SPECIAL GUEST: JEB ROSEBROOK!

A great film is written by a great screenwriter: Jeb Rosebrook...

...and the film you have just finished viewing on The Festival.

Steve at the Rodeo Grounds in Prescott, Arizona

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Jeb Rosebrook is an Alumnus and Trustee of The Orme School (a central Arizona boys college prep school for grades K-12 located on 26,000 acres of a working ranch) in addition to being a Screenwriter and Producer. I knew of Jeb's name and fine reputation for many years, but never once dreamed that I would have the honor of meeting him. On March 7, 2009 Barbara McQueen appeared in Chandler, Arizona at The Chandler Center for the Performing Arts as part of her wonderful exhibition of photographs she had taken during her final years with her husband and screen legend Steve McQueen. During a "Question and Answer" session, Jeb Rosebrook, the Screenwriter for the 1972 McQueen film "Junior Bonner" also appeared with Barbara as they fielded questions from a jam-packed audience. This was Barbara's last appearance after a two-year tour of her book "Steve McQueen: The Last Mile", co-authored by Marshall Terrill. I opened our visit by mentioning Jeb's 2007 commencement address to Members of Cum Laude, students, faculty, parents and friends of The Orme School. Rosebrook attended the school at the age of 9 after his family relocated to Phoenix from Connecticut.

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Manning: I wanted to ask about your travels across America and how your quiet observations of people and their circumstances would later influence your writing. Your key mentors were the Orme Family.

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Rosebrook: Yeah, I was very lucky. My father was in advertising in New York. He was Vice President of Young & Rubicom. My mother had been on Broadway briefly in 1924, and the later she was with International News Service which was acquired by United Press. Basically, the people at the Orme School who ran the ranch--the man whose Chapel I spoke in--Mort Orme was my advisor. I always liked to write, because I was an asthmatic and stayed at home a lot and liked to write my own comic strips I had drawn and I loved to read. I guess it was really when my parents gave me a station wagon years later --I mean, how many kids have parents loan them their car to take off and drive all across the country by themselves when they've never been more than 85 miles miles away from home!

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Manning: That had to be a wonderful experience.

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Rosebrook: Willa Cather once said that everything you experience between age 8 and 15 is what forms the writer and I think that's true.

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Manning: That's interesting. My first essay was a piece I had written in the 4th grade about my brother called "Hot Summer In Vietnam". And I still have that framed on my dining room wall at home.

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Rosebrook: Yeah, and that's when I started writing at 9 years-old. Did your brother come home okay?

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Manning: He did, yes. Thank you. Your name is prominently displayed on the mural inside The Palace Bar (the Prescott, Arizona bar where key scenes of "Junior Bonner" were filmed). A group of us visited last weekend with Marshall Terrill.

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Rosebrook: That mural was done originally, sometime in the 70's or early 80's when The Palace was still in the throes of really not doing very well. The bar next door, Matt's is still a pretty strong cowboy bar and The Palace had gone through a number of owners. It was a punk bar at one time. The mural did not have my name on it. Peckinpah's was and Steve McQueen's was. When Dave, the owner, bought The Palace--he was out of Newport Beach, California. The mural was behind an area where they would shoot baskets near a shuffleboard and it was really covered with layers of smoke. So, when Dave and his partners bought it, they cleaned up the mural and added my name. You know, it gives you an idea of the stature of the writer (mutual laughter).

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Manning: You know, I was going over your credits as a screenwriter for film and television and I kept trying to find a thread that would lead me to your original four-page treatment called "Bonner" that would eventually become the McQueen movie. What inspired you to write "Bonner"? Did you have someone on mind or was it someone that you met?

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Rosebrook: Not really. As far as rodeos are concerned, when I was in Orme we had roundups in the Fall. But in some ways, I was a real little cowboy. In high school, I went to at least one junior rodeo. I've been to rodeos before in Madison Square Garden in New York with my mother. But the couple of summers that I worked at Orme as a ranch hand, I went to the Prescott Rodeo. In 1970, I went up there and I had not been to a rodeo since 1955. We were pretty busted financially. I was still trying to sell something. I sold an option of a script to James Coburn--my first script. That kind of gave me a leg-up on at least getting in the door with an agent. What really struck me was driving outside of Prescott that day and seeing the homes being built in Prescott Valley. There were then about twelve-hundred people living in Prescott Downs and homes were being built all over the place with banners and signs. That really somehow subconsciously--I connected the rodeo with that. It just somehow came about that somebody who was from there, who was coming back and who had a brother in real estate who was a developer making his first million, and the other brother was in the rodeo--that's kind of the way it all came about. I have a very good friend who is a poet in Colorado who told me one day that the majority of my writing really reflects the fact that I left home when I was 9. I was never back home more than three months a year. Many of the things that I've written really have to do with the loss of land, of the way things were--even if you take "I Will Cry No More Forever". It's the story of Chief Joseph, the chief of the Nez Perce Indians. They were not the Christian branch of the Nez Perce that had been baptized. He wanted to be free. It was a year after the Battle of Little Big Horn. The Army gave General Howard--who I think was from Cincinnati-- Howard was a one-armed General and he wanted Joseph to stay on the reservation. Joseph didn't want to do it. So, he and the Nez Perce band took off. It was a year after Custer, and America became alarmed that the band of Nez Perce was loose. They still teach his battle tactics at West Point. He ended up going through Yellow Stone. They were trying to meet with Sitting Bull who had gone to Canada after Little Big Horn. They got within 40 miles of Canada. They had more women and children than anything. They decided to stop and rest before entering Canada and that's where General Miles and the Army caught up with them. That was, in a sense, the same kind of story.

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Manning: Sure.

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Rosebrook: "The Waltons" was Earl Hammer--whom I've known since I was 21 years-old--he created "The Waltons". So, I had a chance to write about Virginia on that (television) series. I was able to incorporate some of my own experiences into many of the things I was lucky enough to be able to write. One of "The Gambler" episodes I did with Kenny Rogers--I rewrote a guy in 1987 who had written a script that was unshootable. It was a forced march. I was writing while they were filming. But it was about Sitting Bull and how The Gambler had to go see Sitting Bull--it was about the death of Sitting Bull. So, I wrote at least three Native American pieces. I'm not sure I could do that today because of political correctness.

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Manning: One question I feel everyone reading this will want to know is what working with Steve McQueen was like for you?

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Rosebrook: Well, the most vivid memory I have is just being called into his trailer that last couple weeks of filming before we did that big dance and fight scene in The Palace Bar. Actually, it was the scene where he was dancing with Barbara Leigh. That's when he asked me, "By the way,why am I called Junior?" Now, this is August. The previous November, I had started writing the script about "Junior Bonner". Incidentally, it wasn't until I started writing the script that the father showed up, then the dog--I still have no idea how this got there! He had a way of wanting to do dialogue in his own way. So, here was the scene and I couldn't answer his question, and I thought I was going to catch hell for that. I mean. 'Who do you think you are? A big-time writer who wrote the script and you don't know who Junior is?' He just said, "Okay". Then we went out and filmed the scene and I believe the way it went was--I believe you know that Barbara and Steve were not exactly strangers. They knew each other well enough to have this dance and this kind of 'let it fly' --so to speak. In the process, she says "Why do they call you Junior?"

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Manning: I remember that!

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Rosebrook: And Steve said "I don't know".

Manning: In the phone booth.

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Rosebrook: Yeah, in the phone booth, that's right! Now, that's a memory! (mutual laughter). There were others where we had been working for two weeks and he wanted to work on changing some of his dialogue with Ida Lupino. Although I was there, those are the things that Steve may have consulted with (director) Sam Peckinpah. He knew in his mind what he wanted to do and he wanted to try it out. I don't think Steve was a Method actor.

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Manning: No, I don't either.

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Rosebrook: But he certainly came from instincts. That day all afternoon--I think Bill Pierce (former Vice Chair of The Prescott Film Commission) took you by the house--and Ida Lupino was one of the very first women directors, and she was a real pro. She knew her lines. And she wasn't going to budge from the way she knew her lines. He'd fool around with his lines and kind of throw her off. They filmed all afternoon. In filming terminology, when you have a scene that works you "print it". If you have a scene that might work, you put a "hold" on it. The whole afternoon it was all "holds", there were no prints. When he left--you remember that kitchen scene with the apple pie?

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Manning: Oh, yeah!

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Rosebrook: She said "You better know your lines tomorrow or your going to eat a hell of a lot of apple pie". So, he came by the next day and (snaps his fingers) it went like that.

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Manning: She didn't work for 6 years before "Junior Bonner", right?

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Rosebrook: Longer than that! She had done a Clifford Odetts movie based on his play "The Big Knife" in 1955 about Hollywood. And Marty Baum who ran ABC Pictures originally had Susan Hayward in mind. Susan Hayward came out and met with Peckinpah, (producer) Joe Wizan and me for lunch. I mean this story's been told many times. We were so impressed with being with Susan Hayward that we didn't talk about the movie! So, she didn't think we wanted her and she went home to Florida. Then Marty thought about Ida Lupino--and that I think turned out to be a great choice. Because Ida was a consumate actress. She and Robert Preston had worked in motion pictures early on. I wish we had a tape recorder there. Early on in filming, Bill Holden was living in Palm Springs. He drove up from Palm Springs to Prescott to see Sam because they had met on "The Wild Bunch". So, he had a dinner for Bill Holden and it was really something to sit there and listen to Holden, and Robert Preston and Ida talking about their days when they were under studio contract. But with McQueen, I think the toughest time---there was a lot of concern. Steve had been involved with firing Sam Peckinpah off of "The Cincinnati Kid" years before. Norman Jewison, who was a much more experienced director took over and did a great job. So there was a lot of 'What's going to happen between these two guys?' And actually they hit it off very well, because there was no press around. I think there was no press around because Steve had just split from Neile (Adams) and he wanted a summer to himself. When it came time to do the scene at the railroad depot, the rehearsal--here was Robert Preston who knew all of his lines--Sam had written some of the other lines in there about the whore house in Nevada. But most of the other lines were mine. I had a fraternity brother named Dan Cox. And I saw him last year for the first time in years. I said to him, "Dan, I made you famous". Dan would have a few drinks at a fraternity party and say "As long as sex lives. my name will never die" (mutual laughter). So, I used that in that scene. Steve says, "You remember Bob Cox?" Steve was having a very difficult time--and I think it was maybe his relationship that he never had with his father--that was a pretty personal scene in which Robert Preston wants to go to Australia and Curly won't send him, so he thinks he can hit Junior up for the money and Junior doesn't have any money. The rehearsal was very difficult. Steve could not--would not put his arms around that scene. I don't want to go into the whole thing but finally, he put on his shirt--because lots of times he never wore a shirt--that guy was really put together--considering how much he smoked and all that. Once they did the scene--one of the things that was added was the day before, Sam and I sat and talked about what the scene was about. One of the things that's key about that scene was that maybe there was something about me and my father in there. You know, I wasn't always with my father and Sam said. "You know when my father got upset with me"---Sam had grown up on a ranch--"he would cuff my hat off my head". Did you know about this?

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Manning: Oh, yeah.

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Rosebrook: That's how that happened. In the end, it is a powerful scene put together by Steve's feelings, Preston's work and Sam's cuffing the hat when the train comes through. It was really well done.

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Manning: He makes you feel that emotion, doesn't he? When he turns and shuts his eyes as Preston walks across the track just as the train passes.

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Rosebrook: It's the first time, I think--I can't be sure about this--that may have been as close as Steve McQueen ever came to crying in a movie. And then at the end of it he said, "We're going to do the wild cow milking together". And only once did he call him "Pop". Throughout the whole movie, he (Preston) was "Ace". He never could call him Dad. Now, whether that's the way he wanted to do because that's the way he felt, I don't know. And as I mentioned the other night--the last time we were filming Steve was the opening of the movie--the thunderstorm, the car. He ended up in Jerome. Jerome is a mining town on Mingus Mountain near Prescott. It's really an interesting old town. Steve never had any money. And he asked me to buy him a six-pack of beer (mutual laughter). The other memory was when he met my daughter, Catherine, who was 5 at the time. We were outside the motel where we were staying and Dorothy was with me and Steve was there. And Catherine, my daughter was so shy and she held her head down and Steve put his hand on her head. And to this day, she says she met Steve McQueen but she never saw him!

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Manning: I can't think of a better supporting cast than Ida Lupino and Robert Preston...

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Rosebrook: ...And Ben Johnson! There were two great things about Ben Johnson. The first, when we were doing rehearsals for a week, Steve told everybody "This guy sitting here right next to me is going to win an Academy Award this year. I saw the rough cut last week of 'The Last Picture Show' and he's going to win the award." Secondly, Steve nailed me again. Once in a while, I can come up with a good line. Like, at the end of the fight (scene) somebody said "What do we do now?" and I said "Let's play 'Star Spangled Banner'--let's play something patriotic". And I wandered over to the bar when Robert Preston says "Up to the mouth, over the gums, look out stomach here she comes. If this world's all about winners, what's for losers?" I had a line in there and Steve didn't like the line. So he said, "Give me a line". Finally, Ben was sitting next to Steve and he said, "Some body's gotta hold the horses don't they". Now, he had probably stolen that from John Ford, but it worked! That in essence, when it works is what moviemaking can be about. A lot of writers don't go on location because the drectors and the actors don't want them there. Because they can be a pain in the ass, they want lines changed. You really can't bring your ego with you, because it really is a collaborative effort. That's a good Steve memory--when he nailed me and when I bought his beer.

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Manning: Was it Old Milwaukee?

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Rosebrook: No, it was Miller. We had a conract with Miller, Coca Cola and Wild Turkey in that film. If someone was drinking a beer, it was Miller. If they were drinking Cola it was Coca-Cola and if there was someone drinking the hard stuff, it was Wild Turkey.

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Manning: Barbara Leigh and I discussed the ending, and I told her about being 14 years-old and being in the movie theater with my next door neighbor who was my buddy as a kid, and we couldn't get over her beauty for weeks! We couldn't possibly understand how or why Steve's character dropped her off at that small airport, put her on a plane and said he had to get on down the road!

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Rosebrook: There's another one in the next town.

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Manning: Barbara Leigh? Not as far as we were concerned! (laughter).

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Rosebrook: Or why he didn't take her to El Paso? No. Steve and Sam were hell bent on getting Ali MacGraw for "The Getaway". And (Peter) Bogdanovich had backed out of directing Steve and Ali in "The Great Gatsby". So, they kind of conspired because she kept turning down that script. It was written and re-written. That's what I undertand, I mean, I wasn't there.

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Manning: Is this the film that most people mention most to you in your career?

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Rosebrook: Oh, yeah. Because I haven't done many movies. Now, they bring up "The Black Hole" a lot. When it came out, I was in a bookstore in L.A. for a book signing---by somebody else---and there was a Science Fiction nut there. And those people can really be screwy. I said, "You know, I was involved in writing--because I was the fifth or sixth writer--one of the worst Science Fiction movies of all time". And he said "What's that?" I said, "The Black Hole". Well, "The Black Hole" now is pretty popular. I've heard now they're going to try and remake it. They should. When "Junior Bonner" was not a commercial success, I had a thing that I always regret. I was sent over to meet with Jon Voight's manager and I kinda wish that there was something that I could have come up with for Jon Voight. My career then went into televsion because "Junior Bonner" was a critical success, but not a financial success. And the next thing I knew, I had an opportunity to rewrite "Miracle on 34th Street"--which was nice because you're not typecast. I had grown up in New York, and I was able to take my knowledge of writing ads for a department store and kind of update what the original "Miracle" was.

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Manning: Are you surprised that "Junior Bonner" has become so enormously popular in DVD sales over the past 9 years? It now enjoys a type of cult status.

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Rosebrook: Really? I do know that it's been on DVD and video before that. It changes production companies on the DVD about every three or four years. Somebody has rights to it, then somebody else takes it over. I've never even seen the Commentary as a matter of fact. I have it at home but I've never watched it. It's amazing to me that I was never asked to do a commentary. Garner Simmonds wrote the first book on Peckinpah, and I know he's in there. I am surprised and I'm not surprised. One of the reasons, there's a guy named Mike Clark who writes movie reviews for USA Today , and after 9/11 he wrote a list of "10 Movies People Should See" to give them a feeling about how they should feel about America and "Junior Bonner" was one of them . Clark has been a big fan of "Junior Bonner" and I've written to thank him because every time it comes back on DVD, he writes a beautiful thing about it. Steve felt it should have been released as an art film--a big release but in small theaters and let its audience grow. In the years since, it has grown. I didn't want it advertised as a rodeo movie. There have been two other rodeo movies, "The Honkers" and "J.W. Coop" and rodeo movies, historically have never made any money". Somebody has told me that there's never been a submarine movie that's lost money. But on the other hand, there's never been a car racing movie or a rodeo movie that ever made money. I felt it was a form of family drama. It just so happened these people were in the rodeo. After all, one of them is in real estate. And it was about change--there's no doubt about that. Family dynamics. I originally saw Waren Oates and Strother Martin (laughter). I liked smaller movies. When they said "We're going to use Steve McQueen, I said "Oh, that'll be another Steve McQueen movie". It was about this time, maybe two weeks later, I had finished writing "Junior Bonner" but I was still rewriting scenes. So, I came home from lunch one day--my office wasn't too far from home, and (my wife) Dorothy said "Joe Wizan just called and you're to pick him up to go to Steve McQueen's house tonight". I didn't have time to reflect on this at the time. I picked up Joe and here I am at Steve McQueen's house.

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Manning: This is in Brentwood or Palm Springs?

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Rosebrook: Brentwood. That's when Neile was making dinner for the kids and that's when Steve was outside doing something. He comes in and sits down and immediately--doesn't waste any time and gets into the script. Finally, he looked at Joe and he looked at me and said, "Why doesn't he take notes?" And Joe covered really well and said , "Well, Jeb remembers everything. He'll go home tonight and write this down". But Joe was sweating a little.

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Manning: You never stayed in touch with him after the film?

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Rosebrook: He wasn't a guy to stay in touch with a writer. Not Steve. I mean, I was a tool. And I don't want to put myself down. But I was a vehicle to get into this movie and to get Peckinpah into it and to get the cast into it. The Barbara Leigh story was really a story about a girl who worked in a bank in Phoenix and her life was kind of dull and she had a Volkswagon, and she came to Prescott to raise a little hell and have some fun and maybe meet somebody. So, she meets "Junior Bonner". And most of the scenes in The Palace are really personal scenes between Steve and the girl. Sam decided they needed more action, so he said, "Let's have a fight". We also said, "Let's throw in that she's a rich girl"--that she's on the arm of a rich guy. I think that whole scene about, "Hey, you're Junior Bonner"-- taking pictures'--it wasn't--I didnt want that in there. He's with the dog by the horse trailer and the guys walk up with the camera.

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Manning: Oh, yeah..."We go back six years ago" and "Well, I'll tell ya, six years is a long time".

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Rosebrook: That was Sam...it works. But it wasn't real to me. One of the things I will take credit for is that some of the music in there, I had written into the script.

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Manning: I've thoroughly enjoyed this Jeb.

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Rosenbrook: Thank you, Michael.

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My sincere thanks to Jeb Rosebrook for making this visit possible.