NATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THE WEST
Scottsdale, Arizona
March 17 & 18, 2001
Bob Adler, a western fan, and his wife attended The National Festival Of The West, which Alex was a part of. The above is a picture he took of Alex this last March and what follows is a short narration of the event. Thank you, Bob, for sharing your experiences with fellow fans of Alex!
My wife and I attended a similar event last year that was held at Rawhide in Scottsdale, AZ. They had about five celebrities on hand that sat behind a table and told stories of their theatrical history and also answered quesitons. The big thrill for my wife was that Dale Robertson was one of the guests. My wife had a crush on Dale Robertson when she was a teenager or so. I took pictures of him then we bought one of his tapes. I bought it mostly as a souvenir for my wife, but was very surprised to find that Dale Robertson has a great voice and sang some really good songs.
Also in attendance last year was Dale Evans, who just passed away a few weeks ago. We didn't get to see her, however, as she didn't hang around like the others did.
This year, the event was called the National Festival of the West. It was presented by Ford Trucks and was held at the newly-opened Westworld which is also in Scottsdale, AZ. It was held on both Saturday and Sunday, the 17th and 18th of March. Now we didn't know who would be there or if this event was going to be anything like the previous year's event.
There were about five large tents that each held maybe thirty booths that sold western clothes, and also crafts that mostly had a western flavor. Some of the tents had stages with continuous western performers. Now this is not country-western like the music of today, but rather cowboy type music of the type performed by Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.
They also had a few outdoor stages that also featured western performers. In addition, there was a sort of horse arena where horse riding contests were taking place. Of course, they also had a food shed and other food tents in the arena.
As luck would have it, my wife and I came upon the tent with the celebrities last in our tour of the grounds. (There were no more programs available.) As we entered we saw a large crowd listening to what they called the Celebrity Q&A. Of course we had already missed half of it. There were seven "celebrities" behind the table. The only one we recognized immediately was Dale Roberton from the year before. (By the way, while Alex Cord was talking, Dale Robertson actually fell asleep for about two minutes.) I then recognized Martin Kove who played the part of Isbecky on the Cagney & Lacey Show. I didn't know his name though. Some of the others looked familiar, but I couldn't put a name to any of them.
After their talk was over they went to their table where they were selling memorabilia. Mostly pictures from the show or movies that they appeared in. As we were standing in front of one of the tables, my wife said that one of them was Bruce Boxleitner. With that, he said, "That's me," as he was standing over her shoulder. Now I didn't recognize him at all. Mostly because he was wearing glasses and a cowboy hat. I've been watching him in The Scarecrow and Mrs. King on late night cable TV for months now. Later when I look at the picture that I sent you, he took his glasses off and in the picture I can recognize him.
We then found out who the rest were. They were Alex Cord, who I didn't recognize maybe because he wasn't wearing his eye patch from Airwolf. We spoke to him a bit and I told him how I liked Airwolf and even remembered the girl on the show's name, Caitlin. There was also a fellow whose last name was Taylor and he was the son of another Taylor and I recognized them both from the old westerns but didn't know their names. Oh, the father wasn't there, I guess he has passed away, but the son is also an artist and had painted a picture of he and his father. He was also selling his paintings at a booth. Then there was Mary Alan Kay who was also recognizable from the old westerns and Peter Brown who was in several westerns including Laredo.
I usually shoot pictures of everything at these events but in recent years I've been cutting down and so while I had my 35 mm camera with me (without the flash gun) I didn't take any pictures right off. Then later, my wife asked me to take pictures of these celebrities and I had to resort to my little digital camera that has a built in flash. By that time, the only three left were Alex Cord, Bruce Boxleitner and Dale Robertson. I had pictures of Robertson from the previous year so I just shot Bruce and Alex.
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