Glenn Ford: A Life

10. "Singin' the Blues"

10 “Singin’ the Blues” M any Hollywood movies have a long and circuitous history before they finally come to life on-screen, and Cowboy was one of them. It was based on a memoir by Frank Harris about a daydreaming Chicago hotel clerk who decides to join up with a tough cattle driver and his outfit and learns to be a real man of the West. John Huston purchased the film rights in the late 1940s, hoping to star in the picture with his father, but Walter died in 1949, and the project was abandoned for a while. Huston then resurrected the film in the early 1950s with Spencer Tracy as the intended lead and Montgomery Clift as the young dude. By June 1954 Clift was out, and there was discussion with Columbia about my father playing the younger part. By 1956 it looked like it might be Gary Cooper and Alan Ladd, but the project was again shelved, until Delmer Daves went to Harry Cohn and pitched the idea that Glenn Ford could play the veteran cowboy; Cohn agreed. Dad insisted that the irrepressible Jack Lemmon—who was courting Felicia Farr—was the perfect choice to play Frank Harris. Glenn invited Jack to have lunch with him at the Naples Restaurant up the street from the Columbia lot, telling him about the picture and the part. My father recalled: Jack was flattered but told me he couldn’t do it. He said, “The last time I rode a horse I was about eleven years old, back in New England where I 178 179 was born, and it was an English saddle. And I didn’t like it! And there’s no time for me to learn how to ride before this picture starts shooting.” I said, “Don’t worry about that. I’ll get you a good horse.” We were having cocktails, and I ordered us another round and then another one after that and told the waiter to keep them coming. After each drink I would press my case for Jack being in the picture, and each time he was a little more open to my suggestion. Jack claimed later that I was pouring my drinks into the potted plant behind me. Many drinks later Jack decided he could ride a horse after all and he wanted to be in this picture very much. The only problem he had on his mind by then was figuring out how to stand up without falling down and how to find his way back to the studio. In due time, the Cowboy cast and crew checked into La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jack had forgotten about his aversion to horses until the first day of shooting. As often happens in making movies, scenes were shot out of chronological order, and Jack’s first day’s work called for a sequence that actually took place at the end of the movie, when he was supposedly transformed into a hardened cowboy now respected by the other cowboys. It meant literally jumping into the saddle from day one. Unfortunately, as Jack recalled it, Glenn’s promise of finding him a “good” horse had been forgotten. The wranglers put Lemmon onto a quarter horse named Sunday who instantly broke into an uncontrollable run and knocked down three members of the crew. Jack had to remain on horseback for nearly the entire first day. What began as discovery in the morning progressed to agony by late afternoon. He looked with awe at his fellow actor’s skill as a horseman. “Glenn was superb. I’ve never seen a guy sit in a saddle like he did. His body didn’t even move.” By the time the day was over, Jack Lemmon couldn’t even get off the horse, he was in such pain. Three men were needed to lift him down from the saddle. The all-day riding had torn open the flesh on Jack’s backside. He was taken in hand by some of the tough cowboy extras and stuntmen. They took his pants down, and someone poured a bottle of booze onto the split skin. They told him that would toughen him up as Jack screamed in pain. “It toughened me up all right,” Jack recalled. “I had to wear a Kotex every day for two months while I was on that friggin’ horse. I was never off the damn thing long enough to let it heal. I wanna tell...