WILD IN THE COUNTRY
– Elvis Presley’s Last Dramatic Role –
(Part 4)
The key male roles in the new film’s plot, apart from Elvis, of course, were played by William Mims and Gary Lockwood, among others. The former played the character of Rolf Braxton’s not-so-nice uncle.
Previously, the actor played smaller or larger roles in such American productions (mostly Westerns) as “I Killed Wild Bick Hickok”, “Walk Tall“, “Sanctuary” and “Battle At The Bloody Beach” and also appeared in one episode of the series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents“.
In turn, Lockwood, the same one who two years later created an unforgettable duet with Presley in the singer’s next film – “It Happened At The World’s Fair“, got the role of Cliff Macy. The son of a prominent local lawyer, Phil Macy (John Ireland was cast in this role – a Canadian actor, director and film producer, nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in the drama “The Governor” by Robert Rossen), with whom Glenn Tyler, played by Elvis, gets into a fight during a dance organized in the city and because of whom he almost ends up in prison for many years.
“A lot of people remember me as the guy who always had some kind of fight with Elvis ,” the actor recalled in the book “The Private Lives of Elvis.”But really, we only fought a few times, and only because we were always doing our stunts together, and those were the scenes that people remember best.
I had come into the movies as a stuntman, so that was nothing new to me. But when I first met Elvis I wondered how we were going to pull off our fight scenes in ‘Wild In The Country.’ You see, I had worked with a few other actors before, so I couldn’t help but think that Elvis’s masculine appearance was just… an appearance. But it turned out I needn’t have worried about that. Elvis quickly showed me that he could take care of himself with his fists, and I soon began to think that I could be a good boxer if he wanted to. […] Nevertheless, as I said, the first time I had to fight Elvis was in ‘Wild In The Country,’ and of course I lost that fight .”
Today, few people remember or realize that Presley’s two-time screen partner, who gained the greatest popularity for his role as Dr. Frank Poole in Stanley Kubrick’s timeless “2001: A Space Odyssey,” was actually John Gary Yurosek and had Polish roots. His paternal grandparents were emigrants from Poland.
It is also worth mentioning that in August 1966, the actor also married a popular actress, television producer and screenwriter of Polish origin, Stefanie Powers, whose real name was Stefania Zofia Federkiewicz.
Lockwood has always spoken highly of Presley himself. In an interview published on Bullz-Eye.com, he called him a “true gentleman ” and, when asked how he felt about him as an actor, said: “Well, with famous musicians, it’s always about their image as a musician, that everything is based on it. ‘Wild In The Country’ was supposed to be his breakthrough film. It was the first one without songs, but when it was shown, everyone wanted them. So they went back and added a few numbers that weren’t in the original version. So what I’m trying to say is that Elvis Presley was a musician – a singer, and I’m not judging whether he was a good actor, a great actor or a bad actor. I’m just saying that he basically played himself the whole time .”
In addition to Mims and Lockwood, the cast of “Wild In The Country” also included several other famous names. Interestingly, not always only from the world of film.
One of the episodes in the film, and more precisely the character of Davis, was played by one of the most distinguished and most decorated American track and field athletes, Rafer Lewis Johnson. Winner of, among others, a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960 and a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Melbourne.
The role of Dr. Underwood was given to a veteran of American cinema, Raymond Greenleaf (real name Roger Ramon Greenleaf), who is most popular for his performances in such famous productions as “All The King’s Man” by Robert Rossen (based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Robert Penn Warren), “Pinky” directed by Elia Kazana and “Angel Face” by Otto Preminger.
In addition, during his fifteen-year career, Greenleaf played dozens of smaller and larger roles, appearing alongside such stars as Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Richard Egan and Barbra Stanwyck. Ironically, his participation in “Wild In The Country” turned out to be one of his last appearances in front of a Hollywood camera. The actor died at the age of seventy-one, just two years after the end of filming, on October 29, 1963.
Other small supporting roles, often omitted even in the film’s opening credits, were also played by Jason Robards Sr. (who played Judge Tom Parker), Walter Baldwin, Pat Buttram, Linden Chiles (whom audiences might recognize from such cinema classics as “Singin’ in the Rain“, “White Christmas” and “Adam’s Rib“), Cosmo Sardo, Ron Nyman, Philo McCullough, James W. Horan, Sol Murgi, Russel Custer, Jack Orrison, John Roy, James Gonzalez, Glen Walters, Mark Bailey and Dick Johnstone.
The main character’s brother, with whom he gets into a fight in the first few minutes of the film (ruthlessly hitting him with a chair in the process), was played by Red West – Presley’s friend and close collaborator. “I played Elvis’ brother, Hank Tyler ,” West remembered in an interview. “Elvis was quite close to Tuesday Weld at the time. He was dating her for a while and she would come over to his house. Millie Perkins was a bit shy, but Hope Lange and the others, they all got along great. Elvis respected all those people a lot. The director, Phillip Dunne, was a really nice man and added an extra scene in court for me, as Elvis’ brother. That’s how I got my first movie line. I practiced it over and over all weekend, but when they said ‘let’s shoot’ on set and Hope Lange stood in front of me, I forgot my name. Elvis laughed like hell at it. He was always looking for something to laugh at.
We also did a great fight scene. It got around quickly that Elvis was great at doing fights without a stunt double. So it was always just the two of us .”
- Gary Lockwood began his film career as a stuntman and stunt double for Anthony Perkins.
Information written and provided by Mariusz Ogieglo, EP Promised Land (Poland) http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/
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