Leif Erickson and Cameron Mitchell The High Chaparral Old Tucson Arizona 1969 #1 Acrylic Print

Leif Erickson (as Big John Cannon) and Cameron Mitchell (as Buck Cannon) are fending off an Apache attack on The High Chaparral Ranch.

Erickson was married to the troubled Francis Farmer from 1936 to 1942. He got divorced and remarried the same day.

Howard Hawks said Frances was the most gifted actress he ever directed.

Erickson appeared in "Trouble Along the Way" (1953) with John Wayne. He had a small role the next year in "On the Waterfront."

Mitchell's first film was the John Ford WW2 masterpiece "They Were Expendable" (1945) which starred Duke and Robert Montgomery.

@2012 David Lee Guss Film homage, JW, Leif Erickson and Cameron Mitchell, The High Chaparral, Old Tucson, AZ, 1969-2008

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...