A Career In Movies Matched Oceanside Retiree Up With John Wayne, Elvis
Speaker 1: 00:00 In a retirement home. In Ocean side. There's a man with a story straight out of a movie KPBS report or Matt Hoffman tells us about a former actors, Hollywood history. So come here and welcome to my cottage here. 87 year old ed Faulkner is taking us inside his room at Brookdale Oceanside. He sits down and pulls out a photo album full of candidates from old movies. This is from a current stock where I hit punched and go down in the mud slide. Speaker 2: 00:27 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:30 Faulkner has appeared in many Hollywood films, including John Wayne's 1963. Mcclintock this was a fight sequence from McClintock pat. We, so we are, and of course he beats me up. I never wanted to fight. Yeah, it was always a bad guy. Speaker 2: 00:49 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:53 Faulkner grew up riding horses in Kentucky, which he says gave him an edge for Westerns. That's how I got it started with, you know, they were doing a lot of western series and uh, you had an advantage if you wrote a horse. She's telling the truth, Mister the clinic, we wasn't doing nothing. Well, that's not important right now. They called John Wayne Duke and Faulkner was in six of Duke's movies. Yeah. Speaker 2: 01:16 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 01:20 even played a leading role in Wayne's 1968 Vietnam war movie. They were going to cast it themselves and it was called the green berets. So I saw Julie Christus out, how am I gonna work this? I'd done one movie with me. So, uh, it sounds Corny, but I wrote a letter and I said something like a deer. Duke like yourself. I want to say that's as long enough. How about a change your hats? Maybe baret Speaker 2: 01:50 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 01:55 Faulkner says over the years he and Wayne became friends. I played literally hundreds of games of chess with him. And as I tell people, I occasionally let him win. Wayne even cast Faulkner and his family and the 1969 western, the undefeated is there, came up bases. How are these your girls as his, yeah, he says a luster. Luster. Bayliss was, was wardrobe. He loved, it was great. He was wardrobe. He says, bottom in wardrobe that came out, you know, just, and it was a period piece and that's how they got to, oh, are you per chance in the warm Mr. Thomas? Yes. Captain I was, Faulkner also shared the screen with the king of Rock, so I turned to go loose. He was in to Elvis movies, including tickle me in 1965. Shop it or I'll drop your sister, Mr. He was really nice. Speaker 2: 02:49 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 02:52 I enjoyed him. He's a good guy. Before he was on the silver screen, Faulkner was acting in TV shows in TV. When I got started, it was, uh, in, uh, 61 years ago, which would make it 19, uh, uh, 58. When I started, the daily rate was $80 a day. Faulkner was in dozens of movies and hundreds of television episodes, but he says they weren't all classics Speaker 2: 03:19 maybe versus unlike monsters Speaker 1: 03:21 was the weirdest one. I think it was. The script was no crash. It was a past career too. It was terrible. Speaker 2: 03:27 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 03:34 Faulkner says, looking back on his career, I've just been blessed in my life. Faulkner now lives in a retirement home in ocean side so he can be closer to his youngest daughter, Leslie, at the senior center. He enjoys sharing movies with friends. Whatever, three, four months, I'll pull out one of my movies and, uh, we'll advertise it, you know, and I'll go down and I'll tell him this, this movie was made 52 years ago. I was 35. Oh, we made it. They say, is that you? Yeah. After the 1970s, Faulkner's scaled back his acting. I've done what I wanted to do. I'd made some nice buddy. He hopes when people see movies he's been in, they have a good time. Oh, I hope they have fun. Enjoy the movies. We have a good time making the film. Matt Hoffman, K PBS news. Speaker 2: 04:22 [inaudible].
