Paid Sedona Vacation

Ernest Borgnine, Ben Cooper, Frank Marlowe, Royal Dano, Joan Crawford, and Scott Brady in Johnny Guitar (1954).

An unpublished pearl of wisdom from Johnny Guitar co-star Ben Cooper, from a 2004 interview for my book Arizona’s Little Hollywood:

Joe McNeill: “Johnny Guitar may be the greatest film ever made in Sedona, but it was a rather unhappy set – did you think it would turn out so well?”

Ben Cooper: “I was just 20 years old. I had my own horse when I was 12 and didn’t know they had stuntmen in movies. So I used to practice so I could do some of the crazy things they did on horses. Now here I was, 20 years old, working on a Western movie, riding the same horse that Alan Ladd rode in the movie Shane – and they were paying me! Can you picture this kid being unhappy? Not a bit!”––Joe McNeill

Good Mourning!

In Bernard Eisenschitz’s 1993 biography Nich­olas Ray: An American Journey, Johnny Guitar’s credited screenwriter Philip Yor­dan (who may or may not have actually written the 1954 Sedona-filmed classic) recalled a chat with the director, who was at wit’s end dealing with combative Joan Craw­ford. “Well, why don’t you do this, Nick?” Yordan suggested. “It’ll only be another six weeks. Get up every morning, look in the mirror, and when you shave, say, ‘Look, I’ve only got five more weeks and I’ll never have to see Joan Craw­ford again.’ ... He looked at me a long time – I’ll never forget this – and he said, ‘You know, never is a long time.’ ”