The day TV fiction met Taos reality
‘McCloud’ actor Dennis Weaver helped put Taos on the map. Sort of.
TV audiences were already familiar with actor Dennis Weaver going back to the 1950s, when he played the comic sidekick Chester to tough straightshooter Marshal Dillon (James Arness) on the longrunning TV western, “Gunsmoke.” But eventually, Weaver felt the need to branch out, and so when the opportunity came along to take on a series of his own, he jumped at the chance.
That show was “McCloud,” inspired by the Clint Eastwood 1968 hit feature “Coogan’s Bluff.” From 1970 to 1977, Weaver starred as Marshal Sam McCloud, a transplanted western lawman from Taos, N.M., meting out justice in New York City with homespun common sense and a .45 Colt revolver.
Little did it matter that McCloud’s accent was obviously Texan and his grasp of details about New Mexico rather basic. Still, as Weaver recalled in a media interview, “McCloud was the kind of role I left ‘Gunsmoke’ to get ... I wanted to be a leading man instead of a second banana.”
While the character’s premise had the right fish-out-of-water quality to attract viewers, he still needed a plausible backstory for audiences to sink their teeth into. That’s when Taos — a real place with its own colorful history and complex culture — became a nearly forgotten part of the story. But it was one that would have to be addressed at some point. The town was chosen, according to Weaver in a 1972 Taos News story, because it was “a colorful name and a historical location.”
By way of Taos Pueblo’s well-publicized battle to return Blue Lake to tribal ownership, along with Dennis
Hopper’s “Easy Rider” (1969) and a growing counter-culture movement making headlines because of the hippie communes that began to dot the sagebrush around Northern New Mexico, audiences were becoming more aware of McCloud’s hometown.
Eventually, Taos’ reality had to confront the TV series fiction.
In March, 1975, at the height of “McCloud’s” popularity, the Taos County Chamber of Commerce set about putting on “McCloud Week in Taos County,” a celebration of the character and the publicity he brought to the community.
As reported in the Taos News by Paul C. Merz, the character’s impact on tourism was significant. “We ride in the State Fair every year,” said Bernie Garcia of The Village Shop on Taos Plaza, “and the only thing people ever ask us is ‘Where’s McCloud?’”
Dorothy Archibald, proprietor of the Owl’s Nest shop shared a similar problem. “A lot of tourists come into our shop in the summertime,” she explained, “and they want us to to show them which house ‘McCloud’ lives in.”
The event was scheduled for June 10. Weaver, his wife and at least two of his sons were expected
to arrive in Albuquerque the day before and then travel to Taos. There, Merz reported, “a community-wide parade” was planned at 10:30 a.m. “featuring mounted local and state officials, and several presentations on the Taos Plaza bandstand.” Emcee was State Senator C.B. Trujillo.
The newspaper reported that Mayor Philip Cantu Jr. was expected to make Weaver and his family honorary citizens of Taos; and the presentation of “an honorary badge just to keep the marshal ‘legal’” was also in the works. Also, Don Davis, an area rancher, offered to donate the use of a $10,000 silver-studded saddle and horse for Weaver to use in the parade.
Afterward, a luncheon was arranged at a local restaurant “by invitation only” followed by “an afternoon tour of Taos Pueblo and other local places of interest.”
“It was a normal routine with another full house at the village home of my caw’s parents, Ben and Manuelita Marcus,” Taos Pueblo resident CornBringer Kathleen Michaels recalled in a Sunday (Feb. 19) email. “Caw and her younger sister Celestina were visiting with their children and teaching by example
the good village life. So, as always, we had to keep it down and we went downstairs (the ground level room) to get some space from the adults.”
Michaels said she was about 12 years old and “was with my younger sister Patricia and our energetic nephew David. They got into a kiddo fight and we went upstairs to tell on each other.
Suddenly, you hear someone say ‘Look! There’s McCloud!’ We all know who ‘McCloud’ was and we also knew he was Dennis Weaver.”
She said when he showed up, he was wearing his signature hat and western attire. “I was so happy to see him as much as being proud when he would mention Taos in his series,” she said. “He was called upon to come upstairs. He climbed the ladder to get up there. He smiled the whole time and shook our hands.”
His photographer asked to get a picture of them. “I wanted to be in the picture so I got on the ladder so I wouldn’t get lost behind everyone. It’s so funny to see that picture because I remember this so well. Then, Patricia came from the back and he took her right into his arms and sat down for another picture.”
Michaels said “We have been so fortunate to have met so many famous people while being home there. It’s a normal routine to be gracious and friendly to people coming daily from every corner of the world. But when McCloud came, it was like seeing an old friend.”
That evening, Weaver would be celebrated at a major “barbecue … in honor of McCloud, one of the greatest local folk heroes — fictional or not — since Kit Carson came down the pike,” the Taos News reported.
During the event, it was learned that Weaver was a vegetarian.
The locals didn’t want the Weavers to leave empty-handed. A “local moccasin-maker, a bronze-worker and a western artist have offered to donate some of their finest products as gifts to the long-lost ‘marshal’ and his family.”
This wasn’t Weaver’s first visit to Taos. On Sept. 27, 1972, the Taos News reported that Weaver attended a fundraiser for Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern at the Sagebrush Inn for whom he delivered an impassioned speech. “But at the dinner, he showed himself wary of too much ‘hot stuff,’” and unaware of what was a chile relleno, the paper stated.
In a sequel to the series, a 1989 TV movie titled “The Return of Sam McCloud” saw the aging former marshal working for the people of New Mexico as a U.S. senator. The film is notable for McCloud’s lengthy speech before Congress in support of environmental legislation to fight the destruction of earth’s ozone layer. This mirrored Weaver’s own environmental activism, part of which was evidenced by his purchase of Earthships in Taos and Ridgeway, Colo. (The Earthship is a method of construction developed by Taos builder Mike Reynolds using recycled materials.)
“Weaver was also concerned about poverty, and co-founded LIFE, Love Is Feeding Everyone, a program to feed poor people in Los Angeles,” the Taos News reported in 2006.
The last time Weaver came through Taos was as part of a 2003 caravan of hybrid-fueled cars that traveled from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. A rally took place on Taos Plaza where the cars were displayed.
Weaver died of complications from cancer at his Ridgeway, Colo. Earthship 17 years ago this Friday (Feb. 24).