My cousin Billy Hamilton has a ranch near Dolan Springs, Arizona. By his own admission he is a roping fool (well, maybe fool is too strong: he was the World Champion Steer Roper in 1964). One of his oldest roping friends is Ralph Lamb. If that names sounds familiar it's because Ralph was the sheriff of Las Vegas back in the sixties and seventies. And tonight CBS launches Vegas, a new series about the sheriff of Las Vegas, Ralph Lamb (Dennis Quaid) who is a fourth-generation cattle rancher (true) who goes up against the mob during the transition from cow town to wowza town.
I read this a couple weeks ago in The Hollywood Reporter and called my cousin who confirmed to me the show is about his good friend Ralph Lamb. Evidently, it has been in development for some time and Billy seemed a little bemused that it was finally going to happen.
And speaking of Vegas and ranches in northern Mohave County, a certain Western singer and I have been noodling a cowgirl character who deals with Vegas hoods on her father's ranch which is near Lake Mead on the Arizona side. Dixxy Diamond returns from Iraq to find strange things going on at the ranch. I'm not sure I even know what those things are that are so disturbing to Dixxy, but Juni knows.
"Being infamous is not fun. It becomes a weird kind of occupation in and of itself."
—Michael Cimino, on making the historic bomb Heaven's Gate which is now enjoying a resurgence
