Richard Boone

Peridot...I was never aware that Richard Burton was asked about appearing in "The Sting." I only know what was said by the producers of the film (Zanuck & Brown), among others in the industry. They also talked about the difficulties of obtaining a suitable Quint for their production of "Jaws."'They spoke about Boone at length in reference to both films.

Lest you judge ME for relaying what was well known around Hollywood at the time, and in the years since, I LOVED Richard Boone in everything he did. I STILL watch HGWT, even though I've seen every episode at least twice. I respected the man, and couldn't give a crap if he drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney.

I don't NEED lectures from you...my dad was a WWII vet (Navy, just like Boone), and HE piloted a Higgins Boat at Saipan and Okinawa, under fire the entire time.

I don't appreciate being attacked in such a manner. I wasn't taking shots at RB, or anyone else. I'm also not indicating any displeasure with his looks, as he had a well documented accident during HGWT that he spent a fair amount of time recovering from, even wearing a beard during production while he healed.

No disrespect toward RB or anyone suffering PTSS was EVER intended, especially since I wasn't aware he suffered from it. I was relaying what said by the people involved, that coincided with what I've heard from reliable sources through the years.

I have many friends in the movie business who were around in the 40's, and others who were there in the years since. I don't believe everything that's "tossed around" about everyone, especially the crap that someone convinced Maureen O'Hara put in her book about RB, Peter Lawford, and the "Long Grey Line" incident she related about John Ford.

I don't repeat idle gossip ANYWHERE, as it's not only impolite to do so, but shows a great deal of disrespect for the person(s) it's attached to.

If you wish to further amplify your complaint regarding my comments, my I suggest you do it via PM, as this forum is not appropriate for such a purpose.

Lastly, I meant no disrespect toward Richard Boone with any of my comments, but I stand by ALL of them, as they HAVE been confirmed by more than one source.

To the members OTHER than Peridot and myself, I sincerely hope you'll forgive this exchange, and not let it affect your participation here.

LOL.....been waiting for THAT one....knew for a fact it was coming. Knew pretty much what it would say, also. Mona, Tennessean is really a great guy. Knowing him as I do, I would say he wasn't trying to be ugly about our RB. Just stating things he had read. Easy girl, we all love RB. And we all appreciate his excellent contribution to the film and television industry.
Russ, RB is Peridot's most special "person". She is quite an authority on him. But she isn't blind to his habits. Just gives him the best benefit of the doubt as I do Ward, Frank, and Terry! OK, I don't remember THE STING very much except for the theme song.......used to play that on the piano. But I am sure RB would have been great for it......as he was in any performance I have ever seen him. OK Mona.....gotta put up for me if someone says things about Ward, HAH! KEITH

Quote from Peridot

Sir, I beg your pardon, but Richard Boone was asked to play Doyle Lonnigan in The Sting by Paul Newman. He turned it down because the part was small. Newman had the part rewritten to be larger in hopes of tempting Boone to play it because Paul Newman and Richard Boone had enjoyed making Hombre together. After the part was increased in size, he asked Boone to reconsider. Boone turned it down. The part was rewritten again. Boone was going to do it, but he was so rich from making HGWT that at the end he decided against it. It was a disappointment to Newman.

Sir, if you must cast aspersions on a dead man you should know what you're talking about. Richard Boone was a hard drinker, it's true. His abuse of alcohol had nothing to do with this issue or this particular role. Allow me to suggest that you read his biography, Richard Boone, A Knight Without Armor In A Savage Land before you spread any further libel.

Was Richard Boone an alcoholic? After studying his life I'm still not certain. Many men suffering from WWII PTSD self-medicated with alcohol. In the Navy Richard Boone had three ships destroyed under him: the Hancock, the Enterprise and the Intrepid. They were torpedoed, taken out by ack-ack and kamikazied. In addition his plane was shot down and he fought in hand-to-hand combat before he was rescued. Boone never spoke about this to anyone but his son, Peter, but for a single quip, 'We began to think somebody was trying to kill us.' Boone tried to get help from the VA but was stymied by the red tape.

Richard Boone discarded his WWII medals. My husband's father did the same thing with his own WWII medals. For those of you who thought John Kerry was in the wrong, this is a common occurrence with some men. RB's mother rescued his medals. My father-in-law's mother rescued his ones, both from the trash cans. Mothers, saviours of the world. My father-in-law burned his uniform behind the house in the incinerator. He swore that he would never leave home again.

Do you expect a man like Richard Boone to win a beauty contest? Richard Boone was in 2 near-fatal car accidents, both involving him going face-first through the windscreen. One wonders how that might affect the looks of anyone else. When these accidents happened there were no seat belts in cars. Boone was lucky to survive them. His chest broke the steering column of his car in the first accident. Had it not done so he would have likely have been impaled and killed. This was a common occurrence in accidents at that time.

Boone was not a vain man. When he broke his nose in the second of these accidents he failed to have it repaired for years. Look at his films and television appearances, it's easy to spot on Boone's magnificent nose.

After Richard Boone completed Have Gun - Will Travel, he never had to work again a single day in his life. Every job he accepted he did so because he wanted to work: he liked the script, he wanted to work with the other actors, or he wanted to help establish a film industry in Israel, his pet project.

Is it appropriate to judge our ancestors and predecessors? In a word, no, social changes make it wrong to do so in every case. There's a great deal more than to pontificate, but this is not the appropriate platform. Suffice it to say that you are mistaken in many ways, sir.

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Don't know about The Long Grey Line incident with Pappy....please advise, Russ. Also, did you know about Jack Pennick's "revelation" there.....thought that was really cool! Also wish they hadn't sent "Ward" overseas.....would've liked to have seen more of him. People talked about Duke doing that, but I can't imagine anyone doing a better job than Tyrone did. And I can't imagine Duke playing it at all. KEITH

Quote from The Tennesseean

Peridot...I was never aware that Richard Burton was asked about appearing in "The Sting." I only know what was said by the producers of the film Zanuck & Brown. They also talked about the difficulties of obtaining a suitable Quint. They spoke about Boone at length in reference to both films.

Lest you judge ME for relaying what was well known around Hollywood at the time, and in the years since, I LOVED Richard Boone in almost everything he did. I STILL watch HGWT, even though I've seen every episode at least twice. I respected the man, and couldn't give a crap if he drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney.

I don't NEED lectures from you...my dad was a WWII vet (Navy, just like Boone), and HE piloted a Higgins Boat at Saipan and Okinawa, under fore the entire time.

You fly off the handle very easily when you take a notion to, for whatever reason, and I don't appreciate being labled in such a way. No disrespect toward RB or anyone suffering PTSS was EVER intended, especially since I wasn't aware he suffered from it.

I have many friends in the movie business who were around in the 40's, and others who were there in the years since. I don't believe everything that's "tossed around" about everyone, especially the crap that someone convinced Maureen O'Hara put in her book about RB, Peter Lawford, and the "Long Grey Line" incident she related about John Ford.

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I'll just say THIS about what Maureen put in her book. I do NOT believe for one second that Maureen would try to be unnecesarilly cruel to anyone, but it appears (to myself and many others) she had people whispering to her to include salacious, yet unprovable stories/comments in her autobiography..."Tis Herself."

The story abut TLGL was that Ford had asked her to come to his office to review some wardrobe changes/additions, at a specific time, and when she walked in, he was supposedly engaged in a passionate kiss with a young actor from the movie.

She's been advised MANY times through the years that since Ford LOVED to torment her, and that he knew she was coming to his office AT THAT TIME, he was playing an enormous prank on her, but she doubts this. It should be noted that I HAVE MET and spoken with Ms. O'Hara at length (not about this), and she is a kind, gracious, yet FIERY woman who was a MAJOR player in the movie biz, but also whom I believe was coerced into saying things in print that would look more ribald than they really were.

As for her comments about RB and PL, she claimed she was in Australia (or New Zealand) filming a picture, and they were arrested in a raid of of local gay "hotspot"

I've never heard ANYTHING about RB being gay, or even bi, although I have heard PL was SUSPECTED of being bi, but this was NEVER confirmed.

I wasn't aware of JP's revelation in this film...or maybe I was. I'll know more once you tell me about it!

As for our shared comments about Duke directing...I must kindly, and very gently disagree with you about his directing abilities. He was never really given a chance to direct, as he was FAR too big a screen presence to be (in the minds of the $$$ flks in Hollywood) "wasted" in a non-screen role.

You can't be in in movies as long as he was, be known as the consumate professional as he was, and NOT be able to do more than just act, should you chose to do more.

He was no Ford, but then, NO ONE was. He was forced to act in "The Alamo" by the money people in order to get it made. I agree that it took away from his directing to wear multiple hats (he was prodicer as well), but had he not been forced to act, it would have been different. He directed the majority of "The Commancheros," when Michael Curtiz became too ill, and even did big chunks of "Big Jake" while George Stephens was ill.

He was NEVER going to make the move to be solely behind the camera, but he had (according to Andy McLaglin) a great eye for how a scene should look, although it wasn't the same as Ford's eye...no one had that.

It's OK for us to have different opinions about things. It makes us think.

Also, what I stated about Boone was not what I read anywhere, it was directly out of the mouths of Zanuck and Brown (and friends who worked with Boone), and NONE of them said it in a condescending manner, just more of a "that's the way it was" attitude. EVERYONE loved RB, especially after they worked with him even once!

Settle down, Peridot. Russ wasn't make this personal, I suggest you don't either.

Move on....

Quote from Peridot

Sir, I beg your pardon, but Richard Boone was asked to play Doyle Lonnigan in The Sting by Paul Newman. He turned it down because the part was small. Newman had the part rewritten to be larger in hopes of tempting Boone to play it because Paul Newman and Richard Boone had enjoyed making Hombre together. After the part was increased in size, he asked Boone to reconsider. Boone turned it down. The part was rewritten again. Boone was going to do it, but he was so rich from making HGWT that at the end he decided against it. It was a disappointment to Newman.

Sir, if you must cast aspersions on a dead man you should know what you're talking about. Richard Boone was a hard drinker, it's true. His abuse of alcohol had nothing to do with this issue or this particular role. Allow me to suggest that you read his biography, Richard Boone, A Knight Without Armor In A Savage Land before you spread any further libel.

Was Richard Boone an alcoholic? After studying his life I'm still not certain. Many men suffering from WWII PTSD self-medicated with alcohol. In the Navy Richard Boone had three ships destroyed under him: the Hancock, the Enterprise and the Intrepid. They were torpedoed, taken out by ack-ack and kamikazied. In addition his plane was shot down and he fought in hand-to-hand combat before he was rescued. Boone never spoke about this to anyone but his son, Peter, but for a single quip, 'We began to think somebody was trying to kill us.' Boone tried to get help from the VA but was stymied by the red tape.

Richard Boone discarded his WWII medals. My husband's father did the same thing with his own WWII medals. For those of you who thought John Kerry was in the wrong, this is a common occurrence with some men. RB's mother rescued his medals. My father-in-law's mother rescued his ones, both from the trash cans. Mothers, saviours of the world. My father-in-law burned his uniform behind the house in the incinerator. He swore that he would never leave home again.

Do you expect a man like Richard Boone to win a beauty contest? Richard Boone was in 2 near-fatal car accidents, both involving him going face-first through the windscreen. One wonders how that might affect the looks of anyone else. When these accidents happened there were no seat belts in cars. Boone was lucky to survive them. His chest broke the steering column of his car in the first accident. Had it not done so he would have likely have been impaled and killed. This was a common occurrence in accidents at that time.

Boone was not a vain man. When he broke his nose in the second of these accidents he failed to have it repaired for years. Look at his films and television appearances, it's easy to spot on Boone's magnificent nose.

After Richard Boone completed Have Gun - Will Travel, he never had to work again a single day in his life. Every job he accepted he did so because he wanted to work: he liked the script, he wanted to work with the other actors, or he wanted to help establish a film industry in Israel, his pet project.

Is it appropriate to judge our ancestors and predecessors? In a word, no, social changes make it wrong to do so in every case. There's a great deal more than to pontificate, but this is not the appropriate platform. Suffice it to say that you are mistaken in many ways, sir.

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Hombre

Rio Conchos

The War Lord

Return of the Texan - 1952

Quote from Gorch

Love a man in a tunic holding a club. Bors is hot. Looks like real bearskin, Gorch. Oooh!

Heston wrote in his book about RB, 'I didn't know he was going to do it (Bors) like that.' Exact quote, slightly paraphrased.

It's good he did so. Boone added greatly to the film. Without RB no one would have know the Warlord's wound at the end was fatal. That plot point was perhaps too subtle. There are discussions about it on the IMDB. I had to watch it three times to figure out that bit myself.

Peridot, you made me laugh. You mean the caveman approach really works on a woman? I don't think you'd want to be downwind of old Bors.
Glad you appreciated the photo.

We deal in lead, friend.