James Hamilton
Bill Paxton would be turning 70 any day now. May 17 is the birthdate. We lost that larger-than-life personality to a stroke at age 61 in 2017, complications from a surgical procedure amidst a bold and adventurous moviemaking career. Something to do with an overdue repair from a childhood bout with rheumatic fever. Or so Paxton had told us earlier that year while anticipating a venture that would bring a favorite novel, Joe R. Lansdale’s The Bottoms (2000), into development as a motion picture.
The loss proved devastating — and nowhere more so than in Paxton’s hometown, Fort Worth. The ache persists: The actor-producer-director had achieved greatness by taking the long way around, the dues-paying wildcatter route, in search of lasting prominence. He held fast to the maverick sector of the motion-picture industry.
All during our long-term friendship (beginning in 1985), Paxton presented himself as a scrappy wildcatter — his preferred term. The word symbolizes Texas’ bygone oil-boom days. As if defying a privileged upbringing, Paxton had claimed no entitlements; he worked diligently at developing showmanship credentials. When visiting from Hollywood, he sought no camouflage, frequenting familiar local haunts as a plain folks hometowner.
One night in 1996 at the Pennsylvania Pub, a South Side barroom landmark, guitarist Sumter Bruton and I were raising a racket with our jazz quintet, the Swingmasters Revue, when I felt a jab in the ribs. I turned to see our percussionist, Ozell “Larry” Reynolds, pointing with a drumstick toward the audience.
“Hey!” Larry hollered over the racket. “I just saw that guy from “Aliens” walk in here!” Larry recaptured the beat, and Bill Paxton took a seat nearby.
No surprise, there. Paxton, himself a working musician, had telephoned to say he’d be attending. We had some catching up to do, and what better place than one of Fort Worth’s livelier jazz-and-blues venues?
Before his movie career, Bill had frequented shows featuring Sumter Bruton’s earlier ensemble, the Juke Jumpers. And Bill and I had become occasional guest-artists on syndicated radio’s “Dr. Demento Show,” a music-and-comedy showcase. Bill seemed to relish that evening at the Pennsylvania Pub: “You can almost hear the beer bottles shattering out on the old Jacksboro Highway!” he said.
James Hamilton
Paxton with Matthew McConaughey and Powers Booth on the set of “Frailty. ”
The connective tissue among assignments, large and small, was Bill’s natural affinity for the more experimental voices. A sustained affiliation with the director James Cameron dated from Paxton’s days as a set dresser at the low-budget studio where Cameron was learning the ropes. When Cameron sought greater prominence with “The Terminator,” he sensed Paxton’s promise and cast him with mounting emphasis.
The leap was large, from modest roles in “Mortuary” and “The Terminator” (1983-1984) to lead-challenging appearances in “Weird Science” and “Aliens” (1985-1986). He would seek broader ranges from there: His directing debut on a harrowing psychodrama, “Frailty” (2001), was followed by a Disney-wholesome directing assignment on “The Greatest Game Ever Played” (2005). That nostalgic period-piece is underscored by Paxton’s childhood fondness for the golfing scene at Shady Oaks Country Club in Fort Worth.
An associate from schoolboy days, Tom Huckabee (1955-2022), remained a presence, as well. Huckabee curated the music for Paxton’s first job as producer, “Traveller” (1997), a tale of nomadic grifters. “Traveller” served to launch an art-film program that I developed for the Sundance Square theaters. And Bill and I had pondered in 1998 the chances of his participation in the first Fort Worth Film Festival. By 2007, that event had evolved into the more lasting Lone Star Film Society, with Huckabee as an interim artistic director.
James Hamilton
“The timing wasn’t right [in 1998] for me to take a hand,” Bill reflected in 2007. “I didn’t feel, at the time, that I’d merit such recognition. Maybe I still haven’t ... And the involvement of Tom Huckabee kind of makes it a given that I should pitch in now.”
Modesty. Humility. Playfulness. Combined with an actorly intensity, the qualities would define Bill Paxton as a lasting talent. He claimed various heroes among historic Hollywood figures, and he sought to honor them in projects of his own. In a nod to the silent-film humorist Buster Keaton, Paxton fashioned a New Wave rock video called “Martini Ranch: How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self-Culture?” (1988). Paxton’s admiration of Ben Johnson, the cowboy-turned-actor, paid off with a role in Johnson’s last picture, “The Evening Star” (1996), and again when Paxton landed the starring role in “Mighty Joe Young” (1998) — a revamp of Johnson’s first lead-actor movie. On our first interview of 1985, Paxton detoured from the official topic, his rambunctious role in John Hughes’ “Weird Science,” to call attention to a less prominent friend, Lewis Smith, and Smith’s simultaneous starring movie, “The Heavenly Kid.”
Paxton’s conversational voice is preserved in a session he and I shared in 2007. The occasion was his arrival in Fort Worth for a film-festival appearance. He began the visit like this:
James Hamilton
“Well, now, Fort Worth seems to be proud of me — and I’m certainly proud of Fort Worth. As good a reason as any for me to be renewing my involvement with the ol’ hometown.”
Paxton found the city essential to his involvement with an adaptation of Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The project, intended as an HBO miniseries, shrunk to a 90-minute feature, “Parkland” (2013), directed by screenwriter Peter Landesman with Paxton as a contributing producer. Paxton accepted the diminishment as a matter of economic realities. (Paxton’s preference for serialized storytelling stemmed from his success as the star player of “Big Love,” which covered 53 HBO episodes during 2006-2011.)
“Fort Worth is, after all, where the interest [in the Kennedy assassination] began for me,” Bill added. “Back when I was 8½ years old.”
Paxton recalled a family visit to the Hotel Texas at Eighth and Main in 1963 to witness a ceremonial appearance by President Kennedy, shortly before the assassination in Dallas. The memory has remained vivid — Bill Paxton, astride his father’s shoulders, within view of the presidential circle. But only in modern times did the actor find palpable evidence in news-camera footage from Nov. 22, 1963, showing Paxton among the crowd.
“That discovery marked a turning point for me,” said Paxton. “The story of Nov. 22, 1963, has always held a deep meaning for me, with my memories of having been there.”
And thus did Bill Paxton reinforce his native-son ties to Fort Worth.
“Y’know, when I left to pursue an acting career,” he explained, “I never thought about coming back. But the ties remain in place, and the timing seems right to acknowledge the cultural heritage … that Fort Worth represents — time to give something back. And if my movie-business identity can help, then I’m glad to have a hand in it.”
