answers a bothering question!