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Miscellaneous Questions that cover
a wide range of topics. |
Beau L'Amour:
What is Beau’s favorite LL story?
I have always had a soft spot for Fallon and Reilly’s Luck. It’s tough to say, however, because I work with them so closely … it’s sad to say I really can’t read dad's work for fun any more. It’s always business, business, business.
What is Beau’s Favorite LL Movie?
That’s really hard because I’m super critical. Certainly not any of the L’Amour films I’ve worked on! That was always a mixture of pain and pleasure too difficult to figure out. The pain was that no matter what I did I couldn’t make them better, the pleasure was that the work was sometimes pretty fun. Given the eras when they were made there are things I really liked about Catlow and Hondo … shooting 3D on film, that takes big brass ‘you-know-whats’! (It’s vastly easier these days on digital video) The Director of Hondo was John Farrow, an Australian, a novelist, biographer and poet and the father of Mia Farrow.
Will there be a movie made from Last of the Breed?
I seriously doubt it. It was purchased outright back in the 1980s by TriStar. Miramax bought the rights from them around 2000. Now, with Miramax pretty much defunct it seems to have fallen between the cracks … what that means is that I have had executives from both Miramax and The Weinstein Company (the brothers who used to own Miramax) call and ask me if I knew what had happened to it! It’s lost, dead and buried, I fear.
What happened to the town of Shalako?
Take a look at the Frequently Asked Questions section of louislamour.com. Basically, LL was not involved financially, thank god … and they could never raise the money.
Do I have all the LL publications?
There are check lists on the louislamour.com website. Everything we can get is for sale there … if it isn’t there, we don’t know how to get it for you.
What were Louis L’Amour’s pen names?
Louis wrote mostly under his own name. But there was a time when “Louis L’Amour” was considered too fruity and French to sell westerns. When forced to, Dad would use the name Jim Mayo but occasionally he was required to write under various “house” names. House names were used by the publishers to try to convince the public that there was more consistency in their writing pool than it seemed, or to make it appear that an entire series was written by a single person when actually it was several. A complete list of these would be difficult to create mostly because we now have all of Louis’s stories published under his name. If you are concerned with finding all the L’Amour stories, buy the Random House/Bantam editions … all the stories are there.
Can there be multiple titles for the same short story?
In the Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour series I have tried to sort out all the multiple title issues, choosing just one title for each story and publishing each story just once. When pulp magazines republished short stories that had already been in other magazines, they often changed the title. I’m sure they were trying to fool the public into thinking the story had never been published before … and most of the time the readers of that particular magazine had not seen it anyway, not unless someone was buying every magazine in the country. Just to confuse things, sometimes the second publication actually had Louis’s original title … magazines changed titles all the time and sometimes the first company made a change and the second did not. It’s a bit bewildering. Anyway, I’ve done my best to make this mess consistent, if not totally original, in the Collected Short Stories series.
What are the Ward McQueen and Kim Sartain stories
Can I use LL’s Library?
No. It is in a private residence. It is not available for use nor is it as good as a halfway decent college library. It was wonderful for Dad because it was all close at hand and he LOVED to read but while it is a massive personal library it is not exceptional in today’s world … nor is it cataloged.
Where did LL get the name Sackett?
He took the name from Sackett’s Well in the southern Mojave desert. At the time he knew nothing of the real Sackett family or families. He based the characters of the Sackett brothers on a pair of cowboys he met in Puerto de Luna, NM in the 1920s.
How did LL pick the locations of his stories?
LL based the locations of many of his stories around places where he had worked as a young man. Often that was grazing land or areas of mining claims. Then, as now, that was often government land.
What were LL’s favorites of his own stories?
He always claimed it was the one he was working on at the moment … and I think he sort of forgot them after they were published. He was always looking to the future. In truth, I’d say his favorite was actually the next one!
Are there LL travel guides or vacations?
No but there are maps to many story locations on the website.
Who was Passin’ Through?
Mr. Passin’ was his own independent character, exclusive to that one story. However, fans are intelligent to ask, their instincts are surely working. The first several pages of Passin’ Through, when they were first created, years before the novel was finished, were written as a Tell Sackett novel. Then LL decided against using it in the Sackett series and just wrote it as a one-off.
How long until you, Beau, write your own material?
Soon. I still have some other work to clear up. Uhh, “soon” means years … but foreseeable years … in the future.
Who was The Fastest Gun in Hollywood?
I always heard it was Dean Martin … for a movie star. However, we had a family friend, Rodd Redwing, who was a Chickasaw Indian. He could draw from the blink of a light to firing the gun in 2/10s of a second. He would tell you to clap your hands the second you saw him move and would often have two or three shots off before you got your hands together. More important, he could actually hit what he was shooting at. At the range of 50 feet or so he’d shoot a .22 rifle with the sights filed off, putting a bullet through a quarter sized hole in a swinging piece of glass and then through the hole of a lifesaver! From the 1930s to the 1970s he was an actor and stunt man and taught his various skills to most of the actors that have appeared in movie Westerns.
Where do I find the Louis L’Amour Theater Radio Dramas?
All are available on our website. They are the Louis L’Amour Audio Dramas. You can buy CD’s or our very special high resolution audio downloads.
What were the titles of the Louis L’Amour movies?
Here is the list
Will there ever be a Chick Bowdrie or Kilkenny movie?
Kilkenny was made in 1956 as Blackjack Ketchum, Desperado. McNelly Knows a Ranger was made as an episode of Desilu TV Series The Texan in ‘59 and was intended to be a spin off series about Chick Bowdrie. The spin never spun. That means that both of those characters have been sold. They are no longer ours.
How did your Dad teach you how to swim?
He didn’t. Dad couldn’t swim and was sort of nervous around water. Later in his life we had a bigger house that had a pool … I remember him sort of glaring at it as he would walk by, silently telling it to stay put and leave him alone. My mother was a competitive diver, however and she insisted we kids learn well!
What would it take to get Louis L’Amour books into schools?
Parents asking for them! We try to promote them all we can but that is only so effective. Schools are very responsive to their constituents!
Was Louis’s memoir his only non-fiction?
Nope. Check out this link
What sort of beer did LL drink?
He didn’t have a favorite beer because he rarely drank. Booze and writing do not get along, on top of that Dad had lived in many dangerous places over the years, he never felt comfortable without 100% of his faculties.
Do you, Beau, do writing, editing and consulting for people other than your family?
I used to but not anymore. I’m trying to wrap up all the Louis L’Amour work I can so I can do some different things.
Where can I find inexpensive Books and E-books?
E-books are a pretty good deal if you can afford a reader, occasionally the different e-sellers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iTunes) offer good prices and groups like Book Bub specialize in free or very cheap e-books. E-book prices are set by the companies mentioned above.
For actual books, not e-books, louislamour.com offers every L’Amour title for $499.00, this deal is a great value. Paul is very good at working out how to get customers books on a schedule that allows the customer to afford the books they want.
Who works at Louis L’Amour Enterprises?
I handle all the artsy stuff and my mother manages the money. Paul runs louislamour.com and does the technical side of some of our audio production and digital art production. I have an archivist who keeps me from losing stories and files and such. My sister occasionally helps with stuff. That’s it. No call center in India, no buzzing automated warehouse. If you call louislamour.com and Paul is recording sound effects with me he’ll take the call on his cell phone from the wilds of Colorado or Washington.
What’s up with the Leatherette Collection, I want to get back in the loop?
The Leatherette Collection of all Louis’s books has been in existence for over 25 years. It was never intended to last that long. The original intent was to create a robust book that could be had for a reasonable price. A book that would last for many years and through many readings.
In the publishing business the greatest amount of money is lost because publishers don’t know how many books to print or to keep in inventory. Because the Collection used a subscription model, where you were signed up to get a book or two every month, they always knew exactly how many to print and ship. This significantly lowered costs and the savings were split with the customer.
The collection has gone through the hands of several companies over the years. It has no connection whatsoever with louislamour.com or the L’Amour family other than we might talk on the phone once a year with the owners. They pay Random House and Random House pays us, so the connection isn’t even as close as our primary publisher.
We get a lot of calls from people who want to restart their collection or get certain books. All we can do is pass along the following contact information.
At the moment the new guys who run the Collection are struggling to get it restarted. It is an uphill battle. They are still in business. They are trying very hard.
Thanks!
