OklahomaHorses Magazine November 2023

20 OklahomaHorses • November / December 2023 Johnson said about the film, “Trouble was, I was half-naked in the morning when it was freezing cold, then burning up in that Army uniform in the heat of the afternoon.” In an on-set incident, out-of-control horses placed actors in peril. Johnson sad- dled up, rode after the horses, and saved the day, impressing Ford again. Ford made Johnson part of his stock company of actors. And as executive pro- ducer of Mighty Joe Young, a film about a gorilla, Ford gave Johnson his first leading role. The 1949 film snatched an Oscar for special effects. In 1950, Ford’s film Wagon Master gave Johnson his first starring role in a western. (The film inspired the popular U. S. television series Wagon Train, with 284 episodes that ran from 1957 to 1965.) One of the Wagon Master scenes included a band of Navajo warriors chasing John- son, which propelled Johnson’s horse skills to center stage again. “I rode to this bluff and was supposed to turn and ride along the ridge, but the horse I was on got a case of cold jaw and wouldn’t respond to the bit,” Johnson said. “He jumped off that bluff, and we landed in sand up to his belly. The reins were lying in the sand, so I picked ’em up, spurred him and off we went.” Although it was an unintentional and dangerous 32-foot leap, the scene was known as one of the greatest examples of horsemanship to ever cross the silver screen. Roping a Dream In 1952, Johnson’s father died. So John- son shifted gears to pursue a dream and honor his dad. “I took one year out of the picture busi- ness to go into rodeo and see what I could do,” Johnson said. “My dad was a world’s champion three or four times, so I wanted to be. Fortunately, I won the world’s championship in team roping (1953), but at the end of the year I didn’t have $3. All I had was a wore-out automobile and a mad wife.” As a result, Johnson returned to Cal- ifornia, where his real-life cowboy skills carved a Hollywood niche for him that remains iconic. Johnson starred in three of the American Film Institute’s 100 greatest films: Shane in 1953, The Wild Bunch in 1969, and The Last Picture Show in 1971. Fans loved his crusty persona, and Holly- wood cast him in more than 300 movies and television shows, mostly as a cowboy. Ironically, Johnson originally turned down the part in Peter Bogdanovich’s film The Last Picture Show because of his disdain for inappropriate scenes and foul language in movies. “It was the worst thing I ever read,” Johnson said. “Every other word that I had was a dirty word, so I turned it down.” But Ford persuaded Johnson to take the role, for which Johnson played the part of Sam, a cowboy and town tycoon. “I rewrote my part,” Johnson said. “And I won the English Academy Award, the American Academy Award (for best sup- porting actor), a Golden Globe Award and the New York Film Critics Award, and I didn’t have to say one dirty word.” Reaching Stardom In his fifties, Johnson became a full- fledged movie star, with roles opposite Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson and in director Steven Spielberg’s first feature film. His career landed him parts star- ring with John Wayne, William Holden, Clint Eastwood, James Cagney, Maureen O’Hara, Marlon Brando, Alan Ladd, Burt Reynolds, and others. Johnson’s career also lassoed him home to movies filmed in Oklahoma, including Dillinger in 1973, Tex in 1982, and My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys in 1991. In 1982, Johnson was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. In 1993, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And he raised more than $2 million to benefit children’s charity causes by sponsoring his Ben Johnson Celebrity Rodeo for years. Johnson died in 1996 and was buried near Pawhuska. The Ben Johnson Cowboy Museum in Pawhuska spotlights Johnson and celebrates Osage County’s western heritage through various means. Johnson once said, “I get paid a lot of money for playing Ben Johnson. After I won that old Oscar, everybody thought I knew something. I didn’t know any more than I did before I won it, but they thought I did.” JohnWayne (front left) as John Chisum and Ben Johnson (right) as James Pepper star in the 1970 movie Chisum, withWayne and his son Michael A. Wayne as co-executive producers. In his early career, Johnson was Wayne’s stunt double, but he went on to star withWayne in various movies. Photo courtesy of the Ben Johnson Cowboy Museum.