All pictures are Thumbnails. Click on the Photos to see a larger version of the photos.

On the first weekend in July, Kerstin (that’s me, LOL), Debra, Boots and Karen attended the First Annual Tombstone Western Film Festiva1. Many westerns have been filmed in Tombstone including two of Bruce’s movies, "I Married Wyatt Earp" and "Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone”. We took a longer route than we needed to because the map wasn’t very good and the roads aren’t marked well but we made it there in time for the reception. It was being held at the OK Corral, which was kind of neat. Like a lot of historical places, it’s a lot smaller than we thought it would be.

Shootout in the streets of Tombstone – with local actors.

Bruce was already there and as usual, he was one of the most popular attractions and a lot of people wanted to talk to him and have their pictures taken with him.!

Me and Bruce at the OK Barrel Reception (and he had to keep talking, that’s why his mouth is open)

Marty Kove (Karate Kid) and I at the reception.

After the reception, we walked over to the school gym where the dinner was going to be held and stood in line for quite a while. Since this was the first annual Tombstone Film Festival they had some logistical problems but everyone seemed to be having a great time anyway. While we were eating, we were entertained by Belinda Gail, a really good country western singer who has a gorgeous voice, a female duet and a couple of other singers. The room was jammed to the rafters so we weren’t sure if we would be able to spot Bruce, but his hat gave him away! He was sitting at a table up front near the stage. The ribs they served for dinner were wonderful and probably tasted even better since we were all so hungry! After dinner, they started the awards show and all the celebrities received an honorary Tombstone citizen award and Marshall pin. When Bruce came up to get his award, he talked a bit about how he felt to receive it. I think he was really touched to be honored with some other veteran western actors like Hugh O’Brian and Harry Carey Jr.

Afterwards Kerstin walked around and took some pictures when Marty Kove approached her and asked if she could take some pictures with him and some other stars. And since she had just a few more shots left on her camera she asked if he wanted to be photographed with someone else. He had his 11 year old son Jesse with him and said "Oh yes, let take a picture with Jesse and Hugh O’Brian" and if those come out I would love a copy." "Can you get those developed by tomorrow". Kerstin said yes she could and took the pictures.

Marty hugged Kerstin three times because he loved this picture of Hugh O’Brian, Jesse and himself so much. She gave him the negatives also and he was so happy that he let her pic a photo at his autograph table without charge and signed it "To Kerstin – Thanks for the great photos, Marty Sensei Kove"

After Dinner we made our way back because we had to drive to Sierra Vista (except for Boots). July is monsoon season in this part of Arizona and you never know what the weather will do. We were expecting really hot, humid weather but it was pleasant and the lightning we saw on our drive back was fantastic. In fact, Saturday was so cool we wished we had brought sweaters..

The next morning Debra and Karen met Boots at 9:30am for breakfast and then headed over to the school gym where the autograph session was to be held. We had missed the morning panel with Bruce on it, but fortunately, Kerstin was there so she filled us in.

He talked in this panel about how Hollywood likes to blame the genre "Western" if there is a bad Western movie our there and that unfortunately the young Producers seem to be only interested in projects that make money (and he did not blame them for thinking that way) he said, that’s just the way it is, but that Hollywood should try and make the stories interesting for the young generation, and that we needed a good, interesting script for a western and then it would be successful. Before the autograph session we did a little shopping and bought the official Tombstone t-shirt (that he was wearing at Shore Leave ;-) and a Wyatt Earp poster so we could get Bruce’s autograph on it. Karen walked over to look at some videos to see if they might have a copy of Bruce’s "Red River". Bruce was standing right there so Karen introduced
herself and shook his hand. He seemed to recognize her and she told him that we had missed him at the NSS conference. He started to explain why he wasn’t there but then got interrupted. This happened a lot over the weekend since someone was always coming up to him to talk or ask for a photo with him.

At the autograph session, Bruce did not have anyone to assigned to help him so Karen volunteered. He had brought quite a selection of photos with him from Scarecrow to Babylon 5 and also had a special Wyatt Earp photo made for this event. It was done in two-tone so that it looked like the kind of photos that were taken in the late 1800’s. He has also brought a few of his books and they sold out right away.

Bruce and Kerstin – she had to get this picture taken, since he had his mouth open in the other one. He joked when she came around the table and said "Who’s this behind my back?"

After the signing session was over, we went to the Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone panel that was being held at the hall where Debra and Karen needed to pick up their packets. We hung out in the lobby waiting for the panel to start and Bruce came in and got some popcorn and then came over to stand by us for a minute. When the panel started, we moved up near the front and got our seats. The panel consisted of Hugh O’Brian, Rob Word (the producer), Bruce and Marty Kove. Marty and Bruce seem to have a similar relationship that Bruce and Jerry do at science fiction cons. They laughed and teased each each other quite a bit. For those of you who don’t know who Marty Kove is, he was in the "Through the Gap" video with Bruce and also was in Wyatt Earp with him (and he played the mean instructor in Karate Kid. They have been friends for a long time and seemed to enjoy hanging out together most of the weekend. Hugh O’Brian did most of the talking on this panel since he was the star of the movie but Bruce also told a cute story about when he was a kid and how he used to draw against Hugh O’Brian in his living room… but that Hugh was always faster. He also emphasized that the morality on today’s shows is sadly lacking, and that the important thing that westerns taught him when he was little was "RIGHT FROM WRONG"… and that he would love to see TV put more importance on these kinds of values again.

After the panel, we went over to the Crystal Palace and we sat and talked and had a couple of drinks.

Boots, Debra, Karen and Kerstin at the Crystal Palace waiting for our drinks to arrive

Later, Bruce walked by and stuck his head in but kept walking. He was with Marty and his 11 year old son and I think they were doing some shopping. We were starting to get pretty hungry, so went back over to the Longhorn for some dinner. It was really crowded so we put our name in and stood outside and watched the rain. It really poured all afternoon but it was neat that it wasn’t hot at all. We were actually getting cold!

Karen, Boots and Debra waiting for our table outside the Longhorn

After dinner, there wasn’t a lot to do, so we decided to go to the Bird Cage Review. It was a western movie musical review and I enjoyed it for the most part but it ran over so we were all getting a little restless at the end. I’m glad we went though because we got to see Bruce ride. At one point we saw Bruce and Marty get up and leave. We found out later that they were getting their horses ready for a ride. When we went outside, we saw Bruce, Marty and his son and some others on horses! It was too dark so I didn’t get any good photos but we could make out Bruce and Marty. Bruce rode by us and he had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Karen had wanted to see Bruce on a horse since she met him and I finally got her chance J We figured they would be busy riding and since Kerstin and Karen both had to drive we decided against going to one of the saloons for a drink and got on our way back to Sierra Vista.

The next morning we met for breakfast again. Yes, we did a lot of eating that weekend! Since we didn’t have anything we wanted to be at until 1pm, we decided to do a little shopping and bought some souveniers and had fun walking up and down the main street of Tombstone. The sidewallks are all wood so you really feel like you are in an old western town.

When we got to the panel it had already started. It was really interesting because the topic was the influence of the western genre on culture. In addition to the celebrities, they had a couple of professors from the local university as well as a couple of journalists. I found this panel to be the most interesting. A couple of the older gentlemen were bemoaning the fact that they don’t make westerns like they used to and that we need to get back to that. Bruce spoke up and said that he had to disagree and that the reality in Hollywood is that audiences are more sophisticated and you have to tell it more realistically. But he did agree that the morality of the older westerns was sorely missing. He got some agreement from the other panelists.

After the panel, Bruce had another autograph session and again we helped him again and this time Kerstin got to collect the money for him, and we had a chance to talk to him since this session was a lot slower than on Saturday.

Kerstin collecting the money for the photos in the small white box infront of her. He just gave an autograph to this lady from Finland!

He mentioned that his new book is on hold and he told us about when he first came to Tombstone to do the research for his first book that he was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap and no one recognized him! Karen also asked him if it was harder to ride and shoot at the Festival last April because he was riding someone else’s horse and he said not at all because she was a really gentle horse and that it was pretty easy. We asked him about Melissa running for SAG president and he confirmed that she was. He chatted with us in between autographs and when it was about time to stop, he got called over to go have his photo taken with some of the other celebrities. When he came back, we packed his stuff up and then asked to have our photo taken with him and he graciously posed for all four cameras! We walked out with him and he told us that he had to go to the Tombstone Walk of Fame event and that he would see us there. The event was being held at the local park a couple of blocks away.

By the time we got to the park, there was already a big crowd. We got ourselves positioned to get the best photos we could and ended up with good positions by the time Bruce did his cement block. Some people left after Hugh and Harry Carey Jr. did theirs. When Bruce’s turn finally came he wrote his name but it didn’t look very good so they made him do it over. Everyone was teasing him about having to do another "take". He was laughing and said that his name was longer than anyone else’s and he wished his name was Jones or something like that. So they smoothed it out and he tried again. Still looked bad so they made him do it a third time!

Third Take !!

By this time everyone was really teasing him but to be fair, his cement block was the most wet so before he did the third try, they soaked up some of the water with paper towels and that seemed to help. Also Bruce suggested that he do it at an angle this time so it would look better and it did.

Yeah.... he did it!!!!

The third time was a charm and then it was Marty’s turn. He did his pretty quick and then the event was over. We looked around for Bruce but didn’t see him so he must have split right after he did his block. We all decided that we were starving and if we didn’t get something to eat they’d have four women fainting in the park so we walked back over to our spot, the Longhorn and had a nice dinner and just relaxed and recharged our batteries.

The event was officially over but we were hoping to see Bruce one more time before we all left to say good bye and thank him for spending time with us. We walked up the street towards Big Nose Kate’s to see if he might be in there and when we got to the door we were told it was a private party and we were kinda bummed. Just as we were walking away, Bruce came strolling up and said, "Ah, there’s my Tombstone Posse" and then passed us to go into the party. Karen turned around and said, "Bruce, we are leaving" and he came back and gave each of us a big hug and Boots got a kiss on the cheek too. He thanked us again and as he was walking away he turned around and said "We had a great time, didn’t we?" with a huge grin on his face. It seemed that he had as much fun as we did and he was like a kid in a candy store getting to play with his cowboy buddies all weekend.

Bruce and his Tombstone Posse, as he called us !

And here are some of my personal autographs from Bruce:

I had taken this picture on the horse in Scottsdale and had Given Bruce copies of it in Encino. That’s why he signed it “Thanks!”