May/June 2022 (Volume 14, Issue 3)
By Michael Swanger
Beloved character actor Barry Corbin, 81, remembers watching John Wayne in B westerns on the big screen during the mid-1940s when admission to his local movie theater in Lamessa, Texas — the small cotton-farming town where he was born and raised — was 7 cents. Wayne, Gary Cooper, George “Gabby” Hayes and horseman Ben Johnson made a lasting impression on him as a youngster.
Actor Barry Corbin will appear at the 2022 John Wayne Birthday Celebration in Winterset, May 27-28. It includes a Friday Night VIP event (May 27) and Saturday Night Benefit Dinner & Auction (May 28) and musical headliner Carin Mari. For tickets and a schedule of events, visit johnwaynebirthplace.museum.
“I’ve always been a fan of John Wayne’s work. He’s one of the icons of our business,” said Corbin, who returns to Winterset for this year’s John Wayne Birthday Celebration, May 27-28. The event also marks the debut of the John Wayne Birthplace Museum’s expansion that doubles the museum’s exhibition space and features new exhibits, galleries and memorabilia.
Corbin cites “Stagecoach,” “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon,” “The Quiet Man” and John Ford’s films with Wayne among his favorites featuring the Duke.
“What most appealed to me about him was his honesty,” he said. “Even when he played things like Genghis Khan or a German freighter captain, he always stayed true to himself.”
Honesty has defined Corbin’s work, too, since he began his career in the 1960s as a Shakespearean actor. He is revered for his supporting roles in more than 200 works onstage, on television and in the movies while acting naturally with his distinct Texas Southern Plains drawl. Some of his most memorable performances include those in “Urban Cowboy,” “Any Which Way You Can,” “WarGames” and “No Country for Old Men,” as well as “Dallas,” “Lonesome Dove,” “Northern Exposure,” and more recently, “Better Call Saul,” “9-1-1: Lone Star” and “Yellowstone.”
“Authenticity is a very important thing because if you try to fool the people you can fool them for a little while, but you can’t fool them forever,” said Corbin. “They’re gonna catch you at it.”
Corbin draws from his various life experiences when portraying roles such as cowboys, lawmen, generals and sage uncles. He worked on oil rigs and served for two years with the U.S. Marines between stints in college, and has won cutting-horse competitions. For decades, he has enjoyed riding horses in his spare time, a rare commodity when considering Corbin’s prolific body of work and busy work schedule. (When we spoke he was shooting another episode of “9-1-1: Lone Star.”) He earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his work on “Northern Exposure,” but he’s just as proud to have been inducted into the Texas Cowboy and Texas Film halls of fame.
“I’ll quote Winston Churchill, who Ronald Reagan also quoted … ‘There’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse,’” said Corbin. “If you’re dealin’ with horses you can’t get egotistical because they don’t care if anybody buys tickets to your shows, or if you’re famous. All they care about is if you’re feeding them and being kind to them. If you’ve got a horse as a friend you’ve got a friend for life.”
The actor holds the same reverence for westerns and legends of the Old West, having once said, “It’s important to us as Americans, just as Greek mythology is to the Greeks, Norse mythology to the Danish, Roman mythology to the Italians. It’s that important to keep it alive. If we don’t keep it alive we lose our national identity. We lose our self identification as Americans. If we lose our history we’ve lost everything.”
Corbin said he wishes Hollywood would make more westerns, noting the popularity of “Yellowstone” as the latest example of the genre’s enduring appeal. The Four Sixes Ranch, featured in “Yellowstone,” was recently sold to the show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan. Corbin said Sheridan plans to make some movies and a spin-off of “Yellowstone” there and he is hoping to be cast in one one of them.
“The greatest joy of working is the people. I learn something every day when I’m working,” Corbin said. “If you don’t learn something every day — even if you’re not working — you might just as well pull the grass over yourself and lay down because you gotta keep learning. You gotta stay curious.”
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