Interview with Frank Thompson
AS: In the recent Alamo film, we could see you amongst the delegates of the Provisional Government. Most notably reacting to James Bowie walking in on Houston and Grant about to get into it. Tell us about your experience on the set and how long the process took.
FT: I worked on those scenes for the greater part of a week. It was miserably hot in those clothes — somebody in 1836 should have invented Bermuda shorts and t-shirts — but it was an amazing experience. I mentioned earlier the post card I’d like to send to six year-old me — well, imagine how much I’d like to tell that kid that he would someday be in an Alamo movie, even if it was just a cameo role. And of course, I was one of the eight Alamo guys gathered together by Ron Howard in 2002 to talk things over. That was a great, great day for me. Plus, the hotel gave us each a chocolate Alamo. I saved it in the freezer for a few months but eventually ate it.
AS: How long have you been a student of the Alamo?
FT: I’ve been interested in the Alamo almost as long as I’ve been interested in anything. While I was just a little young for the Crockett Craze of 1954-55, I certainly grew up among the flotsam and jetsam of the whole thing — Crockett comic books, records, t-shirts and so forth. When I was a child, there was no kind of toy I liked better than what I called “bags of men,” the bags of plastic figures of army men, cowboys and Indians, Foreign Legionnaires and so forth. For my sixth birthday, my brother gave me a bag of men and they turned out to be Alamo defenders and Mexican soldiers — the same ones used in the Marx “Official Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett at the Alamo” playset. The header card on the bag called it “Texas Frontier Fighters” but I knew they were Alamo figures and I was thrilled. Oddly enough, I never had the actual playset until much later — didn’t even know anybody who had one. My first Alamo playset was the Marx non-Disney set which came out roughly at the same time the John Wayne film did in 1960. It was basically the same as the Crockett sets except there was no Davy figure and the presidio “sombrero” Mexicans from the “Zorro” playset had been added to join forces with those great 54mm shako Mexicans. When I finally got one a couple of years later it was instantly and eternally the greatest toy I ever owned. By the way, I now own virtually every incarnation of the Marx Alamo set — I think I have about ten in all. And I also found a mint-in-bag “Texas Frontier Fights” a few years back. That was a thrill. Many of my fellow Alamo loons began their love affair through the movies. With me, it was through toys. By the way, cut to some thirty years later when I was asked by Classic Toy Soldiers to write the booklet that accompanied the their “Legend of the Alamo” playset. That was an amazing moment, to actually be a part of an Alamo playset. As I like to say, that was a post card I’d like to send to six year-old me. There are other such moments that we’ll talk about a little later.
AS : What are your first memories concerning the Alamo and when did you first visit the Shrine?
FT: When I was a child, our family vacations always consisted of road trips. We’d load up the car with a tent, a cooler of food (lots of Vienna sausages), and sleeping bags and we’d take off. When I was eleven, in 1963, I was given the choice of where we’d go. I didn’t have to think for a second — I wanted to go to the Alamo. That was quite a trek from Anderson, South Carolina, but my parents agreed. My father had attended the Southern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth and I think they thought it would be a good time to visit old friends in Texas. I also think that they wanted to encourage my interest in history. The day we arrived in San Antonio, we drove into a cloudburst — rain falling so hard we had to pull over to the side of the road and wait it out a couple of times. We didn’t get to the Alamo until late afternoon and it was already closed. But just as we pulled the car up to the curb — you could park right in front of the Shrine in those days — the rain stopped and the sun broke through the clouds. The Alamo glistened in the light, sparkling like a jewel. It was a magical introduction. The next day we got there early and I spent all day long going over it with a fine tooth comb. I peppered a poor lady at the information desk with questions. When my father came over to rescue her, she suggested that he take me down to Brackettville to see the Wayne set. She said that would give me a much better idea of what the fort used to look like. My father agreed and the next day we headed south. Walking around that set — still pretty much in ruins from the filming — was an astonishing event for me. It was like playing in the world’s largest playset. We went back in 1968; in fact, I celebrated my 16th birthday at Alamo Village, just days after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. My mother, my wife and I returned in 1986. Three trips is pretty good for an Alamo mom. Of course, I’ve been there dozens of times subsequently. I became very good friends with Happy Shahan and he eventually asked me to help him write his autobiography. Sadly, he died before we did much of anything on it. But I spent one remarkable day in a room behind the gift shop just listening to him tell stories abut his life. Periodically, his wife Virginia would stroll through and interrupt whatever he was saying with, “That’s a lie!”
AS: I remember receiving at the age of 10 a VHS version of Alamo Classics which you narrated. It included The Immortal Alamo (1911), the first Alamo movie ever made. What can you tell us about the set used and the actors who portrayed the Holy Trinity? Sad, how only still photographs is what is left of the film.
FT: William Clifford played Travis in that production but we have no idea who played Crockett and Bowie — if they were even depicted in the film. This is an incredibly convoluted story and rather than go into it here I’ll just suggest to people to read my “The Alamo: A Cultural History” which describes it in great detail. But in a nutshell, when editor Tony Malanowski and I did “Alamo Classics” we were under the mistaken impression that Francis Ford played Crockett. He didn’t. Several of the stills which were identified everywhere — even in the DRT Library at the Alamo — as being from “The Immortal Alamo” were actually from a film made two years later called “Siege and Fall of the Alamo.” But I didn’t sort this out until a couple of years later. That shot of Crockett posing by the palisade? That’s actually Ray Myer from the later film. As for the set, it seems to be a painted backdrop. The interior looks like it was shot in a real ruin but I can’t definitely say where it was. I have a strong suspicion that it was in the Veramendi Palace but it could also have been at Mission San Jose. The Star Film Company shot films at all the missions and one could easily have stood in for the Alamo. Yes, it’s a real shame that the film has gone. Nearly 90% of all films made before 1930 have been lost and each loss is a tragedy.
AS : Other than your works about the Alamo, what else have you done? I understand that you’re quite the comedic writer!
FT: I’ve worked steadily in television since moving to California in 1992. I’ve written on shows such as “Blind Date” and “The Bachelor” and most recently “Bandits vs. Smokies” in which I also provide voice-over work. That was great fun. Most of my 36 books have been on film history but possibly the most enduring book in my canon is “Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas.” It’s really never been out of print since 1993 and I still do “Nightmare” events every year. I always host a panel discussion at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. We have people who worked on the film talk about their experiences. I’ve done that eight years in a row now. I also have done about fifteen DVD commentary tracks on films such as “McLintock!”, “Hondo” and “Silverado.” In 2005 I curated a big museum exhibition called “Texas Movies” at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. Now I’m working on a similar exhibit on the history of filmmaking in my home state, South Carolina. It opens at the SC State Museum in Columbia in January 2008. If anybody is interested in finding out even more — and I can’t imagine why they would be — I invite you to visit my web site: http://www.frankthompson.tv.
AS: Anything else that you’d like to pursue in the near future?
FT: I’d like to do more napping.
AS: In the recent Alamo film, we could see you amongst the delegates of the Provisional Government. Most notably reacting to James Bowie walking in on Houston and Grant about to get into it. Tell us about your experience on the set and how long the process took.
FT: I worked on those scenes for the greater part of a week. It was miserably hot in those clothes — somebody in 1836 should have invented Bermuda shorts and t-shirts — but it was an amazing experience. I mentioned earlier the post card I’d like to send to six year-old me — well, imagine how much I’d like to tell that kid that he would someday be in an Alamo movie, even if it was just a cameo role. And of course, I was one of the eight Alamo guys gathered together by Ron Howard in 2002 to talk things over. That was a great, great day for me. Plus, the hotel gave us each a chocolate Alamo. I saved it in the freezer for a few months but eventually ate it.
AS: Other than the actual script, what other references did you have for the official novelization of The Alamo that you wrote? And how long did it take you to write?
FT: I actually took scenes from all the various scripts. And there are three or four chapters in the book which I came up with all by myself — all the Gonzales scenes, for example, and most of the Goliad stuff. I was given three and a half weeks to write it. For one of those weeks I was working in the movie. I’d be on the set for sometimes fourteen hours, drive an hour back to where I was staying and had to write 8000 words before I could go to sleep. I said 8000 words. Then I’d wake up at five AM and do it all again. I don’t remember as much of that week as I should.
AS: Do you have any upcoming Alamo projects?
FT: I would be surprised, nay, shocked if I ever wrote another word about the Alamo. I just gave two talks on the subject in San Antonio and if somebody else cuts me a check and buys me a plane ticket, I guess I’ll talk about it some more somewhere else. But after five books, dozens of articles, half a dozen video projects and endless yakking, I think I’ve said everything I have to say on the subject.
AS: And finally, in your opinion, what makes the Alamo so memorable?
FT: I think one thing that keeps the Alamo alive is that we know so very little about what actually happened there. There’s almost no aspect of the siege and battle that you could take into a court of law. It always amuses me that people get so angry fighting over things that no one knows the answer to, or ever will know. The Alamo is a great subject if you like asking questions. It’s a frustrating one if you demand solid answers, because by and large, there aren’t any. Say anything, anything at all about the Alamo and someone can come up with a divergent view or testimony that states the opposite. But because we know so little about it, we’re free to make of it what we will. And that’s why I find the popular culture about the Alamo as interesting — more interesting, actually — than studying the real battle. Because each generation has come up with its own point of view on the subject and that point of view tells us a great deal about those generations, even if it says little about the Alamo itself. And that meaning will continue to change as society changes. That’s neither good nor bad — it’s just the way the world works.
One last post card. In 2005, Fess Parker decided to donate a flintlock rifle to the Alamo; it was one that someone had given him during the Craze. The Alamo made a whole ceremony out of the donation. Tony Pasqua, Bill Chemerka and I were asked to sing “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.” So imagine this — we’re singing to Fess Parker in front of the Alamo. Pretty surreal. Afterwards, we all went to lunch at the Menger. As we were leaving, someone asked the four of us to pose for pictures. Somebody — Pasqua, I think — started singing “Farewell to the Mountains” and we all joined in — even Fess. So we went from singing to Fess, to singing with him. That kid playing with his bag of men in South Carolina in 1958 — what the heck would he have made of that?
A huge thanks to Frank Thompson for taking the time to do this interview with me! It’s certainly a wonderful read and am glad to have him as a member of Alamo Sentry!