Stanley Livingston on the Making of "How the West Was Won"

Stanley Livingston had already been in My Three Sons for a couple of years when an offer came along for a role in the epic How the West Was Won. “That was a treat for me, because I always wanted to be in a Western and I never got cast in one. All of my friends were getting cast on Laramie and Rawhide and Wagon Train and if you were a kid all you wanted to do was be a cowboy back then.”

Stanley Livingston recalls the filming of the epic 
Western  How the West Was Won.  (Courtesy of 

Stanley Livingston)

Stan, then 12, starred alongside George Peppard, Carolyn Jones, Debbie Reynolds, and Eli Wallach in the film’s last segment, directed by Henry Hathaway. “I think the first location we shot was Prescott, Arizona,” says Stan. “From there they drove us to what was the middle of nowhere to me. And it did look like a Wild West set, one of those huge panoramic views.”

How the West Was Won, released in 1963, was different from any other film because it was shot in Cinerama. “The camera they’d normally use can be set away from actors at what I would call a comfortable distance and still get a close-up, but that’s not the case with Cinerama. Those are pretty wide-angle lenses. To get those close-ups sometimes you’re maybe no more than two feet away from the camera, which is bizarre. It needed to be right in your face to get a close-up,” says Stan.

I asked Stan if there was a scene or moment in the making of How the West Was Won that stands out in his memory.

“It was working with the director, Henry Hathaway, that made the movie memorable for everybody,” says Stan. “Henry was a pistol to work for. Until How the West was Won, I had worked with quite a few directors—Jackie Cooper, Leo McCarey —some prominent directors—and some other ones were probably known as well within in the industry. But Henry Hathaway certainly had a pedigree of working in film and Westerns, and he was notorious in the industry. Most of the people I've worked with were just kind of normal directors. They’d talk to you and have normal discussions, but Henry Hathaway was a screamer. Not just to the actors, but at everybody.

“There was a scene we shot with George Peppard and the actor who played my younger brother.  It was right outside of town and looked like it was set up to be a mine. There was a hole in the ground and a derrick with smoke coming out. Eli Wallach and his gang rides up and they have a little confrontation and it he makes it known he’s not only threatening George Peppard but may come back to get his family. But in the process of shooting Henry Hathaway wanted some atmosphere, like wisps of smoke coming out of the hole in the ground, and they had a guy down there manufacturing the smoke. It’s a pot and he had to heat it up and pour oil in to make the smoke. Apparently he was not getting the right amount of smoke for the shoot, and Henry would scream, ‘More smoke! More smoke!’ So he kept pouring oil and Henry was getting madder and madder and his profanity was getting worse and worse.

“The next take Henry Hathaway called for the smoke and this guy must’ve taken the entire pot and with oil and dumped it; he just couldn't stand it. And all the sudden smoke just started coming out of there like nothing you’d ever seen in your life. We couldn't see anything. You couldn't see the camera. You knew the guy did it on purpose, to get even. Everybody stays quiet, and we heard this little voice: ’Ready when you are, Mr. Hathaway.’

“And soon as he said that Henry just fell down laughing. Eli Wallach nearly fell of his horse because they knew they had gotten him. And it’s what he asked for so you know there’s no way he could yell at him again. We couldn't shoot for about five minutes. It took that long for all of the smoke to clear away.”

Stan remembers Hathaway’s anger was directed at him, too.

“He was displeased. He was just screaming at me. That was a little disconcerting. We finally got the scene, and I did what he wanted. He was really happy and put his arm around me and said, “That was great. You did such a good job!” And he wanted to go to lunch with me! This guy wanted to rip my face off, and now he wants to go to lunch?” So I piled into his car and we drove back to Prescott to have lunch. The whole time in the car he was just the coolest guy. He turned into Santa Claus.”

While on their lunch break, Hathaway took Stan into a store and insisted on buying a display case full of rocks—even though it was not for sale. “It looked like it came out of a museum,” Stan recalls. “He paid 200 bucks for this display case—two feet by three feet—lugging it back to the car. He just turned into a changed person toward me. Sure enough, we go back to work and the first thing he starts screaming at me again: ‘you little son-of-a-bitch! Didn’t I tell you. . .?’”