I was pretty young when this photo was taken but I was worldly. In the weeks to come you’ll get to find out more about Great Grandpa and me. Plus a lot of other stuff. If you notice my Great Grandpa always had one pant leg tucked half way into his boot top and his jacket buttoned crooked. None of the family members I’ve talked to know why he did this but he did it almost all the time. Look forward to hearing from all of you.
Troy Andrew Smith was born on July 13th, 1952 in the small rural town of Nowata, Oklahoma. He was raised on a ten acre place just outside of town and grew up dreaming of being a cowboy like his Dad. Although, their place was small, it was directly across the road from a large ranch and just down the road from another big spread. By the time Troy was 15 he was a regular hand during branding and shipping. He had no idea of ever being in a movie.
As an adult, Troy worked as a ranch hand, machinist, carpenter, guide, dude wrangler, salesman, and Country Western Singer. He also wrote a weekly column for the Nowata newspaper and had several of his Cowboy Poems published in various publications. At the age of 39 he broke his back working in a machine shop in Bozeman, MT. While he was recuperating from surgery he walked into a production office set up for the Movie MONTANA. It was being filmed on location at Ted Turner’s Spanish Peaks Ranch. He asked a lady standing close to the door, “You making a movie around here?”
She replied, “Yes, you want to be in it?”
“Does it pay money?” he asked.
“Well, yes.” She answered.
“Okay.”
And that was Troy’s first interview for a movie. Since then he has had character rolls in several films such as Digstown, Ballad of Little Jo, and The Last Ride. He most recently played a major role in John Brannigan’s short film Bullfighters.
While attending film school at Montana State University, Troy supplemented his income with movie jobs in the summers and started writing novels and screenplays. Being a single parent for most of his children’s lives, money was always hard to come by but the movie business helped a lot. As well as being an actor, he has also worked in Set Construction, Props, Wrangled, was a Stand in, photo double, a few stunts and a lot of special abilities background. He has ridden horses or driven teams in numerous movies and TV shows, including three seasons on HBO’s series DEADWOOD.
At this time Troy is concentrating his efforts on his skills as a Screenwriter, Author and Actor. He has recently signed contracts to write the screenplays for a couple of feature films. He has also written over a dozen scripts of his own and has several of them out at various Studios and Production companies. Having started his movie career late in life he has the exuberance of a twenty year old, coupled with a lot of life’s experiences. “It makes a very good base to write from.”
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I made a discovery today about this picture. I was looking at it in a larger size and realized this picture was taken just after I got out of the hospital from my first time of being bucked off a horse. My Dad and I had been riding a black horse named Booger. He belonged to a friend of ours but I thought he should belong to me.
Anyway, I was handling the reins, sitting in front of Dad with both legs a straddle the saddle horn. We were just starting up a pond damn and we believe there may have been some ground bees (some folks call ‘em bumble bees) that came up under the horse or stung him. Long story short, we both got bucked off. Dad sprained his wrist. Me, I bit through my tongue and bottom lip, scrapped the side of my head and had a little bit of a concussion; I believe. Oh yeah, and a deep bruise on my right thigh; it hurt worse than anything. I spent four or five days in the hospital, now days that would’ve been a maybe overnight stay but back then they wanted to be sure you lived. This is why my head looks so lop sided in the picture (some might say it still looks that way, but who listen’s to them).
I’m really not dipping snuff that’s just the size my lip was at the time. It probably explains the scowl on my face as well. But, Great Grandpa had been bucked off before so it weren’t no big deal. I was some upset when Dewayne sold my horse before I ever got to ride him again. It took a few years for me to get over being mad at having my favorite horse sold out from under me. I can honestly say, I did get back on the next horse I got the chance to ride. Anybody ever doubts how bad I wanted to be a cowboy they can blow this picture up and look at my lip and then I’m pretty sure they’ll have an idea of how bad I wanted to ride a horse; I still do.
Thank you for taking the time to read this little story. Thank You.
