Winner of the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Biography--Other Almost as famous for the legendary excesses of his personal life as for his films, Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984) cemented his reputation as one of the great American directors with movies such as The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Max Evans, one of Peckinpah's best friends, experienced the director's mercurial character and personal demons firsthand. In this enthralling memoir we follow Evans and Peckinpah through conversations in bars, family gatherings, binges on drugs and alcohol, struggles with film producers and executives, and Peckinpah's abusive behavior--sometimes directed at Evans himself. Evans's stories--most previously unpublished--provide a uniquely intimate look at Peckinpah, their famous friends (including Lee Marvin, Brian Keith, Joel McCrea, and James Coburn), and the business of Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Squatters & Others is a collection of 47 short stories which covers a whole range of completely different and varied subjects. There are tales involving an unexpected encounter with an alligator, evicting a ghost from a haunted house, how not to run a venture capital company, running a fleet of lorries, when not to play golf, fishing for conger eels and when not to turn your back on a florist. In fact, something for everybody.

In the world of Western films, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy have frequently been overlooked in favor of names like Roy Rogers and John Wayne. Yet these three actors played a crucial role in the changing environment of the post-World War II Western, and, in the process, made many excellent middle-budget films that are still a pleasure to watch. This account of these three Western stars' careers begins in 1946, when Scott and McCrea committed themselves to the Western roles they would play for nearly twenty years. Murphy, who also joined them in 1946, would continue his Western career for a few years after his cohorts rode into the film sunset. Arranged chronologically, and balanced among the three actors, the text concludes with Audie Murphy's last Western in 1967. Covering both the personal and professional lives of these three Hollywood cowboys, the book provides both their stories and the story of a Hollywood whose attitude toward the Western was in a time of transition and transformation. The text is complemented by 60 photographs and a filmography for each of the three.

Budd Boetticher was a bullfighter, a bull talker, a pleasant madman and a talented journeyman who could, with the right material and passion, make a minor Western film classic as easily as he could kill a bull. But of course, pain and passion mixed together naturally in both arenas. This is a film-by-film look at his cinematic career, from his days as an assistant's assistant on the set of Hal Roach comedies to his last documentary some 45 years later. This is the first book to examine each of his 34 films in detail, with interviews with those who worked with him providing extra spice and insight.

In this true Western classic Jack Schaefer tells the story of a mysterious stranger who finds himself in the Wyoming Territory joining local homesteaders in their fight to keep their land and avoid the intimidating tactics of cattle driver Luke Fletcher. While trying to leave his gunslinging days behind him, the mysterious stranger, Shane, is tested by Fletcher and his men. In Shane, Schaefer executes a perfect Western narrative while exploring the overarching themes of virtue, the human condition, and a man's search for self.

Almost as famous for the legendary excesses of his personal life as for his films, Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984) cemented his reputation as one of the great American directors with movies such as The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Max Evans, one of Peckinpah's best friends, experienced the director's mercurial character and personal demons firsthand. In this enthralling memoir we follow Evans and Peckinpah through conversations in bars, family gatherings, binges on drugs and alcohol, struggles with film producers and executives, and Peckinpah's abusive behavior--sometimes directed at Evans himself.

Evans's stories--most previously unpublished--provide a uniquely intimate look at Peckinpah, their famous friends (including Lee Marvin, Brian Keith, Joel McCrea, and James Coburn), and the business of Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s.