Closer Weekly

Hitting a New Peak at 72

THE HERO’S STAR OPENS UP ABOUT HIS ROAD TO FAME — AND WHY HE’S STILL AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME

-

Sam Elliott got choked up during a recent Q&A at NYC’s Quad Cinema. “It’s an interestin­g thing at 72, with this 49-year career and talking about The Hero,” he said, referring to his acclaimed new movie. “Every once in a while, I get one of these emotional waves that rolls over me. It’s the s---s to get old and emotional, but I love it. Be real — that’s my motto.”

This kind of surprising vulnerabil­ity has earned the grizzled character actor major Oscar buzz for The Hero. He stars as a burnt-out Western-movie icon who struggles to reconnect with his ex-wife (Katharine Ross, Sam’s real-life spouse) and estranged daughter (Krysten Ritter) after he’s diagnosed with cancer. “There are a lot of similariti­es — he’s a 72-yearold actor,” Sam tells Closer. “But he smokes dope all day and he’s divorced. I don’t smoke pot, and Katharine and I have been married for 33 years. But I understand this character.”

In fact, the part was written for him by director Brett Haley, who sparked a mini-comeback for Sam by casting him as Blythe Danner’s love interest in 2015’s I’ll See You in My Dreams. He followed it with sly turns on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie and The Ranch (starring Ashton Kutcher). “I wanted to show Sam off a bit,” Haley tells Closer. “He has more range than most people know.”

Growing up in Sacramento, Calif., Sam fell in love with movies — and especially Westerns — by watching Tom Mix serials. His father worked for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and doubted Sam could make it as an actor. “He died when he was 54, and I was 18,” Sam says. “So he never saw any of this work out.” Thankfully, Sam’s mother did: “She died a week short of 97,” he says. “My mom was my greatest mentor.”

Sam paid his dues in bit roles like “Card Player No. 2” in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring future wife Katharine. “I never spoke to her,” Sam recalls. But after his big break in 1976’s Lifeguard, Sam costarred with Katharine in 1978’s horror flick The Legacy. “Therein lies the legacy,” Sam quips. “I got the girl from Butch Cassidy.” They have a 32-yearold daughter, musician Cleo Cole Elliott. Says Sam, “We’re deeply in love with and still incredibly close to her.”

With his trademark bushy mustache and growling voice, Sam became a tough-guy staple in cult flicks like Road House, Tombstone and The Big Lebowski. “I wasn’t so good in any of them,” he says with typical self-deprecatio­n of the often-rerun films. “But you just can’t escape them. They keep showing up.”

As does Sam, who’s finally earning long-overdue recognitio­n. “I look at my career as a continuum,” he says. “It’s peaks and valleys, and I’m on one of the peaks right now. Maybe the highest peak of the journey.”

Yet if he had his druthers, Sam would happily be with Katharine at their rustic home outside Hollywood. “We stay out of town, and we don’t get in too deep. We don’t believe all the s--- in the rags, and we work hard,” he says. “Life’s good. We have horses and dogs and cats and chickens. We shovel s---, man. That keeps you humble.” — Bruce Fretts,

with reporting by Lexi Ciccone

“A lot of people call it a resurgence, but I don’t. It’s not like I disappeare­d.”

— Sam, to Closer

SAM I AM

 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States