TUCSON DAILY CITIZEN WEDNESDAY, NOV. 1, l972
"I will never believe," Kevin Hagen said softly, "that violence on television begets violence in real life."
But of course Hagen is biased, and being a fair man, he would be among the first to point out that fact.
A veteran Hollywood character actor, his television and feature film credits number in the hundreds, and in most of them he has been cast as a "western heavy."
Over the past 17 years, the very appearance of Kevin Hagen's face an the screen has been enough to assure western film fans that there was excitement -- if not down right violence -- to come.
In the last three or four years, however, the television western has been dying out.
"Of course it's because of the edict against violence on television," he said, "and a western, because of its very nature, must be violent and filled with action.
"Children are allowed to watch the newscast on television, and there they see real death and real cruelty and real inhumanity being exercised by their government and by other govenments
"Now, that's REAL and the youngsters know it," Hagen continued, "and I'm convinced that when they see a violent scene on a dramatic show, they're aware of the fact that it's phony -- that it's all pretend. You've got to give the children THAT much credit.
"There are very few western shows left on TV," Hagen pointed out, "and those that remain have beeline little more than drawing room melodramas."
Witness, he said, the "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" series of the last few years.
Hagen is in Tucson for location filming of "The Soul of Nigger Charley," which is being produced and directed by Larry G. Spangler. It would be considered a western, though one of the new breed.
For the western feature film, such as the current Spangler production, Hagen sees a brighter future.
"I think we'll always have the Western movie with us," he said, "and it will always have a strong impact upon the people. Certainly it is a solid part of our American culture."
In the past few years the western has become more realistic, Hagen continued. "It has become more profound -- more aware of social problems, more relevant."
The actor says he feels a close kinship to the western, be it of a violent or non-violent nature.
"My people on my mother's side have been in this country for many years," he said. "They pioneered in South Dakota -- the whole bit; covered wagons, Indian troubles, sod houses and all.
"I feel that somehow some of that pioneer spirit has trickled down through the generations to me. I feel comfortable in westerns. I feel as though, somehow, I belong.
"And that," Hagen said, "is really a contradiction, because I'm a big city boy, originally -- Chicago."
In fact in the mid-1950s when Hagen, who had given up a career with the diplomatic service, was brewing into television, he encountered a problem that might've ruined his budding career as an actor.
That problem was "Horse."
"It was my first western," he remembered, "and being a city boy, I had never ridden a horse.
"Well, I mounted up, rode into the scene and promptly fell off the animal. It ruined the shot."
But that was many years and many films ago, and now Kevin Hagen can sit a horse and ride off into the sunset as well as the next actor.
Except that heavies hardly ever get to ride off into the sunset.