In Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002), actor Brian Cox delivers one of the most shattering final lines in movie history when he caps off his hopeful description of an alternative reality for his wayward son: “This life came so close to never happening.” And I must admit: Those words come back to haunt me whenever I sit down to write about Lonesome Dove, the classic miniseries — based on Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.
Consider: If John Wayne hadn’t heeded the advice of director/mentor John Ford, McMurtry might never have written the original novel in the first place. And if James Garner had been in better health at the time the novel was adapted into the epic 1989 miniseries, he, not Robert Duvall, likely would have been cast as the former Texas Ranger, newly minted cattle driver, and irrepressible rapscallion Augustus “Gus” McCrae.
Yes, it’s all true. As McMurtry and director Peter Bogdanovich often noted in interviews, they were greatly pleased by the result of their first collaboration — The Last Picture Show, the classic 1971 film based on McMurtry’s novel — and hoped to reunite for a second project, a western with the working title Streets of Laredo. And get this: Bogdanovich had hoped to sign John Wayne, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda for lead roles in the film.
But when Ford cautioned Wayne not to be part of the elegiac Western drama, The Duke dropped out, and the project fell apart. Years later, McMurtry reworked his original script into a novel titled Lonesome Dove. And it might have escaped Duvall’s notice had his ex-wife not called it to his attention shortly after McMurtry’s novel was published in 1985.
“She said, ‘Bobby, I just read a book — it’s maybe better than Dostoyevsky,’ ” Duvall told me over an L.A. lunch in 2010. “And she also told me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t let them talk you into playing [Woodrow F. Call, the fellow ex-Ranger and newbie cattle driver eventually played by Tommy Lee Jones]. Gus is the part you should play.’ The funny thing is, to this day, Larry McMurtry says Tommy Lee and I should have switched parts. I’m sorry — I would disagree.”
Back in the day, however, Jones wasn’t his only competitor for the plum role of Gus. During preproduction for the miniseries, another costar — and an equally formidable rival — was considered by the late scriptwriter/executive producer Bill Wittliff and behind-the-scenes decision-makers. Duvall? Well, maybe he could play Call?
“My agent then was handling James Garner, who was the first one they offered it to,” Duvall recalled. “So I told them: ‘If you can get James Garner to change parts with me, then I’ll be interested.’ Well, they came back and said, ‘He’s got health issues. He can’t be on a horse for six to eight weeks.’ So I got the part.”
Duvall paused, took a sip of tea, and then smiled broadly as he added: “I never got the chance to thank my ex-wife for that. But she told me to go after Gus. And that’s been my favorite part.”
(It’s worth noting, by the way, that Garner eventually was cast as Woodrow F. Call in the 1995 miniseries sequel titled Streets of Laredo — which, unlike the 1993 sequel Return to Lonesome Dove starring Jon Voight as Call, actually was based on another Larry McMurtry novel.)
Of course, Lonesome Dove wasn’t Duvall’s first rodeo. Long before he set out on the great adventure with Jones as his traveling companion and Australian-born filmmaker Simon Wincer as his guide, he had already earned his spurs as a cowhand involved in an accidental murder and sought by an obsessed marshal (Burt Lancaster) in Lawman; a wild-eyed, short-fused, cross-dressing Jesse James opposite Cliff Robertson’s Cole Younger in The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid; and a smart-mouthed, quick-triggered outlaw who runs afoul of a certain “one-eyed fat man” in True Grit.
Just as important, Duvall had also appeared prominently in several other notable films and TV productions, including M*A*S*H, Network, Apocalypse Now, and Tender Mercies (for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor). Since Lonesome Dove, he has added other outstanding projects to his résumé, including Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Open Range (2003), Secondhand Lions (2003), Get Low (2009), 12 Mighty Orphans (2021), and, most recently, the 2022 Netflix movie The Pale Blue Eye.
But even after all these years, whenever Duvall is approached by a fan — or interviewed by a journalist — Lonesome Dove figures prominently, if not exclusively, in the conversation. Indeed, in 2021, when he invited late-night talk-show host Stephen Colbert to the Virginia home he shares with wife Luciana Pedraza to discuss his career, Duvall was asked about the role he continues to identify as his personal favorite.
“I walked into the wardrobe room one day on Lonesome Dove,” he told Colbert, “and said, ‘Boys, we’re making The Godfather of westerns. Because I was fortunate enough to be in The Godfather I and II. And I think Godfather and Lonesome Dove are two of the biggest things to come out in the last half of the 20th century.’”
Tens of millions of viewers tuned in to CBS to watch Lonesome Dove when it aired over four nights in February 1989 — at a time, Bill Wittliff marveled when I spoke with him in 2014, when “the only thing on TV deader than the miniseries was the western.” Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones rode tall as Gus and Call, two former Texas Rangers turned resilient cattle drivers (McMurtry’s characters were inspired by real-life ranchers Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight, and the story draws from many real-life episodes — including their ill-fated third trail drive).
And they were backed by a stellar ensemble that included Danny Glover as Joshua Deets, the guide who proved too good-hearted for his own good; the late Robert Urich as Jake Spoon, another former Texas Ranger, who inspired Gus and Call to drive cattle to Montana but then fell in with bad companions; Diane Lane as Lorena Wood, a young prostitute who was seduced by Jake’s smooth talk but drawn to the supportive Gus; Chris Cooper as July Johnson, the sheriff who set out to bring Jake to justice; Anjelica Huston as Clara Allen, the woman who never forgave Call for luring Gus away from her; and Rick Schroder as Newt, the son Call came to respect but never really acknowledged.
“Lonesome Dove has just gone on and on,” Duvall has said. “Wherever I go — from Alberta down to Texas, and even in big cities — people love Lonesome Dove. … And I know cowboys love Lonesome Dove. Whenever I go down to Texas, they want to talk to me about it.
“Let me tell you my favorite Texas story. My wife and I were driving from Austin to the Perini Ranch Steakhouse in Buffalo Gap. We’ve done it twice. And twice, she made the wrong turn. So now we’re going down the highway, headed toward Waco. And I tell her, ‘You’re going the wrong way.’ And she comes from a family of race car drivers in northern Argentina, so she’s going about 90 miles an hour. It looks like there’s nobody else around. And then, all of a sudden, here comes a state trooper. He pulls us over. And he starts to say, ‘Ma’am, do you know how fast … ’ And then he sees me, and he goes: ‘I don’t believe it! Lonesome Dove! Follow me!’
“So we follow him back to where we should have turned. He gets on the phone, calls his wife and kids, and they come out to meet us. We talk, we take pictures, this and that. And then he tells me, ‘OK, this is the way you should go.’ And before we left, I made a joke. I said, ‘If we cross that double line, you’re not going to give me a ticket, are you?’ And without losing a beat, his wife said, ‘Well, if he does, he won’t be allowed in my bed tonight.’”
Obviously, she, too, was a Lonesome Dove fan.