A Word on Westerns: Mariette Hartley Memories

[Marshal Halloway]

From the description:
Mariette Hartley remembers being scared to death of James Drury (April 18, 1934-April 6, 2020).  Find out why as the award winning actress shares memories of meeting Drury on her very first movie, Sam Peckinpah's early classic, "Ride the High Country" (1962).

Mariette portrayed Elsa, a sweet, naive and inexperienced farm girl who escapes from her repressive father to marry morally challenged Billy Hammond (Drury), mining gold with his psychotic brothers Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, John Anderson and John Chandler Davis.  Following their rowdy marriage ceremony, drunken Billy drags Elsa to bed.  Being on location for a first film, one with violence, caused Mariette untold personal trauma.  Fortunately, she found some comfort from the professionalism and friendship of the two leads, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, and that of a stranger.

In this interview, Mariette reveals why she was so affected by the violence and how she dealt with it, later becoming friends with James Drury, and even appearing twice on his long running series, "The Virginian" (1962-1971), premiering the same year "Ride the High Country" was released. 

Mariette also discusses the laughs she had working with the fun Cartwright boys on "Bonanza."  Four appearances! 

Mariette began her career at a young age on stage and never seems to stop working or delivering solid work. She is co-founder of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and is the author of several books. She honored us to discuss her work in the genre and was an early A WORD ON WESTERNS guest, September 17, 2014.

To salute her friend and late co-star James Drury, this interview combines three older segments and has been re-edited to the current length for this special episode.   R.I.P. Jim and thanks for being the kind of guy we can all look up to.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSSazWWPRQK6eAqxBq1Q3yA

[ira scott]

Thanks Marshal!  That was definitely worth taking the time to watch.  Old Gunsmoke episodes are popular in our household, and there was one on recently with Mariette Hartley as a young innocent girl with a big old crush on Matt.

[Abilene]

Very neat, thanks Marshall!

[Navy Six]

Thanks, Marshal. I always enjoy hearing about the "behind the scenes" stories of the Western TV series and movies we all love.