On Location in Red Rock Country

It might just as well have been the opposite side of the moon. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Well, no, that wasn't quite true. He had seen it somewhere but where? Was it in a dream, a story, or his imagination? Maybe it was all three or none . . . he really wasn't sure.

His eyes were scanning long, soft green stretches of grass and chaparral, and the sky was touching down and caressing the hot red stones and jagged cliffs. He watched clouds, endless white rivers of them, weaving in and among the loneliest peaks, and he knew he wanted to stay.

The sky, the earth, the silence had enchanted him, overpowered him with their intensity. He felt at once peace and harmony and a sense of belonging he had never experienced. Unable to comprehend it all, he had nevertheless decided . . . yes, this is where I want to be, where I want to spend my life. It had been done, effortlessly, in one single, bold, exhilarating moment. Bob Bradshaw knew his 10 years of wandering were over and Sedona, Arizona, was to be his home.

The moment was not to be savored for long. Fingering the two coins in his pocket, he was coolly reminded that he, his wife, and child had not eaten since daybreak. And his overburdened '35 Ford, that had so faithfully transported them across 15 states, was sputtering on its last half-gallon of gasoline. They could make it through tomorrow, all right, but there'd be no time to waste finding a job. He pushed aside the gray thought that this tiny farming community with no more than 300 people, might not have any work for a newcomer.

By dawn the next day he was awake and mustering his hope and courage over a cup of steaming black coffee. By eight, he was standing in front of Oscar Giles, manager of the Sedona Lodge. "See you're doin' some building here. Think you can use a carpenter? I can handle anything you can throw at me rough or finish. Done lots of work on houses and motels - just finished a year in Miami, on the university there."

For a few seconds, Giles was silent. He rubbed his neck, then looked squarely at the young man's face. "Matter of fact, we can.

"We started this lodge about a year ago . . . yep, that's right, '46. Just about had enough time to get the thing built before Duke Wayne and his Hollywood crew showed up for that Angel and the Badman picture. Yep, we still need some doors and windows hung. Pay you a dollar sixty-five an hour, startin' right now, if you want."

Bradshaw grinned. "You bet, thanks a lot. I'll pick up my tools."

The work was hard, but no worse than beating nails under the hot sun of Riverside, California, or the chill, damp winds of Seattle, Washington. What mattered was that the job, any job, allowed him to stay in this heaven-blessed place.

At the same time this singular life was taking root, the dreams of an entire nation were being shaped and nurtured. However, these dreams were played out in black and white and in Technicolor, on movie screens in every small-town Bijou across the country. They were fantasies created by Hollywood for an audience that craved heroes larger than life, with scenery and action to match. Ironically, the young carpenter on his odyssey to the Real West, and the Hollywood mythmakers in their eternal search for the West of Fiction and Romance, would be linked for many years to come.

The common ground into which their dreams were planted was Sedona. Rich in dramatic scenery, her mountains and canyons had been painted by Nature with a brilliant palette deep copper, subtle orange, delicate mauve. When the sun hit and changed her moods, those colors turned fiery red, burnished gold and magenta. She had crystal streams, giant pine forests, and great open valleys and plains, qualities definitely not lost on anyone with a touch of romance in his soul.

In the early '20s, popular novelist Zane Grey and entrepreneur Jesse Lasky, organizer of the Famous Players Lasky actors troupe in Hollywood,

When Hollywood Sought Magnificent Scenery to Match Its Larger-Than-Life Heroes, It Went On Location in Red Rock Country

teamed up to produce high-adventure silent movies in Northern Arizona. Grey had traveled through Oak Creek Canyon on previous hunting expeditions in the state, and was so impressed with the scenic splendor of the Red Rock Country that he convinced Lasky to use it for a movie location. Call of the Canyon was the producer's first choice for the area.

In August, 1923, the Lasky company, including studio officials, technicians, and stars Richard Dix, Lois Wilson, and Noah Beery, disembarked at the small railroad town of Flagstaff, and boarded buses, trucks, and cars for the nervejarring ride into the rustic reaches of West Fork. For many of these city folk, their camp-out in Oak Creek Canyon would prove an unforgettable adventure.

Though the scenery was magnificent, roads were scarce, lodging almost nonexistent, and amenities, like indoor plumbing, running water, and electricity, practically unheard of. Their first surprise was an unseasonable thunderstorm that pounced on the company, stranding them near an angry creek that rose 10 feet and threatened to take with it the canyon's only bridge. “It was terrible,” exclaimed distraught actress Lenore Lynard to a reporter. “The cook ran out of supplies, the men shot craps and played poker 'til all hours, and everyone hated everyone else... and for several days we were on the point of a general hair-pulling, eye-gouging melee.” Into this pitiful scene rushed local movie coordinator Lee Doyle, who transported the dispirited crew out of the muddy canyon and back to Flagstaff. Happily for moviegoers, ace cameraman James Wong Howe had stayed on the job and captured several reels of sensational rain and lightning sequences, most of which remained in the final version of this silent classic.

cameraman James Wong Howe had stayed on the job and captured several reels of sensational rain and lightning sequences, most of which remained in the final version of this silent classic.

During the next seven years, while the moving picture industry coped with the revolutionary changes brought about by sound, Northern Arizona continued to lure West Coast producers.

The 1930s signaled the beginning of an era when major studios like Paramount, Fox Film, Universal, RKO Radio, and MGM rolled into town to shoot a variety of sagebrush sagas. There was Last of the Duanes, Riders of the Purple Sage, Robbers' Roost, Smoky, Stormy, Texas Trail, and King of the Sierras. Some featured well-known Hollywood stars like George O'Brien, who quickly made himself welcome among local wranglers by often joining them between takes for a friendly game of poker. Others spotlighted local talent like Lee Doyle's famous horse, Rex, a high-spirited equine who thrilled movie fans, but who, more often than not, struck terror into the heart of any cowboy trying to lasso the critter for a scene.

By the time the 40s dawned, the BWestern was booming. America was ready for new heroes and a return to order and tradition after the devastating blows of the Depression years. The American Western successfully filled that yearning.

In 1941, Sedona welcomed an MGM company that headlined screen idol Robert Taylor and leading tough guy Brian Donlevy in a remake of the classic Western, Billy the Kid. During the next four years, however, the area's use as a location site would be put on hold, while men, equipment, and supplies were diverted to America's effort in World War II.

When location shooting did resume in the mid-40s, Sedona was ready for it. In addition to several new shops and motels, the town now boasted an Old West frontier movie town in the shadow of Coffee Pot Rock, and Sedona Lodge, a complete facility that offered individual bungalows, catering services, and an indoor sound stage equipped to handle movie crews of a hundred or more.

20th Century-Fox was the first to arrive after the war for the shooting of Leave Her to Heaven with film beauty Gene Tierney in the lead. Shortly after, there followed Columbia's Relentless and The Gunfighters, Paramount's Desert Fury and Albuquerque, Republic's Hellfire, Angel and the Badman, The Fabulous Texan, and Singing Guns, and RKO's Blood on the Moon.

When the lanky young carpenter, Bob Bradshaw, stepped onto the scene in 1947, the townspeople of Sedona were quite accustomed to the strange comings and goings of Hollywood film companies. After a few months working at the Lodge, Bradshaw, too, became familiar with the special sights and sounds of möviemaking. Conversations about "takes" and "insert shots" and "wild sound" became as commonplace as the sight of dashing Cavalry officers and painted Indians eating breakfast with spangled dance hall girls around the Lodge's wooden mess hall tables.

From time to time, Bradshaw would pick up odd jobs constructing sets. He joined the crew that built a rambling copper smelter at Red Rock Crossing for a scene in the Ray Milland-Hedy Lamarr oater Copper Canyon. He helped construct an aging barn that was used in Redhead and the Cowboy, a yarn that headlined handsome heart-throb Glenn Ford and glamour queen Rhonda Fleming.

Later, Bradshaw worked as local foreman on Broken Arrow, a Western blockbuster that far outstripped in size, budget, and cast anything that had ever been filmed before in the region. Director Delmar Daves had lived among the Hopi and Navajo in his youth and was determined that this epic tale of ex-Army scout Tom Jeffords, played by Jimmy Stewart, and Cochise, portrayed by Jeff Chandler, would be done with the utmost style and dignity. Daves personally visited the White River Apache tribe and, after explaining the story line, received assurances from tribal leaders that their people would be permitted to participate in the film. It was an unusual pact in light of most Native Americans' distaste for Hollywood's traditional portrayal of “the red man” on screen. Soon after, hundreds of Apaches assembled in Sedona and set up camp behind Sedona Lodge, a short distance from the dozens of wickiups that had been built for the movie version of Cochise's village.

In the meantime, Bradshaw and his men were working closely with Hollywood crews. They built mangers at Bell Rock for dozens of horses, and hauled around gigantic plaster of paris saguaros that “weighed a ton” so that certain areas of Sedona would resemble the desert around Tucson. Additionally, two complete film units - one for close-ups and dialogue, the other for panoramic sequences, crisscrossed the valleys and canyons to over 30 Sedona shooting sites that were used in this $2-million-plus production.

Bradshaw was kept busy from dawn to sundown, but occasionally managed to break away to watch the film-ing. He was on hand for one of the most climactic scenes of the movie. There were director Daves and his assistant motioning and yelling through loud-speakers to eight cameramen positioned in strategic locations around Cathedral Rock. On cue, cameras whirred as hundreds of war-whooping braves began their attack, Army wagons bounced and jostled across rocky terrain, and Cavalry soldiers by the score dug in their heels and spurred their horses to full gallop.

The riding was thrilling, the stunt work daring, and the direction intense. And at the conclusion of Broken Arrow, Bradshaw was hooked. Even after his job at Sedona Lodge ended, and he began expanding his interests in ranch-ing and photography, he always kept informed about new pictures coming to town. Not surprisingly, his growing knowledge of the Arizona back country, proficiency with a horse, and tall, slender build were a definite advantage in the world of filmmaking.

In RKO's Half Breed, a story about the injustices perpetrated against an Apache brave played by Jack Beutel, Bradshaw was tapped to double and stand in for star Robert Young. When Raoul Walsh's Gun Fury blazed into Sedona, he did a stint doubling for Rock Hudson and for a bit player. Later, in an interview for radio, Hudson was asked the name of the second string player. The star didn't know. The mysterious thespian was none other than Lee Marvin in the role of gunman Binki, one of Marvin's first roles as a heavy.

In 1954, another unknown named Charles Buchinsky took the minor role of Hondo in Apache, with Burt Lancaster. That same year he was signed for a starring role as Modoc renegade “Captain Jack” in Drum Beat, Delmar Daves' second Sedona-based film. The muscular actor, who wiled away the hours on the set lifting weights, soon became known to millions of movie fans as Charles Bronson.

Johnny Guitar brought a Western of another kind to the Oak Creek landscape. This one spotlighted the antagonism between two women Joan Crawford as tough-talking saloon owner Vienna, and Mercedes McCambridge as greedy rancher Emma Small. The pair was in constant battle over land rights, and each rallied their respective gangs to “fight it out.” For this scenario, Bradshaw rode for several weeks in good guy Ward Bond's posse. At one point, they took off in hot pursuit of a young villain whom they knew would lead them to the bad guys' hide-out. The young thug got knocked off - figuratively and literally and the posse followed his riderless horse over mountains, through rivers, under a waterfall, and right to the entrance of the thieves' lair. To the astonishment of cast and crew, the horse did the scene in one take, never missing a step. Spontaneously, the onlookers cheered and clapped. It was the first time Bradshaw had ever seen a horse receive a standing ovation!

Such perfect takes are not that commonplace in the frenetic world of filmmaking. In Yellowstone Kelly, for instance, a stunt girl was asked to do a fall. Unexpectedly, her horse also tumbled, breaking the stunt girl's arm. That hair-raising incident was recorded for posterity in the final cut. In the same film, rugged actor Claude Akins was told to run through a scene several times to get the "splashing" just right. In the middle of November, Akins had to charge through the river, endure a dousing with buckets of water, and then ride bravely to the opposite bank, never once showing a hint of the misery he undoubtedly felt. Bradshaw could sympathize with the actor. He himself had been asked many times to carry out a variety of ingenious schemes cooked up by creative types. Still, he understood the demands of the movie business and was patient with its idiosyncrasies. He was, in fact, fast gaining a reputation as "the man to call" when a company needed a certain type of vista for a dramatic gun duel, or a hundred head of horses to stampede through a river crossing. So when The Rounders' location manager, Bob Sunderland, called to ask if he could help put together a rodeo, a parade with a high school marching band, 150 extras, and at least a dozen Sedona locales, Bradshaw assured him he could. With the cooperation of local residents, the wit and charm of veterans Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda, and an ornery old nag named "Ole Fooler," Director Burt Kennedy and his MGM company pulled off one of the funniest contemporary Westerns to hit the screen in many a year. Producer Dick Lyon later thanked Bradshaw and added that, had it not been for a key location on Hart Prairie which Bradshaw had shown them, the production would have gone to California.

In line with the light-hearted treatment of a contemporary Western theme, Elvis Presley was corralled for the title role in Stay Away, Joe, a comical tale about the life and loves of Joe Lightcloud, a Navajo rodeo star.

"I got a call from Peter Tewksbury, the director, asking if we had a river crossing with a vista," recounts Bradshaw. "I told him we had fantastic views on my ranch, but no water. Tewksbury said 'I'd like to see it' and he came out. He was sold. They had to concrete a wash and hire a tanker to fill it with water... I don't know how many trips that truck made. Cost them about $3500.

"And Elvis? He was as nice as could be, always polite to everyone. They rented five houses in Sedona for his friends, his maid, him, and his wife. I remember Elvis wanting to go horseback riding but the director said 'no' - too risky. Too bad he didn't get to do what he wanted to."

After the Stay Away company departed and another pair of cowpokes, Ryan O'Neal and William Holden, had completed their saga of The Wild Rovers, Bradshaw saw the culmination of a plan that had been many years in the making. Its name was "Bittercreek," a period set that embodied all the spirit and flavor of the roaring frontier. Hopes were high that "the town," which was a successor to the Coffee Pot set that had been razed to make room for a subdivision, would draw a new wave of Western filmmakers to the area. But the times, however, were definitely "a 'changin'." The old faithful hard-riding hero on the white horse and the nasty bad guy on the black horse were being pushed aside by another breed of screen adventurer. This tough dude played out his cops and robbers drama on grimy city streets and superhighways, brandishing a .44 magnum pistol and driving sleek supercharged sports cars at 90 miles per hour. And the public loved it and wanted more.

Bittercreek bided her time. Like a young maiden waiting for the handsome stranger to fill out her dance card, she remained - patient, unflappable. "For awhile there," says Bradshaw, as he ambles past Bittercreek's Golden Goose saloon, "things got kind of slow. Producers weren't interested in doing Westerns anymore. Sure, we had plenty of commercials with Western themes, but not many big-time features with top stars. Even when Hollywood did make Westerns they didn't do too well at the box office. Then that Urban Cowboy hit and it's been going like wildfire ever since. Matter of fact, we just got a call from a production company about using Bittercreek for several weeks in a Western feature. So far, it looks good."

The man with the quiet manner and sage-blue eyes pauses for a moment to take in the beauty of a prominent ridge haloed by the afternoon's golden light. "You know," he says with a smile, "everyone loves good Westerns. I knew they'd be coming back."

The World of DeGrazia An Artist of the American Southwest

Arizona Highways is honored and proud to announce the publication of the first definitive biography and porfolio of the works of Ted De Grazia. For this book, De Grazia has chosen 65 canvasses that represent the best of his paintings from 1925 to 1980. And all of these gorgeous works of art are beautifully reproduced in full color. The author, Harry Redl, an internationally acclaimed photojournalist, formerly with Life magazine, spent time with De Grazia and his friends at De Grazia's Tucson studio home, the Gallery in the Sun. Also included in this impressive volume is an overview of De Grazia's works in other media, including bronzes and collectors' plates, and a personal evaluation of De Grazia's art by his close friend and associate Buck Saunders. But what really makes this 200 page work a must for all De Grazia fans is the narrative about the man himself, and how he feels about his work and his life...

The following is excerpted from The World Of De Grazia by Harry Redl.

The World of De Grazia

The man in the well-worn ranchhand clothes is none other than Ettore “Ted” De Grazia, the most reproduced artist in the world. An estimated 100 million of his images have gone out into the world and have touched the hearts of his legion of admirers. He is the essence of the American Southwest, a legend in his own time, a natural phenomenon. A most sophisticated primitive, a gentle iconoclast, a visionary man of action. As behooves a legend, De Grazia is surrounded by myth and speculation. Since he hates to talk about himself, it is often difficult to verify the very simplest facts of his life, let alone some of the wild stories that circulate about him. Indeed, De Grazia encourages the spreading of the lore, by rarely denying a rumor, no matter how bizarre; by his reluctance to discuss that portion of his life which he considers private and inviolate. De Grazia not only closes shop at 4:00 p.m. every afternoon, but also literally vanishes. Only a few close friends ever see him after that. Recently, De Grazia told a visitor, “More and more I want less and less. You know, the most precious thing in my life at this stage is privacy. It is not that I am against people. I like people. After all, it is people who have made me what I am today.

During the gallery hours he gives of himself unstintingly. It is then that he takes care of that part of his world that belongs to the public.

"Listen, these are my people. Without them, where would I be? How can I not love them and accommodate them?" He signs a print here, a greeting card there, a book. Then an elderly woman from Delaware comes up to him with a small enamel piece and says, "Mr. De Grazia, this is for my husband at home. I realize it is too small for you to sign, but could you just touch it for him?" And De Grazia does so, chats with her for a while, pecks her on the cheek.

Ettore De Grazia was born on June 14, 1909 in Morenci, a mining town in what was then the Territory of Arizona, as the proud descendant of three generations of Italian hard-rock miners. "You cannot start out lower than that, in every sense of the word," he would remark later.

Ettore roamed those wild hills and mountains endlessly as a young boy, undoubtedly absorbing the desert colors and their wild configurations. These first impressions must have left indelible marks on the boy, which wouldultimately turn him into the kind of painter he would become: a celebrant of the American Southwest.

De Grazia went on extensive trips through the land he loved so much, Arizona and Mexico. Since most of the Mexicans he had known in Morenci came from Sonora and Chihuahua, he was particularly drawn toward those provinces and came to know them intimately. Being fluent in Spanish, he had no trouble at all blending into the land, becoming a part of it.

To the question put by a visitor, what made De Grazia become an artist, he recently answered, "Mainly that I wanted to get out of the mines. But I never thought I would make money painting. I suppose I painted because I wanted to paint. However, sometimes I don't even know if I like painting. Or maybe I do it because I hate it."

Not satisfied with his progress, De Grazia decided to go to Mexico City in 1942, to further his studies of painting. What made him choose Mexico City, aside from his deep love for that culture, De Grazia explains like this: "If you want to learn to paint, you better spend some time with great painters. Since El Greco and Gauguin were dead, I had to go to Mexico City to see Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco."

It proved to be a very fruitful time indeed and De Grazia was present while Rivera painted at the second floor of the Palacio Nacional. Orozco was then completing his celebrated murals at the Hospital of Jesus Nazareno in Mexico City. De Grazia worked with Orozco and aside from the artistic satisfaction must have savoured the historic ground he was treading. This was his world. About his two mentors De Grazia has said, "They were not the easiest people in the world to work for, but they knew their art, and I learned quickly."

In the end, Rivera and Orozco sponsored an exhibition of De Grazia's paintings at Mexico City's prestigious Palacio de Bellas Artes in November 1942. It was a great success. Mexico's most respected magazine Hoy reviewed the show in glowing terms and it gave De Grazia's spirits a considerable lift then and in the hard times still to come.

De Grazia had become a painter at last, after all those years of searching and penury, of doubt and sweat. He reflected on that long thistly road recently, "When you have become a painter, you will have paid for it dearly. Not in money. The price comes out of your soul; you pay with your very hide." When an art student once asked how he could become a painter, De Grazia told him: "First you must grow a beard. Then you must wait for the beard to turn grey. And then maybe! you will become a painter."

Editors note: As a special offer to Arizona Highways readers, The World of De Grazia will be available through our office September 1. You may stop in, or, for your convenience, send VISA or MasterCard number, money order, or check along with your order to:

The World of De Grazia, $49.50 each. (Please add $2.00 for postage and handling for each book to be mailed.)