Seven Things to Know About Linda Cristal

1. Linda Cristal was born on February 23, 1931, in Rosario, Argentina, as Marta Victoria Moya Burges. In addition to her native language of Spanish, she became fluent in Italian, French, and English. She got her acting break in 1952 when she appeared as a school girl in the Mexican film When the Fog Lifts (Cuando Levanta la Niebla). It was then that she changed her name professionally to Linda Cristal.

2. She had made several Mexican films when she heard that United Artists wanted to cast a Latina female lead opposite Dana Andrews in Comanche (1956). She got the part and was billed in the opening credits as "And Miss Linda Cristal as Magarita."

3. Linda Cristal won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer in 1959 for her performance in the Tony Curtis-Janet Leigh comedy The Perfect Furlough. She plays a movie sex symbol--the Argentine Bombshell--who accompanies Tony's Army corporal on the "perfect furlough" to Paris.

4. Linda worked with John Ford in Two Rode Together and The Alamo (where he was the uncredited second unit director). She said in an interview: "It was such a wonderful thing to say that I worked under the direction of John Ford. If I never do anything else ever again, I'd die happy." In both films, she played the love interest of men much older than her: James Stewart (23 years her senior) in Two Rode Together and John Wayne (24 years older) in The Alamo.

Linda Cristal as Victoria Cannon.

5. Linda Cristal gained international recognition for her role as Victoria Cannon in the popular Western television series The High Chaparral, which aired on NBC from 1967 to 1971. In a 2015 interview, Cristal's High Chaparral co-star Henry Darrow told me: "The High Chaparral was the first time in a series that a Latino family was on an equal level with an Anglo family." For her performance as Victoria, Linda Cristal was nominated for two Prime Time Emmy Awards and won a Golden Globe in 1970 as Best Actress in a Drama Series.

6. After her 1966 divorce from actor-producer Yale Wexler, Linda Cristal dated celebrities such as Bobby Darin, Adam West, and Christopher George. One Hollywood gossip magazine even published an article about Linda coming between Bobby Darin and ex-wife Sandra Dee (whom fans hoped would reconcile).

Linda Cristal as Cleopatra.

7. Linda Cristal's autobiography A Life Unexpected: The Linda Cristal Story, co-written with her son Jordan Wexler, was published in 2019. Among her many acting credits in film and TV are two unusual ones: Legions of the Nile (1959) and Mr. Majestyk (1974). In the former, an Italian production also known as The Legions of Cleopatra, she plays the title role four years before Elizabeth Taylor. According to one source, 20th Century-Fox bought the rights to Cristal's film so as to limit its distribution in the U.S. prior to the release of Taylor's big-budgeted Cleopatra (1963). Mr. Majestyk, one of her last theatrical films, paired her with Charles Bronson as a migrant worker and union activist. It gave her an opportunity to show what she could do in an action picture. Today, Mr. Majestyk is recognized as one of Bronson's best-reviewed 1970s films.

Interview with Don Collier: "The High Chaparral" Star Talks About John Wayne and His Classic TV Westerns

One of the most recognizable TV cowboys of the 1960s, Don Collier carved out a highly-successful career playing ranch foremen, lawmen, and bad guys. In addition to starring in his own TV series Outlaws (1960-62), he guest starred on Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Virginian, Branded, Wagon Train, Death Valley Days, and Hondo. He achieved his greatest fame as Sam Butler, the foreman on The High Chaparral (1967-71). In addition to his many TV appearances, he also starred in big-screen Westerns such as The War Wagon (1967), 5 Card Stud (1968), and The Undefeated (1969). We talked with this fine storyteller recently at the Williamsburg Film Festival.

Café:  You've appeared in Westerns directed by two of the genre's most famous directors: John Ford and Howard Hawks.

Don Collier:  I was just an extra in Fort Apache and had no dialogue. I met John Ford, but didn't get a chance to know him. I did get to work with Victor McLaglen and what a treat that was. Victor was dear to my heart. I watched him as a kid in the 1930s and I still remember him in that movie where he grabs the machine gun (The Lost Patrol). I loved him in The Quiet Man, too.

Don Collier at the 2016
Williamsburg Film Festival.

Café:  How about working with Howard Hawks?

DC:  It was quick. I did one little scene with John Wayne in El Dorado. My part was shot in the Paramount studios, while John Wayne was in Tucson. Jimmy Caan climbed up on a ladder in the studio and delivered the Duke's lines to me. Duke filmed his lines down in Arizona. We were 500 miles apart. That was my experience with Howard Hawks.

Café:  What was it like working with John Wayne on The Undefeated, and The War Wagon?

Collier in The War Wagon.

DC:  It was great working with him. In The War Wagon, I worked the whole 13 weeks. In one scene, I get out of the war wagon with two of the stunt guys. Duke's character has an argument with us and he decks the two stunt guys. He slams the coach door in my face. Before we shot the scene, he says: "Don, do you want us to get a stunt guy to do your part?" I said: "Oh, hell no, go ahead and slam the door and I'll catch it with one arm." He said: "Are you sure about that? I don't want to hit you in the face." I was still calling him "Mr. Wayne" then and he tells me to call him Duke. I said: "Duke, you slam the door and I'll make it look like you knocked me out." So, we did the scene and he slams the door on me and I catch it with my arm. No big deal...but he remembered that. About two-and-a-half years later, we're filming The High Chaparral at Paramount studios and he was working on the sound stage next door. So, I went over to see him. He says: "Collier, good to see you. Are you going with us to Mexico on The Undefeated?" I said I hadn't even heard about it. He said: "Get your butt over to Fox and talk to Andy McLaglen. I'll call him and tell him you're coming over." I talked with Andy and he hired me for the job. See, Duke liked the fact I took that stagecoach door in the face. I'd like to think that the John Wayne "school of acting" consists of three things: (1) Be on time for your call. (2) Know your dialogue; and (3) Don't leave the camera, even if you're not in the shot. So many times, especially if you're working with younger actors, the director says "cut" and, boom, they scatter like quail. They've got to go make a phone call or leave for a date. Duke usually ends up directing a picture about halfway into it and he wants his actors on the set. He doesn't want to have to look around for them at the honey wagon or in their trailer. He wants them there around the camera. If you remember those three things, you could work with John Wayne. He'd like you. Working with him was almost like going to school and learning the finer points working in the film business.

Café:  What was the premise of your 1960-62 Western TV series Outlaws?

DC:  The stories were supposed to be from the outlaws' point of view. It was a good show. The second season, the producers brought in Slim Pickens and he made it a lot better. The first year has Barton MacLane. I remember when he was a lead heavy at Warner Bros. in the 1930s and 1940s. It was a pleasure just to meet the guy. He played the marshal and there were two deputies. Jock Gaynor was one of them. He couldn't do the job and they fired him. He wore his hat rolled up on one side, like Australians sometimes do. They hired another guy and he never worked out. So, the second year, they brought in Slim Pickens and Bruce Yarnell, who was about 6' 7". He was a singer NBC had hired, hoping to put him on a variety show. They had no place for him, so they gave him to us because we needed a deputy. I tell some stories about Bruce in my one-man show. We did Outlaws for two years. NBC "owed" producer Ralph Edwards (This Is Your Life) an hour of prime time. So, in 1963, he wanted NBC to show his TV series The Wide Country (about rodeo competitors). NBC only owned two series: Bonanza and Outlaws. Bonanza was pretty well rated, so NBC decided to cancel our show for the Ralph Edwards one. The Wide Country was bad. I think it lasted one year. After Outlaws, I did several other TV Westerns like Wagon Train, The Virginian, and Gunsmoke. I did The War Wagon and then I joined The High Chaparral in 1967.

Leif Erickson, Collier, and Cameron
Mitchell in The High Chaparral.

Café:  Speaking of The High Chaparral, when I interviewed Henry Darrow last year, he noted it was a challenge acting with Cameron Mitchell because he rarely knew his lines.

DC:  That is absolutely true. I never cared for Cam too much. He was good at what he did and he could improvise, but he was always trying to steal scenes from you. I never thought that was right. You don't tread on somebody else's feet. He was kind of a loud mouth and a slob. Of course, a lot of us were slobs. He accused me of wanting his part (Buck Cannon). Physically, I would have made a better brother to Leif Erickson than Cam did. But I was tickled to death with the part I had (ranch foreman Sam Butler). I didn't have too much dialogue and could spend more time in the bar. We had good times on that show.

Café:  I've read where it was a pretty hard shoot because of the Arizona temperatures.

DC:  There's a remedy for that heat. It happens every Friday and it's called payday. If the heat wasn't tolerable, you could quit. So, even if it was 120 degrees, we smiled and kept going.

Café:  The High Chaparral was a different Western in that it featured a multi-ethnic family.

Pernell Roberts and Collier on Bonanza.

DC:  It was one of the first shows that explored that thoroughly. We had a lot of fine Hispanic actors. The show did well dealing with the problems within the family and with the Indians. It was a good show and I can't think of another like it on TV at that time. Gunsmoke had its good points and bad points. Bonanza was ridiculous sometimes. I might be a little prejudiced, but I thought ours was the best ranch show.

Café:  How did you come to join the cast of The High Chaparral?

DC:  I had done Outlaws and several Bonanza episodes on NBC. I knew all the guys there. A lot of the crew from Outlaws went with Bonanza after we folded, including our production manager Kent McCray. So, when they got around to casting The High Chaparral, Kent suggested me for Sam Butler. They asked me if I wanted to do the part and I said: "You bet."

Café:  Other than The High Chaparral, what were some of your favorite roles?

DC:  The ones I did with John Wayne on The Undefeated and The War Wagon. That was the top of the heap right there. Once you climbed that mountain, you knew you were as high as you could go. He was a real icon in the business.

Café:  You starred with Robert Mitchum in a couple of movies like Five Card Stud. What was he like?

DC:  Robert Mitchum was a great actor. I have a lot of respect for that man. He was one of those guys who had a photographic memory. He could look at the script and then throw it away. He knew it. He seldom had to do two takes. He was kind of a loner. He'd socialize with his driver--they'd go out and drink. But he wouldn't join the groups.

Café:  Can you tell us about your one-man show?

DC:  The one-man show that Penny McQueen convinced me to do is a lot of these stories about all these shows and how I got into the picture business. I'm not going to tell you much about it--because you've got to come and see the show. It's a pretty good hour-and-a-half and audiences get a lot of laughs out of it. There's some serious stuff, too. It's a lot of fun doing it.

Café:  What are some of your upcoming appearances?

DC:  The High Chaparral reunion is March 17-20. I've got several more shows this years, which are listed on my website (doncollier.com).

Café:  Thanks so much for doing this interview.

DC:  It was a pleasure, Rick.

An Interview with Henry Darrow on The High Chaparral, Harry O, and Nosotros

Best remembered as the fun-loving Manolito on the classic Western TV series The High Chaparral, Henry Darrow has appeared in over 100 films and television series. He co-starred with David Janssen in the detective series Harry O, played Zorro's father in the 1990-93 Zorro TV series, and appeared as A Martinez's father in the daytime drama Santa Barbara (which earned him an Emmy). His other credits include guest star appearances in dozens of classic TV shows, such as Mission: Impossible, The Outer Limits, and Dallas. He has also worked with Ricardo Montalban and others to increase acting opportunities for young Latino actors and actresses. In 2012, he wrote his autobiography (with Jan Pippins) Henry Darrow: Lightning in a Bottle. I interviewed Mr. Darrow recently at the Western Film Fair and Nostalgia Convention in Winston-Salem, NC.

Café:  How did you come to be cast on The High Chaparral?

Harry Darrow at the Western Film Fair
and Nostalgia Convention.

Henry Darrow:  It was a big interview with David Dortort, who was executive producer of Bonanza back in the 1960s. He saw me in a play, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, written by Ray Bradbury. I played sort of a Romeo-esque kind of character, who had a love scene in a balcony with a girl. She kept saying: "Oh my gosh, your smile is so big." And then, it turns out that she had vision problems and she was actually referring to my many teeth. The audience included people from the network, the head casting director William Mayberry, and the producer, Buck Houghton. I talked with them about the part of Manolito and described how I saw him. I said I'd like to speak in Spanish and that I would learn Indian sign language. I said: "I'm ready to read for the part." And David Dortort replied: "You don't have to. You've got it. You talked us into it." By the way, in the lobby, waiting to go in was Linda Cristal (who played Victoria Cannon on The High Chaparral). They wanted to compare us side by side to see if we could play brother and sister. 

Café:  There's a great sense of family on The High Chaparral. The relationships between the Cannon and Montoya families seem very real. Was the cast as close off screen?

The High Chaparral cast.

HD:  We got along wonderfully. It was a good cast, particularly Leif Erickson as the head of the ranch. He helped me invest some money in a concern he was involved in and I made money from that. The guy that was most fun-loving was Cameron Mitchell as Uncle Buck. He was wonderful to be around. Sometimes, he didn't learn all his dialogue in a scene so he ad-libbed. That made him fun to work with because you had to listen and stay alert. Linda Cristal was just a pleasure to work with, as were Mark Slade, Don Collier, who played Sam--who was in charge of the bunkhouse--and his brother Joe, played by Robert Hoy. I also have great memories of all the different guests that appeared on the show: Gilbert Roland, Ricardo Montalban, Fernando Lamas, Bob Lansing, Jack Lord...one after the other. It was a real college degree learning process for me, working with actors and actresses that had been established for years.

Café:  Do you have a favorite episode?

HD:  "A Time to Laugh, a Time to Cry" with Donna Baccala*. We shot that episode in the 1960s and then, about 30 years later, I was doing a series in Spain about Zorro and she appeared as a guest star. We were able to use scenes from the old High Chaparral episode. It worked out beautifully.

Café:  I've heard that after The High Chaparral was cancelled, you performed a live act in Sweden. Can you tell us about that?

HD:  That was wonderful. I had talked with Michael Landon, who had gone over to Sweden with a stunt man and played a little bit of guitar and sang a few songs. I prepared a 30-minute show, singing songs and doing comedy stuff like shooting balloons with a gun and...drum roll...there'd be a pop! It was all comedic. One night, we had 15,000 people in the audience, an incredible turnout.

Darrow as Lieutenant Manny Quinlan
on Harry O.

Café:  You and David Janssen had a nice chemistry on the quirky detective TV series Harry O. Why did your character not appear in the second season?

HD:  I loved that show. They moved the show from San Diego to Malibu. My character was a detective in the San Diego police department, so he stayed in San Diego, and Harry moved up to Malibu and lived on a beach. Anthony Zerbe replaced me and that worked out well for him. He won an Emmy.

Café:  How did you get along with David Janssen?

HD:  Wonderfully. He had a marvelous, dry sense of humor. We pulled jokes on each other here and there. When I was being replaced, he waited for me when he finished shooting earlier in the afternoon. We had a few goodbye drinks at the hotel bar. I never saw him again, though.

Café:  What was it like being a Latino actor in Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s?

A painting of Darrow as Manolito
by artist JoAnn Peralta.

HD:  The High Chaparral was the first time in a series that a Latino family was on an equal level with an Anglo family, with the Cannons who owned Chaparral, and the Montoya household, which was in Mexico. That worked out well--and that was because of David Dortort, the producer of Bonzana, who added the Latino flavor to Chaparral. He brought in guest stars like Fernando Lamas, Ricardo Montalban, Alejandro Rey, and Alex Montoya. He included as many Hispanic actors as he could.

Café:  Were there challenges, though, to being a Latino actor at that time?

HD:  There were Westerns being made at the time. I had a lot of Mexican actor friends and they said I should pass myself off as a Mexican. I said: "Why?" They said: "Because there aren't too many New York Puerto Ricans doing Westerns!" I said OK. But then I did the Ray Bradbury play and got hired for The High Chaparral. It worked out beautifully for me.

Café:  You've done a lot to help other Latino actors in film and television. Can you describe your work with the Screen Actors Guild and other organizations?

HD:  There was an organization called Nosotros, which means "us" in Spanish. It was started in 1970 with Ricardo Montalban as president. I was the first vice president. We helped young Latino actors and actresses. At that time, there were only a few Latino casting people and agents. There was a guy called Carlos Alvarado. I lucked out when he hired me. His nephew was coming down the steps from his office and said: "You going to see my uncle? Because I have to go into the army. I think he'll hire you." Carlos did hire me, right then and there. There weren't too many problems that I can recall. There just weren't too many avenues for Latino actors at the time. A number of series happened over the next few years and it eventually worked out fine.

As Rafael on Santa Barbara.

Café:  You won an Emmy for playing Rafael Castillo, A Martinez's father in Santa Barbara. How did working on a daytime drama compare to prime time television?

HD:  It was much, much harder because you had to do an hour script every day and usually you'd have three scenes handed to you the night before. That left little time to rehearse with your fellow actors. I had worked with A Martinez before and he gave me a lot of his time and the producer was a fan of mine. It worked out well and I had a good time doing it. It was hard work, though.

Café:  You've written an autobiography, Henry Darrow: Lightning in a Bottle, with Jan Pippins. Do you have any upcoming projects you want to share with the Cafe's readers?

HD:  I've got a meeting with a young filmmaker next week. So, we will see where that goes.

Café:  Thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

HD: My pleasure.


You can learn more about Henry Darrow at his website: www.henrydarrowbook.com. You can follow him on Twitter @HenryDarrow1, Facebook, and Pinterest.

* In the season 3 episode "A Time to Laugh, a Time to Cry," Manolito's childhood sweetheart Mercedes Vega De Granada (Donna Baccala) steals his heart. He proposes marriage and she accepts--but their wedding plans go astray when she is kidnapped by Comancheros.

The High Chaparral: Still Riding High After All These Years

The cast of The High Chaparral.

By the mid-1960s, Western family sagas--spurred by the popularity of Bonanza--dominated the U.S. television landscape. In addition to the Cartwrights, there were the Barkleys (The Big Valley), the Lancers (Lancer), the Shermans (Laramie), the McCains (The Rifleman), and many others. Most of these families were headed by a single parent, usually a widowed father. An exception was The High Chaparral, which was created late in the cycle by David Dortort, a producer-writer who hit the jackpot with Bonanza in 1959. By 1967, Dortort had ceded the reins of Bonanza to his associates so he could focus on his new Western.

The pilot episode of The High Chaparral follows the journey of the Cannon  family en route to a new beginning in the Arizona Territory in the 1870s. The family includes: "Big John" Cannon (Leif Erickson); his wife Annalee (Joan Caufield); young adult son Billy Blue (Mark Slade); and John's brother Buck (Cameron Mitchell). Along with the usual perils of frontier travel, the Cannons discover that a Mexican landowner covets their new ranch and that the local Apaches are hostile. During an Apache raid, Annalee is killed and John's strained relationship with his son comes to a head.


John and Victoria looking formal.

With future Apache attacks a certainty, John reaches a truce with neighbor Don Sebastian Montoya and--to seal their deal--marries Don Sebastian's daughter Victoria (Linda Cristal). Victoria's rakish brother Manolito (Henry Darrow) joins his sister at the High Chaparral--Annalee's name for the Cannon ranch--and a new "family" is formed.
What sets The High Chaparral apart from other 1960s Westerns is its evolving family relationships. The Big John-Victoria relationship progresses from one of mutual respect to genuine love. Buck's relationship with Blue evolves from supportive uncle to de facto father at times (e.g., when Blue decides to leave the High Chaparral, it's Buck that goes after him and convinces him to return). Buck and Manolito--two kindred spirits when it comes to having a good time--act more like brothers than Buck and John.

"Brothers" Buck and Mano.

The concept of "blended families" in TV Westerns was nothing new in the 1960s. The brothers in Bonanza each had a different mother. Heath Barkley was the illegimate son of Victoria's husband in The Big Valley. The two brothers in Lancer are stepbrothers and one of them was half-Mexican. However, The High Chaparral went further than its predecessors by creating a blended family of different cultures. Hispanic characters such as Victoria, Manolito, and Don Sebastian simply don't play supporting roles; they are major characters that frequently drive the plot lines. Likewise, their cultural values and their passion for their native Mexico plays an important part in episodes such as "A Good Sound Profit" (about equipping an army to overthrow Mexican leader Benito Juarez).

The High Chaparral debuted in 1967 in the Sunday 10 P.M. timeslot, immediately following Bonanza on NBC. The next year, it moved to Fridays, where it remained for the rest of its four-year run. While The High Chapparal scored decent ratings, it never cracked the Nielsen Top 20 shows for a season. Western dramas had also begun to fade from the television landscape. Less than two years after High Chapparal's cancellation  in 1971, even Bonanza came to the end of its 14 seasons.

Over the last four decades, The High Chaparral has attracted a loyal following (click here to visit an in-depth web site created by its fans). Surprisingly, the series has never been released on DVD in the U.S., although the show's fans rave about a region-free DVD set produced in the Netherlands. And if you've never seen The High Chaparral and want to sample it, you can watch it currently on the INSP cable network.