We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
lone]
“What do you say to a legend?”
Looking at it from where I’m sitting
AEX
Cf
— a OVID
How do you talk to a legend? A nervous call from Toronto, a surprising “O.K.” from his press agent, a quick flight to the coast and now, a cab was rolling me to a rendezvous with a childhood idol. The dry in my mouth was more than being made up for by the wet in my palms.
I wondered how he’d look. Out of films for over a decade, would the sparkle still show? Or just the wrinkles?
No need for false flattery this time, I thought. Hadn’t he always been my favorite even before he hit the Big Time? Sure, he bombed in his last 12 pictures, but that certainly wasn’t his fault.Sophisticated comedy was never his style. He was a COWBOY horse!
But not just any cowboy horse—the cowboy horse. The one they all copied. The first to jump off a cliff, the first to count with his foot, the first to eat the fruit off a lady’s hat — all the classic bits were created and perfected by the incomparable “‘Blaze — the Black Blur!”
And today I would meet him. T wanted to bring him an appreciative gift. But what do you get an old horse? Weight problems ruled out the traditional lump of sugar; and lumps of saccharine they don’t make.
Rolling through the gates, the cab cobbled up the stones toward the stately stables of The Last Corral, an old-age home for retired movie nags. Crossing the grounds, my eye caught sight of some of the greatest cinematic steeds of yesteryear — Gene Autry’s “‘Champion’’, Roy’s “‘Trigger’. Hoppy’s. ““Topper’’.. Cisco's Diablo’, once Supermounts with the speed of light chasing thrill-packed adventures, but now content to hobble around and show each other pictures of grandchildren. As I got out of the cab, a spotted cayuse I thought I knew limped up to see who I was. Sure I knew him — Buckshot, Wild Bill’s TV horse, still receiving puny residual cheques for reruns in Whitehorse. He approached thinking I was Guy Madison, come to cheer him up with talk of a re-negotiated syndication deal or possibly a promotion tour of Australia, where ‘“Wild Bill’ ranked second after ‘“‘Ozzie and Harriet.” When Buckshot got close enough to see I wasn’t Guy Madison, he just roamed away mumbling, “‘He never visits! He never visits!”
I was greeted at the door by Bernie Silver, close friend and long-time agent for ““The Blur’? now thrown into parasitic retirement.
“Your call was like a tonic!’’ he told me. “The Blur’s been a little down lately, owing to a rather prolonged spate of inactivity. Eleven years, actually. But when he heard somebody was coming to interview him, he got so excited they had to give him a shot.”’
Silver led me to an oak-panelled drawing-room. There, rocking himself contentedly, sat the world’s most successful wonder-horse, wearing a maroon bathrobe and four slippers.
“Just don’t mention the wig!”’ the agent warned as we entered. ‘‘Otherwise, hell gallop on your. face!”’
““What’s the whispering?”’ inquired the rocking horse. “If you got so much time for whispering, agent