By Dan Gagliasso

I first met Lincoln Lageson in 1996 when he was a coproducer on the John Milius-directed epic miniseries Rough Riders and I was Milius’s historical consultant. In L.A. in the film business if you see a fella wearing Wranglers with enough length that the bottoms stack up as they should on his boots, there’s a good chance he’s probably a cowboy, a stuntman, or both. Since I’d rodeoed some, and this Lageson character was an easy-going-but-get-it-done type, we circled each other a little while, but soon became fast friends.

I was surprised to find out that Lageson was not only our set producer but also someone who could square his way around the business end of a horse just fine. Now a set producer just might be the hardest-working producer on a picture, and that would go double on Westerns, where livestock, running gear, horse wranglers, and some actors who think they can ride better then they really can are a big part of getting the picture made. It’s a job that has earned him the respect and friendship of everyday ranchers and cowboys, top rodeo hands like Garry Leffew, Bob Tallman, Mike Stevens, and Allan Jordon, as well as music stars like Randy Travis and Michael Martin Murphey.

I was impressed with Lincoln’s straight-up Western attitude right from the start. I watched him deal with everything from outsized thespian egos to filmland battlefield logistics, including stunts and second-unit action. I’ve seen him turn in a more-than-passable acting role playing the part of William Randolph Hearst’s assistant. When really professional Western film types like Sam Elliot. Buck Taylor, and legendary head wrangler Jack Lilley all sing Lincoln’s praise, you know this is the kind of fella with whom you can ride the rim of the high lonesome country.

Since the early 1990s Lageson has worked on miniseries like Dead Man’s Walk and Streets of Laredo, both based on the best-selling novels by Larry McMurtry, and the $50 million feature film Texas Rangers, as well as the modern ranch- and rodeo-themed Everything That Rises, which marked the directorial debut of actor Dennis Quaid. But it’s been his work on a handful of Hallmark Westerns, including Hard Ground and Love’s Enduring Promise, that has been his biggest impact in the business...

Find the rest of this exciting article and more in the July/August 2005 issue of American Cowboy magazine...

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