MYSTERY OF THE TEXAS TWOSTEP

CHAPTER SEVENTY:

THE premiere OF URBAN COWBOY

Written by Rick Archer 

THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1980

THE WORLD PREMIERE OF URBAN COWBOY

In the summer of 1979, the Houston news and gossip circles were dominated by the presence of one John Travolta, who lived in the city while filming Urban Cowboy in nearby Pasadena. This was only the fourth leading role for the 25-year-old actor, but he was already arguably the world's biggest movie star.

Once they discovered his address, teenage girls camped out in cars in front of the Memorial-area home Travolta was renting.  One clever girl found a way to break in.  She was soon evicted from his closet.  Following Travolta's wrestling match with Debra Winger in a muddy pothole outside of Gilley's, one enterprising fan extracted the muddy water, put it in bottles and sold them for $25.  That was bizarre enough.  Even more bizarre, people treated it like holy water.  1979 might have been the strangest summer Houston had ever seen.  But that was just the warm-up.

One year later, the city would learn what weird really was.  On June 5, 1980, Urban Cowboy celebrated its world premiere situated at a less-than auspicious Houston cineplex.  The story revolved around the up-and-down romance of Bud and Sissy, two 'Gilleyrats' who wrapped their lives around the club.  Their whirlwind marriage hit the rocks when they encountered the movie's third co-star, Wes, the villainous operator of the mechanical bull.  The movie concluded with a giant fight scene.

After the movie, Lynn Wyatt, Houston's leading international socialite, hosted a star-studded Charity Gala.  The party's location was Gilley's, the Pasadena nightclub that billed itself as the world's largest honky-tonk.  Taking note of the club's size, Ms. Wyatt opened the event to the public.  Watching the after-party in awe were 3,500 star-struck Houstonians who paid top dollar to rub elbows with the rich and famous.  One has to wonder if Closet Girl and Muddy Water Girl were in attendance.

Travolta and Debra Winger attended the after-party, as did their co-stars, a slew of Hollywood executives, an even larger slew of real-life Gilleyrats who had appeared as extras, plus a couple dozen celebrities near and dear to Lynn Wyatt's heart.  The scene was described as surreal.  Although Mick Jagger's Texas-born girlfriend Jerry Hall fit right in, no one could quite figure out what Andy Warhol was doing there.  Unfamiliar with Western attire, Mr. Warhol looked distinctly out of place.  Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg took Andy Warhol's picture while he sat on the mechanical bull taking a picture of her.  Jerry Hall asked Andy to dance, but he turned her down. 

Gilley's owner Mickey Gilley was interviewed.  When asked about the scene-stealing mechanical bull, Gilley said he was not a fan.

'I thought it was the biggest mistake anybody could ever make,' said Gilley, laughing. 'I figured people are going to get hurt on it, and sure enough, they did.  The next thing I know, we got this guy from New York coming down and he wrote this article called The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy.  I did not like the article.  I thought the guy was putting country music down.  However, Sherwood Cryer, my partner, said, 'Mickey, don't you dare say anything bad about the article.  We may get a film with John Travolta in it.'

When Cryer said 'John Travolta', I changed my mind.  'Wait a minute.  Travolta's coming off Saturday Night Fever.  They should call this movie Country Night Fever.''

The Urban Cowboy premiere was considered by many to be a giant insult to traditional Country sensibilities.  To be Country is to be modest.  To be Country is to show respect to one another.  This movie was supposed to pay tribute to the current Country lifestyle, but instead here were glamorous people parading around Gilley's as if they owned the place.  Which, in a way, I suppose they did.  Hollywood paid for the movie, so they were going to do things their way.  However, they rubbed true country people the wrong way.  The Gilleyrats concluded this was a Disco crowd attempting to disguise themselves by wearing gaudy Cowboy clothes.

Truthfully, no self-respecting Cowboy would dream of wearing these kind of outfits.  The backlash was swift.  People concluded this movie was made by Hollywood City Slickers who had deliberately shined an ugly light on Gilley's and the modern Western lifestyle in general.  Resentment and distrust of the Establishment had been growing for some time and now the dam broke.  The new Rebel Yell was 'Disco Sucks, I was Country before Country was Cool!'

City versus Country hostility had existed long before the movie, but the tension was not particularly serious.  The movie was correct in that many country folk had moved to Pasadena and Houston in search of jobs.  The movie was also correct that displaced Country folk preferred to stick to their roots and boots.  Cowboys avoided the Discos like the plague while most Houstonians did not know Western dancing existed.  Since neither the Urbans nor the Cowboys had the slightest desire to visit the other's stronghold, both groups were perfectly content to leave things the way they were.  Pre-Urban Cowboy, everybody stayed in their corner and left each other alone.  Now, thanks to the movie, a million people in Houston who knew nothing about Country Dancing were encouraged to give it a try.  And so they did. 

Furthermore, thanks to the movie, all the Houston Discos had been closed, disappointing countless Disco dancers.  Did the Kicker Crowd show sympathy?  Hell no!  Good riddance!  Now the Disco dancers had an axe of their own to grind.  If Disco dancers wished to keep dancing, they had nowhere else to go but invade the Western Citadels.  Urban Cowboy had been hailed as the harmonious blending of two cultures.  Oh really?  Instead just the opposite happened.  Fueled by ample bitterness on both sides, the ensuing uproar caused by the movie made for an unusual battleground:  Houston's country-western dance floors. 

And so the Collision of Two Worlds began, the strangest civil war of all time.

JUNE 1980

SO WHAT DID THE CRITICS THINK?

The long-awaited premiere for Urban Cowboy took place in Houston on June 5, 1980.  The movie was released to the general public in Houston theaters the following day.  Alas, I was still in the hospital, so for the time being all I could do was read about it.  My favorite review was written by Michael Ennis of Texas Monthly.  Here is his summary of the celestial event. 

Hail to the Conqueror Worm!
 
Michael Ennis, Texas Monthly, August 1980

The real star of this movie was not John Travolta, but rather the mechanical bull and a tequila worm.   The plot was essentially Beach Blanket Bingo in a western setting with the mechanical bull replacing surfboards.  Boy meets girl, boy wins girl, boy blows it with girl, boy takes up with other girl (a reprehensible bitch), girl takes up with other guy (a reprehensible bully), but they still love each other, so boy predictably retakes girl in the end by thrashing the bully.  They live Happily Ever After, etc, etc, etc.

The most moving scene in the movie comes when the reprehensible bully eats the worm out of the mescal bottle.  All the out of towners in the theater really oohed and aahed over this stunt, which I predict will be the big cult item to come out of Urban Cowboy.

When the lights came on again at the premier, people stood around in states that seemed to range from physiological shock to psychological devastation.

It was like a party someone hosts to show off what a fabulous job the new interior decorator has done.  The appalled guests know they can't dare speak the truth but that they also cannot conceivably force themselves to compliment the pretentious fiasco either.  After a while, some outspoken types begin to violate the uneasy silence. 

'Is it just me, or was the movie really that bad?'  At that point, others timidly venture similar unflattering comments.

A shrewd and knowledgeable Hollywood columnist said the movie was mediocre, predicted it would make money, and said that Western Chic would be dead in a year... which is one year more than I am giving it.'    

One film critic used Urban Cowboy as an interesting example of of a movie where a media person had to choose between integrity or continuing to stoke the publicity machine. 

Michael Sragow was a well-known movie critic who worked for several newspapers and magazines.  I cannot be sure, but I believe Sragow was working for the Baltimore Sun when Clay Felker asked him (hired him?) to write a review for Urban Cowboy.  20 years later, Sragow had something interesting to say about his assignment.

Love-hate flashbacks from a real-life film critic
 
 -- Written by Michael Sragow
     Baltimore Sun Movie Critic, July 2001

'Film reviewers must be resolute to remain independent voices as opposed to industry hacks.

The stronger and more straightforward I became in expressing my likes and dislikes, the more positive reaction I got from readers -- even those on my own paper's staff.

For example, the misbegotten movie known as Urban Cowboy had started life as a cover story in Clay Felker's Esquire.

As editor in chief, Clay Felker obviously had enormous say in commissioning that story and featuring it so prominently.

The picture was designed to be John Travolta's big comeback after the artistic and commercial failure of Moment By Moment.

Urban Cowboy was due to have its premiere a short while after Clay Felker became one of the editors of my paper's 'Style and Entertainment' section.

Suddenly, we were running articles on everything from a night at a Texas cowboy bar to suburban cowboy fashions, as well as a lengthy interview with the director.

When I began my review of that flaccid movie, I called it a test case for moviegoers' freedom from advertising -- and from the kind of feature writing that might as well be advertising.

The next day, Felker squared his shoulders, approached my desk, and told me he appreciated writing with a point of view.'
...............
 

This is a very curious article.  Given the few details surrounding it, I cannot be sure of accuracy.  That said, here is my guess.  First, it looks like Clay Felker no longer worked for Esquire and had accepted a job at the Baltimore Sun.  Second, Felker continued his ceaseless promotion of Urban Cowboy at his new job.  Third, Michael Sragow had the guts to stand up to Felker and report that the movie was, in his opinion, 'flaccid'.
 

John Spong, author of the excellent 'Urban Cowboy at 35' article in Texas Monthly, had this to say about the reviews.

'The reviews were actually decidedly mixed.  Newsweek said Travolta "doesn't make a false move" and called Winger's performance "startlingly inventive".

The New York Times called the film "the most entertaining, most perceptive commercial American movie of the year to date."

The Washington Post, on the other hand, blistered it as "sheer synthetic fantasy" and called director Bridges "incorrigibly prosaic."

The most insightful review was itself mixed. After praising the film's fidelity to detail, Canada's Globe and Mail blasted its happy ending as cynically commercial. "You're not going to have a hit, start a fashion trend, and cover the country with sound track albums if the movie is a downer.  Gotta have a happy ending."

The Canucks were dead-on.  In the year following the film's release, Texas Chic swept the country.  The Western-wear industry experienced a 30 percent sales increase.  Profits doubled at Tony Lama Boots, which prompted the company to build two new manufacturing plants.

With the sound track leading the way - it would top the country albums chart and peak at number three on the pop chart - country artists overall enjoyed unprecedented mainstream success.  In 1982 Kenny Rogers, who had a single on the sound track, would sign the largest recording contract in history for a reported $20 million. 

But fads don't last for a reason, and from its beginning the country movement carried an air of self-parody.'
.................

Apparently Lynn Wyatt's premiere party at Gilley's that night was something else.  Here is an interesting anecdote about the evening written by George Kovacik. 

'My favorite thing about the movie premiere was the party at Gilley's.  Just about everyone who was anyone at the time was there (I was a lowly member of the press).

The "Urban Gilley's Beer Can Cowboy Band"  was playing full blast.  Me and some of the reporters were stuck off pretty much by ourselves in a remote corner.  We were swilling free Gilley's Beer when this guy came up to us.  He said, 'Hey, guys, you don't have to move, but hang out here and help us keep the girls away.'

Wha?  I looked at my pals.  They didn't have a clue either.  Just then all of a sudden a side door opens and some big dudes in cowboy hats usher in Travolta.  There he was decked out just like in the movie.  He looked real pale and real scared, and the cowboy hat seemed to be wearing him instead of the other way around.  He gave us a couple of limp-fish handshakes and said he was pretty nervous about going onstage in front of this huge crowd.

"Don't worry, man," I told him, "they're all drunk."

Later on, I ran into Andy Warhol in the men's room. I kinda wanted to talk about the Velvet Underground, but Andy had to rush back to his dates - the tall Texas model Jerry Hall and her sister Cindy who were in the movie.

Well, that pretty much started what you already know: everybody wore cowboy hats for the next few years, they played Mickey Gilley and Johnny Lee music on the radio and those damn mechanical bulls popped up everywhere.'  -- George Kovacik
.................

Be that as it may, Travolta's stardom saved the day.  I will leave it to Johnny Lee, singer of the hit record 'Looking for Love', to tell it like it is. 

Johnny Lee had toiled in relative obscurity his whole life.  After his discharge from the Navy, Lee played cover tunes in Texas nightclubs and bars throughout the late 1960s.  Johnny Lee worked 10 years in Mickey Gilley's  shadow, both on tour and at Gilley's.  He was a popular singer in Pasadena, but that is where his fame stopped. 

Local songwriters had penned the song Looking for Love, but so far it had failed to drum up interest.  The song had been turned down by 20 singers prior to offering it to Johnny Lee.  Lee thought it was a pretty good song, but he never bothered trying to record it.  Instead he incorporated the song into his act at Gilley's.  One night Irving Azoff, film producer of Urban Cowboy, gave Lee the shot to record the song.  Looking for Love became a huge hit and propelled Johnny Lee to the limelight.  Over time, the song would come to be considered a benchmark for the music shift to a new direction.

Here is what Johnny Lee had to say.   

"When Urban Cowboy came along, my thoughts were, 'If this song is a success, this is really going to slingshot my career.  And if it isn't, it's going to shoot me backwards and knock down everything I'd been working for.'  I didn't know which way it was going to go, but I thought it was a pretty big deal having John Travolta.  I'm still grateful Travolta put on that cowboy hat and made that movie."

Johnny Lee was not the only person to credit John Travolta for the success of the movie.  Based on the success of Saturday Night Fever, once John Travolta committed to Urban Cowboy, it didn't take much to convince people to jump on the bandwagon.  Hyped by Clay Felker as the 'Sequel' to the box office Disco monster, Urban Cowboy became the safest investment anyone could imagine.  Sure enough, Urban Cowboy sold a lot of soundtrack albums and fancy Western outfits. 

Nevertheless, there was something very weird about this movie.  The Hoopla came AFTER the debut of Saturday Night Fever.  In the case of Urban Cowboy, the Hoopla came BEFORE the movie.  Or maybe that was just here in Houston.  I assume the presence of Travolta living in Houston combined with the Marketing Magic of Clay Felker was responsible. 

It is a good thing Felker worked as hard as he did because the movie turned out to be 'Anti-Climactic' as they say in show biz.  Oddly enough, Felker was not at the Premiere.  I wonder why not.  Did he know something the rest of us didn't?  After screaming 'Sequel' from the rooftops, perhaps Clay Felker feared a lynching once the rip-off was revealed.

After all the sensational build-up, I can honestly say I have ever been more disappointed in a movie.  The love story was lame, the chemistry between Travolta and Deborah Winger was full of mud, and the dancing was atrocious.  However, there was one good thing that came out of this movie.  Country music improved dramatically.  Or least I think so.