60’s Actor Arch Hall, Jr: An Interview with a Guitarist, Rebel, Gunslinger, and Sadist

Arch Hall Jr. has lived the life that many young boys dream of; he’s acted in films, he is a talented guitarist with his own band, he’s written a novel, and he’s flown jets of all sizes. The Air Force awarded him the Civilian Air medal. He rode and owned cool motorcycles and cars. He’s played the roles of rock musician, gunslinger, teenage rebel, international spy, and psychopath. Arch kissed beautiful women and held them in his arms (sorry Arch, but I have the films to prove it).

Yes, young lad, Arch Hall Jr. has experienced all of these things you may only get to dream about, but Arch will tell you that as rewarding as its been, its not a road to success paved with pillows and it takes a lot of hard work. If you ask Arch Hall Jr. if he was rich, he says no. If you ask him if he’s richer because of his experiences, you can decide for yourself.

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Arch, you starred in six popular drive-in films in the sixties starting with The Choppersand ending with Deadwood ’76. Do you have a favorite, and why?

If I would have to name a favorite it would be The Sadist, directed by John Landis. The Sadistis my favorite because it was the first serious, demanding role in my rather limited serious acting career. There were those who thought it may be too demanding for me. Landis had to guideme to help create the character you see as Charlie Tibbs on the screen. I could not have pulled it off without his intense tutoring.

Your father, Arch Hall Sr., appeared in all of your films. Perhaps you can tell us what it was like to work with your father as an actor and the kind of person he was.

That’s a tough question. It may sound corny by today’s standards, but I always looked up to myfather and respected his character as a man. He was the first “real” cowboy before he came to Hollywood in the late twenties and then again in the thirties. His great voice was from his background in the golden days of radio. He was never a rich man at any time in his lifetime,but he was a rich man in character thru and thru. Of course, he was just my dad too and teenage sons like to disagree with their fathers. Back when I made the films, I did not appreciate him as much as I do today. The wonderful thing is that the films capture us all intime forever. I can always see my dad in his old cowboy movies he did with John Wayne and CrashCorrigan as a handsome young man and also in the films that he made later in his life forFairway.

You play music with your band The Archers in most of your films, and Norton Records recentlyreleased a CD of your band entitled ARCH HALL JR. & THE ARCHERS-WILD GUITAR. Did these tracks all came from the films, or were there other recording sources for some of them?

Wow! The Norton CD, Arch Hall, Jr. & The Archers is a compiled bunch of songs lifted from movies plus que music, bootleg live recordings from a night club in California, and from a livepromo tour promoting Wild Guitar in the winter of 1962. It took the wonderful folks at NortonRecords (Miriam & Billy) years to gather together all the material and personal interviews. The CD pamphlet is like the story of my life ala Ralph Edwards, except with a twinge of humoradded in. My old pal Alan O’Day had some tunes on decaying old reel-to-reel tape in his garagefor over 40 years!

You still occasionally play music with The Archers. The film Wild Guitar really showcases your abilities as a songwriter and guitarist at that time. Who were your musical influences?

Singing influences would be Rick Nelson, Johnny Otis, ZZ Top maybe. Guitar influences = FreddieKing, Albert King, B.B. Kng, Albert Collins, Roy Buchannan, James Burton, Jerry Magee, StevieRay Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix & Johnny Winter.

In Eegah!, Marilyn Manning character asks your character Tom Nelson who Valerie was in the song you sing. Tom replies, “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Some of us would, so if you’re willing to say, were there songs written for specific girls in your life?

The song Valerie I co-wrote with my father, “Big Arch” as he was known back then. The name Valerie is a family name and comes from my aunt’s daughter (my father’s sister’s daughter). Hername is Valerie. You may also recognize another family member in The Sadist? The prim & properschool teacher was played by Helen Hovey, also my cousin.

Asking if I’ve written songs about specific girls in my life? Well, most of the girls in my lifehave foreign names that are difficult to pronounce much less sing about in a song, 🙂 but yes, Ihave written songs about girls in my life, but nobody has ever heard them. 🙂 That’s my story andI’m stickin’ to it!

In the movies, your characters always had some nice vehicles-in Nasty Rabbit and Wild Guitar you rode some nice motorcycles, in The Choppers there was the incredible Ford hot rod, and in Eegah! you drove a dune buggy. Were any of these personal vehicles, and if not, did you own any interesting rides you’d like to mention?

The hot rod in The Choppers belonged to Bill Roland, but the black 1936 Ford convertible seen inThe Choppers was mine. I’ve had some neat rides along the way I guess…I’ve had a 1926 Ford T-Touring Car, 1936 Ford covertible, 1940 Ford 4-door sedan, 1941 Ford coupe, 2-cylinder NSU Prinz, 1955 Chevy convertible, 1956 Corvette.

Motorcycles: 1941 Indian Scout, 1947 Indian Chief, 1945 Harley Flathead, 1958 Lambretta scooter,1964 Harly FLH. I still have a 1989 Harley Springer soft-tail chopper to this day!

Those are some impressive rides. That convertible from The Choppers was very nice! The leading actresses in your films and yourself had some fantastic chemistry. A couple in particular that come to mind Sharon Ryker in The Nasty Rabbit and Dee Gee Green in The Choppers. Did you ever date any of the actresses in your films?

Of all the actresses I worked with Ryker was my favorite, although she never knew it. She was alittle fox! But, no, I never dated any of the actresses in any of the films. Extras don’t count,do they?

Extras probably count. In the film Deadwood ’76, you played the young gunslinger Billy May. Your father played Billy May’s father, and has some of the more intriguing interactions between the two of you. In the last scene where he cries, he does such a superb job. Do you remember how that day went?

The scene plays very different on the screen than it did the day it was shot. That scene was apick-up shot to match the terrain of the Black Hills in South Dakota, but was really shot undera huge tree at the old Coriganville Ranch out in Simi Valey. As I recall, we were all exhausted,the actors and extras and animals were all getting cranky, and we were about to lose our light. The master was shot in one “take” because of these factors.

As a character, Billy May is a very deep and troubled individual, and seems a bit like a sadderversion of Bud Eagle from Wild Guitar. It really seemed as if you understood this character on a deep level. Is that true?

The true character of Billy the Kid was the story of a real loser. I tried to follow not history,,but how I played Billy. I wanted it to be a sad ending and for the audience to feel the emotion of it. Did it work? Maybe it did? Maybe it didn’t? We all tried our best for it to be a seriouslysad ending.

I think you were very successful with that ending. Your father once said of the film Eegah!, “It was always sort of a subject of laughter that the darned thing did so well.” Is it true that, though low-budget, all of your films found success in the drive-in movie circuit?

Eegah did very well. The real question should be, “For whom did it do well for?” It certainlydid not yield great riches for Fairway! What i’m saying here is the indy distributors of thetime did very well with Eegah, but we saw nothing! Welcome to show business!

What kind of shooting schedules did you have to go through, and do you have any particularly
enjoyable memories of those days?

The making of low-budget movies is sort of like making sausage; it’s not pretty or fun in any
way. It is up at 3 or 4 am and drive to the location by 6, followed by make-up and blocking out
scenes and actors warming up running lines they should have memorized the night before. If
shooting inside, it could go on forever! In Eegah, we shot in a sound stage in Hollywood for an
incredible 46 hours straight! Does that sound like much fun to you?

It really doesn’t sound very fun at all, Arch. Which brings us to the topic of sadism. In The Sadist, you depart from the role of a likable guy into someone who is truly dark and insane. You seem to relish playing the part, but did it ever wear on you?

The character I played in The Sadist was rather intense, wasn’t he? Well, believe it or not, Landis would wind me up before a scene-sometimes so tight that I would overact; so much that we would all laugh! So, if anything, I had to be throttled back a notch or two from time to timeto keep it “real”.

Deadwood ’76 was your last film. After that you became an airline pilot. Films like Deadwood ’76 and The Sadist displayed some really nice acting on your part. Your performance in The Nasty Rabbit was very good, although you seem to be on screen in that less than any of your other films. What made you decide to stop making movies and go into piloting?

I got married…I started trying to act like an adult, I guess. I started paying bills and pursuing one of my many loves, aviation. I am not in love with acting like I am with flying and with old guitars and music.

Your career as a pilot was a long one. Hopefully, it was rewarding as well.

I have logged over 27,000 hours in my career to date, in aircraft from experimental homebuiltsto DC10s and Boeing 747s. I was twice awarded with the coveted Air Force Civilian Air Medal-first for my work in the 1975 Cambodian ricelift and again in 1991 during operation Desert Storm.Aviation has its major pitfalls, except they are far worse than show biz! Remember Eastern Airlines? Pan Am? Braniff? I rest my case. I’ve done okay. I’m not rich, but I’ve been lucky. Being lucky is of course a good thing if you are a pilot. I’m still flying, piloting a corporate jet for a private party in Florida. Being a pilot is a little like surfing or akin to playing music in that respect. Whether you ask a young student pilot or an old retired pilot if he loves to fly, you’ll probably hear the same answer from both.

With the ready availability of all your films on DVD and the recent release of your CD, there has been a resurgence of interest in your movie and music career. Are you ever interested in acting again?

Yes, I would like to do some acting I suppose; but I would rather be a technical consultant onthe movie based on my novel Apsara Jet.

You wrote Apsara Jet under the pseudonym of Nicolas Merriweather. Your experience as a jet pilot must have helped you tremendously. Please tell us about that.

KEVIN! Apsara Jet is an erotic fiction novel about narco-trafficking in South East Asia! Whatare you saying here? Just kidding of course. Yes, I drew heavily on my background as a pilotin the writing of the book.

If you have anything you would like to talk about that hasn’t been covered, please speak as openly and candidly as you like.

I would just say that I appreciate the increased public interest in my old films and music,and also for Quentin Tarantino to get busy and direct “Apsara Jet, The Movie” – casting HarrisonFord for “John Jackson”, Ed Harris for “A.P. Scott”, Gene Hackman for “Max Murphy”, John Loan for “Alexander Chen”, Gerard Depardieu for “Dr. Fracois” – hey, I can dream, right?

Absolutely, Arch. Dreaming makes us human. I hope your dreams come true. I would like to seethe film you envision!

Thanks Kevin. Happy landings always! Arch Hall, Jr. a.k.a. Nicolas Merriweather.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and your music, movies, and novels with us. It has been a pleasure interviewing you.