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Bringing the West to Life
BRINGING THE WEST TO LIFE
GEORGE “CLAY” MITCHELL, Saddlebag Dispatches Associate Editor
Portions of this article originally ran online at swtimes.com.
ERNEST “ERNIE” MARSH WANTS to bring the history of the Old West and Bass Reeves to life for future generations.
Marsh has only been acting for about two years since he retired from law enforcement in California. As someone who could ride a horse, he began to participate in some of the reenactments, from the staging of life in the Old West to Civil War battles. Later, he started getting work as a background extra, which “took off real nice from there.”
“It was good to visit the movie sets and talk to them and get the feel of what it takes to make a western and make it great,” Marsh said. “We need to bring in the young folks to westerns. I grew up watching westerns. There were many movies and TV shows from the 1940s to the 60s. Most people don’t realize that some of those guys lived that life before they hung up their gunbelts to be in a movie. When I retired, I wanted to do that again. I got the opportunity and ran at it the best I could.”
Their Story Is Just Starting
There has been a resurgence in telling more stories about the cowboys and the Old West. Among these is the sharing of Black stories and characters about the expansion of the American West. From LaMonica Garrett’s Thomas in Taylor Sheridan’s 1883 to Jaymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall, the inclusion of Black actors even in the background of other movies and television shows begins to illustrate that our history is more diverse than we were led to believe.
And for Marsh, it’s just scratching the surface.
“When it came to history, Blacks didn’t write the books. They didn’t write the newspaper articles,” Marsh said. “People who worked the cattle were slaves. That labor as a cowboy was getting up in the morning and being up for four or five days. After the Civil War, they became the mavericks. It was one of the few jobs a Black man could get to be paid a day’s wage. We don’t see those stories in the mainstream media. Hopefully, with the attention coming to Bass Reeves, these stories will come to light.
“He’ll be a household name, and his story doesn’t need to be embellished. If the word ‘integrity’ had a picture, it would be Bass Reeves.”
Meet Bass Reeves
Marsh found himself either learning or relying on his knowledge and skills from his law enforcement career to build himself a new one. In his early days of reenacting, Marsh often portrayed Mountain Man Jim Beckwourth as a fur trader and explorer. During an event as Beckwourth, someone mentioned to Marsh that he looked a lot like Bass Reeves. Not knowing much about the legendary marshal, Marsh found himself at the library, and soon he had another person he could embody.
Marsh’s journey to learn about Reeves has brought him to San Antonio as he looks into what made Reeves the person who was trusted to arrest over 3,000 criminals who may have fled into the Oklahoma territory for Judge Isaac Parker. Marsh said that Bass must have carried a lot of integrity to accomplish his success without being shot. "He didn't have to go far to find where someone was."
Marsh has played in a few small film productions like "Counting Bullets" and "A Guide to Gunfighters of the Wild West" as well as playing Bass Reeves in "The Righteous Twelve" and uncredited parts in "The Harder They Fall," "Yellowstone," "Interview with the Vampire," and "1883."
"Bass was a Black man of that time. He was born a slave, and many of them didn’t know how to read or write,” Marsh said. “He had to carry a big stick and walk softly like a bulldog. Where did he come from? And how did he acquire this skill set that allowed him always to get his man? I can think back to my career as an investigator, and people came to me with information. I treated them like I wanted to be treated. When I started my research on Bass, he was much the same.
“He knew he couldn’t read or write, but he had two ears and a mouth, and he used those in proportion to absorb everything in his environment to get his man. He was a valet to legislators and being around those people, he learned how to talk and listen. There were times in the course of an investigation I would be on the phone with someone, and when we met, they would often say ‘that my voice and how I looked didn’t match up.’ I imagine Bass was a lot like that.”
Judge Parker and Bass Reeves
Marsh said that there must have been a level of trust between Reeves and Parker.
slave, learned how to be a tracker, knew the Oklahoma Territory and spoke Cherokee and other Native American languages. Parker, born into a family of means in Ohio, was educated as a lawyer and appointed as a judge by President Ulysses S. Grant.
“Bass was a resource for Parker. They used him like any other person who could scout, track, go in to get their man, and come out safely,” Marsh said. “At the time Reeves was trying to make a life for himself near Van Buren. I’m sure some detractors didn’t want Bass as a marshal by saying he couldn’t read, but Parker somehow knew Bass was the right man for the job. Parker wasn’t hiring schoolteachers.
“If you have a handicap, the other senses become sharpened. Bass couldn’t read or write, so he may have developed total recall and photographic memory. He had a writ or warrant to arrest someone, but he
Love of Westerns
Marsh always had a love for westerns. His mom was from Waco, Texas, his dad from Louisiana. So, the ties to the West never left him. Even in law enforcement, he continued to ride, train and sell horses.
“I still grew up country,” Marsh said. “I went hunting and fishing. We had a garden. We didn’t have livestock, but we had dogs and occasionally chickens. There were woods to explore near where I lived, near present-day Candlestick Park.”
He has worked in 12 westerns in 12 months. Marsh would watch westerns on television, and he bought his first horse when he was 20.
“I raised, trained, and sold them,” said Marsh. “It just reaches in your blood, and I became a wrangler, cowboy, and horse rider.
“I was one of the few guys in high school who listened to country-western music. The other guy was from Oklahoma. I loved it so much. In the Bay Area, you didn’t have much country music, but once you lost those signals, you could pick up on the small, weaker ones, the country music stations. I listened to those stations with my father and grandfather.”
Riding to the next town
Marsh was in San Antonio doing some additional research on Bass Reeves. He was in a couple of scenes in Taylor Sheridan’s 1883. He said he enjoyed his time working with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Taylor Sheridan.
With a few credits under his belt, including Taylor Sheridan’s 1883 and recently released TheRighteous Twelve, where he portrays Bass Reeves, Marsh is looking forward to what the future has in store for him. He spent time with Sheridan as the two compared their lives growing up and how 1883 serves as the lead-in for Sheridan’s latest project, 1883:BassReeves.
Marsh travels the country to tell Bass Reeves' story and promote Black cowboys often forgotten or ignored role in shaping the American West.
“I thanked Taylor Sheridan personally for bringing Bass’s story to the screen,” Marsh said. “It’s been done a little bit before, but I think Taylor will get it right this time. It won’t be long before there’s an explosion of Bass Reeves movies and projects.”
Marsh said he’s even consulting on a U.K. project about Bass Reeves. He met David Oyelowo, the Beitish actor who will be portraying Reeves for Sheridan’s new series.
“When I met David and his wife, she said that I looked more like Bass Reeves than he did,” Marsh said with a laugh. “I wished I had started this sooner. There’s nothing like being on a movie set and getting in a saddle.”
—GEORGE “CLAY” MITCHELL is an award-winning reporter and photographer, as well as a founding partner of Saddlebag Dispatches and its parent company, Oghma Creative Media, where he serves as Chief Development O cer.
