Hopalong Cassidy cut-out Tombstone Arizona 2004 #1 Metal Print

"I've tried to make Hoppy a plain and simple man in manners and dress. Hoppy isn't a flashy character. He isn't illiterate. Nor is he smart-alecky. He doesn't use big words or bad words. After all, I felt that Hoppy might be looked up to and that children might try to pattern their lives after the man. If Hoppy said 'ain't' and 'reckon' and that-away', all the kids might start saying the same things." -William 'Hopalong Cassidy' Boyd, 1895-1972

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...