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Chapter 14 It's a Wrap: Back to Texas H ollywood is not all sunglasses and autographs. Life as a stuntman is chicken one day, feathers the next. But by 1981, I had nearly twenty- five years in the business and at age forty-nine could afford to be a little choosy. So when John Stephens, the director I had worked with on How the West Was Won, called and asked if I’d like to be stunt coordinator for a new television series he was doing for Universal called Simon and Simon, I didn’t say yes as quickly as he probably thought I would. John told me that Jameson Parker and Gerald McRaney would be playing brothers who ran a private detective agency in San Diego. One brother was a streetwise Vietnam veteran, the other a book-smart college graduate. In addition to the action-filled cases the two main characters would take on, the series would draw energy from the conflict caused by the differences between them. Though both actors were only in their early thirties, John wanted me to be their stunt double. My young friend Diamond Farnsworth would double Jameson some, too. I finally told John I would do it but that I wanted to do it my way. I didn’t want anyone working for me who wasn’t a professional, which meant I also wouldn’t tolerate any drug use. At that time in Hollywood drugs had become pretty prevalent, and I didn’t like it. It seemed like just about everybody was smoking pot and snorting coke. John agreed to my ground rules, and I went to work for the series. CBS premiered the show November 24, 1981, and we went on to shoot twelve more one-hour episodes. Simon and Simon had plenty of action , but it didn’t do too well in the ratings. For its second season, the network put it behind Magnum, P.I. on Thursday nights, but I was not asked to come back. Later, I heard that the drug use on the show was bad. It was not Parker or McRaney doing the drugs, though. They were good 190 Cowboy Stuntman men and a pleasure to work with. The series did better on Thursday nights and it ended up running more than seven years. I happened to be home in Texas working on my ranch when I heard that Coach Clyde Littlefield had passed away on May 20, 1981. His family asked me to be one of his pallbearers and I was honored to help lay Coach to rest. He had been more like a father to me than a coach. Aside from teaching me to be one of the best sprinters in the Southwest, he had always been there for me in every other respect. I was the only runner he ever had to get a gold medal at the Olympics and the first-ever gold medal winner from UT in track and field. I won my first high school meet on UT’s Memorial Stadium track. My good friend and teammate Charlie Thomas and I would spend most of our time on the track in Memorial Stadium; there we won many, many events. I want to thank UT for remembering Coach Littlefield and recognizing him with a bronze plaque, which is placed in the new track stadium southeast of Memorial Stadium. Also in recognition of Coach, UT changed the name of the Texas Relays to The Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays . This event is one of the great track and field meets, comparable with the Drake, Penn, and Coliseum Relays. Coach Littlefield was the one who put track and field on the map in the Southwest, and I am so lucky and proud to have had a man of his stature in my life. My philosophy in life is, “don’t forget who brung you to the dance.” After living alone for more than seven years, I met a pretty Italian woman at a country-western dance hall in Woodland Hills called The Yellow Rose. I asked her to dance and our courtship began. She was Anita Scaramoza Adams, a divorced mother of two girls, sixteen-year-old Deborah and fifteen-year-old Laurie. A smart, sophisticated lady, she lived and worked as a secretary in Woodland Hills. After dating for a little more than a year we decided to get married. She was from Hamden, Connecticut , near New Haven...

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