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A better memory of David Carradine
Published: 6/5/2009 2:36 PM
Last Modified: 6/5/2009 2:36 PM

I know just enough of the circumstances of the death of David Carradine to know that I don't want to hear any more. It's one of those things where it seems the sordid is going to overwhelm the tragic, and I don't need to know any more about it.

It's going to be difficult to avoid, of course. Many of my colleagues in what people call "the media" will take ghoulish delight in ferreting out the facts about Carradine's death.

And in the stories about his career, one thing is likely not to be mentioned -- David Carradine's leading performance in the play "Black Elk Speaks," which was presented in 1984 by the American Indian Theater Company in Tulsa.

The company, which at the time was led by artistic director J.R. Mathews, put together a supremely ambitious staging of this theatrical adaptation of the book by John Neihardt, which also starred Oklahoma native Will Sampson.

James Fields, who now runs the Ultimate Murder Mystery theater company in Tulsa, was a part of the cast of "Black Elk Speaks."

"It was my first Equity play, and I had two roles -- military men who were sort of polar opposites," Fields recalled. "I remember the first time I saw David in rehearsal -- he was sitting off by himself, playing his flute.

"Everyone was kind of tip-toeing around him, because he was this big movie and TV star," Fields said.

But Fields struck up a friendship with Carradine -- "I did this Jimmy Stewart impression that cracked him up, for some reason" and spent quite a bit of time in his company during the rehearsals and through the sold-out run of the show.

"He was such a gentle soul," Fields said, "a sweet guy, and totally unpretentiousness. He told me a story about working on 'The Serpent's Egg' with Ingmar Bergman, and how Bergman had a horse shot in front of him, because he wanted to get David's reaction on film. That really shook him, because he loved horses, and he told Bergman that, if he would destroy a life just to get a shot in a film, then he had no soul."

The production of "Black Elk Speaks" was supposed to be filmed for public television, but funding fell there.

That, Fields believed, is the real tragedy. "I think his performance as Black Elk was the best thing David Carradine ever did," he said.


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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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