I ran across this Youtube video made in 1992. It tells the story of how John Wayne made his Alamo movie. Has interviews with a number of extras and stunt people, and also Ken Curtis. I found it pretty interesting.

I found this again not too long ago. I remember watching it on VHS in the early 90s when my old man bought the boxed set.

The John Wayne version of The Alamo paid for one of my cousins getting married. The longhorn cattle that were used the stampede scene where they drove the longhorns into the Alamo belonged to my Uncle and Godfather, J.G."Jack" Phillips, Jr. While filming the stampede, one of Uncle Jack's show steers tripped and snapped off one of it's horns. My uncle asked John Wayne, the producers and the director "what good is a Longhorn steer without it's horns"? They responded by breaking out the checkbook and writing my uncle a
The John Wayne version of The Alamo paid for one of my cousins getting married. The longhorn cattle that were used the stampede scene where they drove the longhorns into the Alamo belonged to my Uncle and Godfather, J.G."Jack" Phillips, Jr. While filming the stampede, one of Uncle Jack's show steers tripped and snapped off one of it's horns. My uncle asked John Wayne (the director and head of Batjac Production) "what good is a Longhorn steer without it's horns"? He responded by breaking out the checkbook and writing my uncle a check for $25K. After that, they butchered the steer and barbecued him on the set. My uncle asked them to save the head with the broken horn and he had it mounted and gave it to his eldest daughter and son-in-law as a gag wedding present. They mounted it over their fireplace where it stayed for almost 15 years, until they remodeled their house and suddenly it made it's way to their basement.

I know, cool story bro, but it's true

JABQ04 said:

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Any chance that was the steer they were cooking up in the movie? After the cattle is brought in there's a scene where they're cooking/carving it up and then Santa Ana arrives

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Yep, that was it (or so I was always told growing up). As a kid, I used to get upset that they didn't list "Uncle Jack's cattle" in the credits.

30wedge, about half of the longhorn were provided by my uncle, Jack Phillips (On one of the closeups of the longhorns, you can see my uncle's JP(connected) brand on the hip of one of the longhorns). I'm not sure who provided the rest; they could have been provided by Bill Daniel (brother of Governor Price Daniel). My Uncle did do some business with Gov. Daniels.

John Wayne contributed $1.5 million of his own money to finance the project. Wasn't huge at the box office.

One of the best things about the movie - Linda Crystal

Yeah. accuracy wise it was pretty bad but man I sure loved that movie growing up. Heck i still watch it once a year or so, along with other Alamo movies, around the time of the siege. It sure is a fun one to watch.

I'm replying to several of the posts in this thread.

30wedge, Believe that some of my cousins are still raising longhorn cattle. I can think of a couple of reasons why the name J.G."Jack" Phillips, Jr. might be familiar to you. There are 7 major bloodlines of Texas Longhorn cattle. One of them is the Phillips bloodline. The other 6 major bloodlines are the Butler, the Marks, the Peeler, the Wichita Mountains wildlife refuge (WR), the Wright, and the Yates bloodlines. Outside the Fort Worth Stockyards, there is a larger than life-sized sculpture of 7 longhorns. Each longhorn in the sculpture has a different brand on it which represent the 7 major bloodlines. The other reason my uncle's name might be familiar to you is if you are from Brazoria County. The rodeo arena at the fairgrounds in Angleton is named after my uncle.

tmaggies, as far as I know, there is no familial connection to Captain Jack Phillips of Titanic fame; although my uncle Jack was an Honorary admiral in the Texas Navy.

OldArmy71, Thank you for starting this thread. Cap Yates and my Uncle were partners for a while. Some of the cattle that Cap Yates provided might have been Phillips cattle because he kept some of my Uncle's cattle on his ranch, and my uncle kept some Yates' cattle on his ranch. That made cross-breeding the bloodlines a little easier. From what I remember from family members telling the story over the years, Wayne wanted to have all the 7 major bloodlines of Longhorns in the movie

Although Uncle Jack went to tu for one year, he turned down their request to donate any of his longhorns to serve as bevo several times because he didn't like the fact that bevo was heavily drugged up.

I apologize for all the posts regarding my uncle. I didn't mean to hijack the thread.
Editing to reply to the post immediately after this one.
tmaggies, as far as I know, we are not related to Capt. Jackson "Jack" Phillips, but he sounds like someone I should check to see if we are related.

Aggie12B said:

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I'm replying to several of the posts in this thread.

30wedge, Believe that some of my cousins are still raising longhorn cattle. I can think of a couple of reasons why the name J.G."Jack" Phillips, Jr. might be familiar to you. There are 7 major bloodlines of Texas Longhorn cattle. One of them is the Phillips bloodline. The other 6 major bloodlines are the Butler, the Marks, the Peeler, the Wichita Mountains wildlife refuge (WR), the Wright, and the Yates bloodlines. Outside the Fort Worth Stockyards, there is a larger than life-sized sculpture of 7 longhorns. Each longhorn in the sculpture has a different brand on it which represent the 7 major bloodlines. The other reason my uncle's name might be familiar to you is if you are from Brazoria County. The rodeo arena at the fairgrounds in Angleton is named after my uncle.

tmaggies, as far as I know, there is no familial connection to Captain Jack Phillips of Titanic fame; although my uncle Jack was an Honorary admiral in the Texas Navy.

OldArmy71, Thank you for starting this thread. Cap Yates and my Uncle were partners for a while. Some of the cattle that Cap Yates provided might have been Phillips cattle because he kept some of my Uncle's cattle on his ranch, and my uncle kept some Yates' cattle on his ranch. That made cross-breeding the bloodlines a little easier. From what I remember from family members telling the story over the years, Wayne wanted to have all the 7 major bloodlines of Longhorns in the movie

Although Uncle Jack went to tu for one year, he turned down their request to donate any of his longhorns to serve as bevo several times because he didn't like the fact that bevo was heavily drugged up.

I apologize for all the posts regarding my uncle. I didn't mean to hijack the thread.
Editing to reply to the post immediately after this one.
tmaggies, as far as I know, we are not related to Capt. Jackson "Jack" Phillips, but he sounds like someone I should check to see if we are related.

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No need to apologize I don't think, I find threads ebb and flow and this is interesting to me. When I first posted about Bill Daniel, I went to look to see if my memory of him having provided longhorns for the movie was correct. I always felt that the truth since there would be no other reason for him to have gotten a bit part in the film, lol. But obviously your uncle did as well. Last night I was looking into this and apparently two others "loaned" longhorns according to some clips I found, though nothing like the numbers Daniel and your uncle provided. I am from Liberty County, though have spent a lot of time in Brazoria County. Not a cattle guy myself, though I do like Whataburgers! But have been around them all my life, have worked cattle, branded them, and many clients own them.

And thanks to OldArmy71 for getting this thread started and to you for the story about your uncle. Very cool.

It was fun to be there and watching some of it being filmed. I lived on Fort Clark Guest Ranch where the cast lived.

OldArmy71 said:

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Tell us more! What do you remember?

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Unfortunate, not a lot. I was 9 years old at the time and because my mother was a manager at the ranch at the time, I had to stay in the background. I did get to shot pool with Frankie Avalon and hear a concert he performed there. Went to the Alamo Village after the battle scene and went to pick up part of the wall that exploded and was surprise how little it weight. It was just painted cardboard or something like that. Did get a autograph personalize picture from John Wayne, but got lost in our military move to Ohio.

Did get to be a extra in the movie Two Rode Together, but didn't get used. Just got to dress out in costume and eat on the set and have school there.

I have a side note related to this thread. An oil painting of The Alamo was used as the back drop to the credits for the movie. A sophomore in my outfit when I was a fish named Rick Graham contacted John Wayne by letter about bringing that painting to A&M for a showing. Rick received correspondence from John Wayne's son and he and Rick worked out a good deal for A&M. The painting was not just sent to be shown on campus, but was given to A&M by John Wayne. It hung near the front entry of the library for my remaining years at A&M. I've wondered what happened to that painting during all the reconstruction etc. of the library. It was a significant gift to A&M from a well known personality celebrating the history of the Alamo and the film John Wayne created. I wonder if any of the Old Guys remember seeing the painting or if any of current students are aware of it. This was a big deal back then.

veryoldcoach said:

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I have a side note related to this thread. An oil painting of The Alamo was used as the back drop to the credits for the movie. A sophomore in my outfit when I was a fish named Rick Graham contacted John Wayne by letter about bringing that painting to A&M for a showing. Rick received correspondence from John Wayne's son and he and Rick worked out a good deal for A&M. The painting was not just sent to be shown on campus, but was given to A&M by John Wayne. It hung near the front entry of the library for my remaining years at A&M. I've wondered what happened to that painting during all the reconstruction etc. of the library. It was a significant gift to A&M from a well known personality celebrating the history of the Alamo and the film John Wayne created. I wonder if any of the Old Guys remember seeing the painting or if any of current students are aware of it. This was a big deal back then.

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Its in the George bush library

If you like the movie you'd enjoy the book: The Making of the Alamo (Not thinkin...Just Rememberin'....) by John Farkis. It's over 1,000 pages and is the go to book on all that went on behind the scenes of the making of the movie. It says that three Longhorns were killed during the filming and their heads were mounted and given to their respective owners as a gift from Wayne. Many of the Longhorns did come from Bill Daniel's ranch in Liberty County, and some of his ranch hands "drove" the cattle during the movie scenes.
A couple of cool things to note: many of the Mexican Army uniforms were Japanese WW2 surplus. Franke Avalon's fringed shirt was one (of several) that Alan Ladd wore on Shane....dyed grey for Avalon in the Alamo.
Great story: if you like Wayne Western's, y'all recognize longtime stuntman and character actor Chuck Roberson as a Tennessean...(aka...Bad Chuck). He was apparently quite the ladies man, and had nightly companions from just across the river while filming! Rooming with him was a young Dean Smith, (former tu football player, Olympic Gold winner, and later an outstanding stuntman). Smith had been raised Baptist, and got tired off all Roberson's companions and all the noise!! So, he found other lodging, and while he was packing the trunk of his car, the landlady came up to the door to kick Roberson out because of the loud parties, etc. Roberson pointed at Smith and said, "there's the guy who makes all the noise, and we kicked that S.O.B. out of here this morning!!