Buck Taylor is best known to television viewers for his role as gunsmith Newly O’Brian on the long-running western “Gunsmoke.” But at age 85, Taylor has now earned a whole new generation of fans of modern TV watchers who recognize him from his role on the Paramount Network hit “Yellowstone.”
The veteran cowboy actor appeared in eight episodes as Emmett Walsh, chairman of the Stockgrowers Association and an old friend of John Dutton, owner of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, played by Kevin Costner.
Taylor said he was honored to get a chance to be a part of “Yellowstone.”
“I’ve played a lot of cowboys in movies and on television over the years, but this has been one of the highlights of my career for sure,” Taylor said in a phone interview. “Kevin (Costner) was great to work with. And Kelly Reilly, who plays Beth, is the nicest and most professional actress I have ever worked with. She is nothing like the character she plays on the show. She is a lovely, friendly woman.”
Taylor will be appearing at the MidSouth Nostalgia Festival June 8-10 in Olive Branch where he will meet with fans, sign autographs, and show off some of his western themed art. The actor and real-life cowboy has made numerous appearance at the festival over the years, but was unable to attend the last few due to acting commitments.
“I can’t wait to get there,” Taylor said. “I like coming to these shows and seeing people and talking to them. We will have a great time.”
Taylor, who has appeared in dozens of television shows and more than 20 movies including the westerns “Tombstone” and “Cowboys and Aliens,” said he enjoys working with “Yellowstone” actor and filmmaker Sheridan Taylor, who he feels has set the bar high for television shows in terms of production values.
“Taylor Sheridan told me, ‘I don’t make television shows. I make movies that are on television.’ And it’s true,” Taylor said. “People aren’t going out as much to the movies anymore. Instead they have these big huge TVs in their rooms. And the quality of shows we are seeing now on television is amazing. It’s top notch stuff. Taylor kind of started this. He gets the best actors, writers, and directors. Sylvester Stallone just did a series with Taylor Sheridan. He can get anybody he wants and they all want to be on his shows. So he puts that in the viewer’s room and not in the movie theater. That’s where our industry is going. He was very visionary with that.”
Taylor said he actually played Sheridan’s father in an episode of the Chuck Norris TV series “Walker, Texas Ranger” but had no idea at the time that Sheridan would go on to become one of the most successful screenwriters and producers on television today. Sheridan is the co-creator of “Yellowstone and creator of two prequels “1883” and “1923” along with his other film work.
“I had known him a long time and didn’t know it,” Taylor said. “Years ago he and I played a part in a “Walker, Texas Ranger.” I was a Texas Ranger and I had a son that was bad and was running around with the wrong crowd. And that and kid was Taylor Sheridan. He was about 18 or 19 years old. He said he never forgot about me.”
Taylor worked with Sheridan again in the 2016 western feature film “Hell and High Water” starring Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine, which led to him being offered a part on “Yellowstone.”
“I have a great relationship with Taylor Sheridan,” Taylor said. “He’s a very talented guy. I hated to see my role come to an end on “Yellowstone.” But, he had to kill me off because he is winding down on “Yellowstone.” He said he is going to put me in something else.”
Taylor said he has always had a particular love for Westerns. His father was character actor Dub Taylor, who worked extensively in films and television, including in many westerns. Buck was around western movie sets watching his father act from an early age.“I haven’t done as many films as my dad,” Taylor said. “But I have been in the business as long as him. He worked with a lot of movie cowboys in the early days of his career who I got to meet and were my heroes. The Western is American. It’s a symbol of America all over the the world and is symbolic the way this country was created in part.”
Although he would go on to make a name for himself in Hollywood Westerns, Taylor said he didn’t start out wanting to be an actor. He developed a love of drawing at an early age and originally wanted to be an artist. He earned a scholarship to study at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, but gave up painting when he joined the Navy in 1950. He picked up painting again though after his hitch in the service.
“Around the age of five or six, I just had the urge to draw,” Taylor said. “You couldn’t keep me from finding a piece of paper and wanting to draw. I knew I was good at it all through grammar school, junior high, and high school. I was always drawing. It was just something that I loved to do. And I just kept painting and getting better. I like all mediums, but watercolor, to me, is the essence of painting. You have to think about it first because you don’t get a second shot at it.”
Today, he sells his watercolor paintings at shows all across the country. His work has appeared on many rodeo, festival, and state fair promotional posters. His “Gunsmoke” co-star James Arness even used one of his paintings for the cover of his autobiography. Most of his work is western themed, but Taylor also has painted a number of characters and scenes from movies and television series that he has appeared in.
“Even though I was in the movie business, it was always in the back of my mind,” Taylor said. “So I just started painting again and thank God I did because it is just something that has brought me a lot of happiness. I have a big studio upstairs here at my ranch. That’s where I paint. People seem to like my paintings. It is very humbling.”
Taylor said he has been lucky to be able to both act and be an artist. He landed his first role on television in 1961 on an episode of “Zane Grey Theater.” He kept working on other shows like “The Outer Limits,” “My Three Sons,” and the westerns “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “Wagon Train,” “The Big Valley,” and “The Virginians” throughout the 1960s.
But it was the role of Newly on “Gunsmoke” in 1967 which brought him his greatest success as an actor. Taylor said every actor back then wanted to be on “Gunsmoke.”
“I watched it growing up,” Taylor said. “For seven years I had done really well. I think I had already done like 100 television shows. I did a “Gunsmoke” episode in 1966 and was a bad guy and they killed me off. I thought, ‘okay, well I can cross it off my bucket list.’ But then I got a call from my agent who said that Roger Ewing, who played the deputy, Thad, was leaving the show and they wanted me to read for a recurring role.”
Taylor said he was up for a couple of other film roles at the time and had to make a choice. It turns out to have been the best decision of his career. Newly became a key member of the cast and Taylor stayed with the series for eight seasons and 174 episodes until its cancellation in 1975.
“I said, well, I like horses and cowboys and all that. So I went with “Gunsmoke.” It was just a happy accident really. I got lucky. It was just an unbelievable ride. I had a great time doing it.”
Taylor admits it was a bit overwhelming the first time he walked onto the Long Branch Saloon set and saw James Arness as Matt Dillon and the rest of the cast in character, but said Arness set the tone and made the “Gunsmoke” set a great place to work for actors.
“I couldn’t believe that I was a part of it,” Taylor said. “It was a dream come true. I was scared to death of Jim. He was 6-foot-7. He had been wounded in World War II. But he was just like you would think he was. He was a great guy. He was a very quiet guy. He came in, did the job, and eased out at the end of the day. I learned a lot from him.”
Taylor said Arness was also a big practical joker.
“He played tricks on me,” Taylor said. “The camera would be on me for a close up. The director would say ‘Action.’ And Jim would from behind his back take an ice cream bar and start eating it in front of me. I’d have to be serious and say something like ‘Marshal, there’s a fight in the Long Branch!’ And he’s there eating an ice cream. He made me laugh so much.”
Taylor said he had no idea that four decades after the show was cancelled that “Gunsmoke” would remain as popular today in reruns as it was during its original run on television, and that people would still be asking him about it today.
“When it was over I thought, well, I’ve been on a great show. I will go on to something else,” Taylor said. “I had no idea that 62 years later that it is still running. It is incredible. When I do a convention or an art show, the line of people waiting to see me or my artwork all want to hear about “Gunsmoke.” Even little kids with their dads. The dad will say ‘That’s Newly on Gunsmoke.’ Then they see me and it’s like, that’s not Newly. No, I’m an 85 year-old Newly. I’ve done a lot of other roles since then, but if I never did anything but “Gunsmoke,” I’d be happy.”