Prescott, AZ. is home to the oldest rodeo in America. It is also home to Whiskey Row, a street of bars, saloons and restaurants where cowboys went to let off steam after riding Brahma Bulls and bucking broncos. And it was where film director made one of the best rodeo movies ever to hit the silver screen.
'Junior Bonner' starred Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino and Joe Don Baker. It was directed by Sam Peckinpah, who was known for making many violent films, including 'The Wild Bunch.'
I was living in Phoenix when 'Junior Bonner' was filmed in 1972. McQueen and I had met in Lake Elsinore, CA. where he was a regular poker player along with Desi Arnaz at the Sahara Dunes card room owned by my friend Nick Notos.
I still kick myself for not traveling to the mile-high city of Prescott to watch 'Junior Bonner' being made. It was filmed during rodeo week and many of the residents were hired as extras, including a husky young kid who worked on a ranch and who was paid to lift a pool table during a brawl staged at one of the bars on Whiskey Row.
If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Although the film didn't make much money at the box office, it was a touching coming of age story about Junior and his father Ace Bonner played effectively by Robert Preston, who is a fine actor and who showed it in this Peckinpah film.
Junior is a bull rider and Ace is an over the hill rodeo cowboy, estranged from his wife portrayed by Ida Lupino. Ace is a womanizer who drinks too much and that caused his marriage to break up. I almost thought I was reliving my own life when I saw the movie.
He has a special relationship with Junior. Both love rodeos and the western way of life and they hate the progress that is destroying their independent spirit. Call it the cowboy way.
One memorable scene still makes me smile. Ace and a cowboy pal are sitting on a porch sharing a bottle of whiskey when the friend asks Ace, 'How many rodeos do you reckon we been in?' and Ace, staring off into the horizon, says, 'One too many.'
The people of Prescott really liked the cast, especially McQueen who was down to earth and approachable. Peckinpah directed a scene where the actors get on a runaway horse that races through somebody's backyard and knocks down a clothesline full of freshly washed clothes.
I played poker against McQueen and Arnaz. They weren't great poker players, but they were good companions. Arnaz, from Havana, Cuba and the former husband of Lucille Ball, loved to sip on rum with a beer chaser, and McQueen was a smoker of the herb that eight states have legalized and three more are voting on in 2018 -- Vermont, New Jersey and Michigan.
A couple of years after 'Junior Bonner' was filmed, I drove to Prescott during the annual rodeo week. My friend Dave Molina and I hit a couple of bars on Whiskey Row before we came to one where a western band was playing.
The wooden sidewalk was packed wall-to-wall with people. Somehow we managed to squeeze inside where we ordered beers.
Two attractive Indian women were seated at the bar. One asked me to buy her a drink and, being the gentleman that I was, I complied. The other woman was upset.
'You bought her a drink, but you didn't buy me one,' she said, pouting. 'Aren't I as pretty as her? She's my sister and everybody in my family always said I was the prettiest one.'
Her sister didn't like that. They began arguing over which one of them was better looking. I tried to stop the argument by offering to buy the other sister a drink, but that didn't solve anything. Next thing I knew, the two women were rolling on the sawdust floor in a free-for-all fight, biting, scratching, clawing and pulling hair.
A couple of cowboys at the bar began taking bets on who would win the fight. I sipped my beer, pulled out a five dollar bill, and bet on the one in the red dress. I don't remember who won, but that is Whiskey Row and Prescott for you. A great town for cowboys, tourists and Indians.
Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.
(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).
