When someone said "can’t" to Mary Fields, she put her shoulder to the grindstone and pushed harder. That’s what attracted me to her character when I first read about her in a book on western history quite a few years ago. That and the fact that she became a stagecoach driver in Montana circa 1885, and I rode across the western half of the United States with a stagecoach in 1976. Kindred spirits! Mary was tough, strong, stubborn, and a survivor. When she set her mind to something, she did it. That’s me. I set out over thirty years ago with a dream, to write and direct movies. I grew up riding horses, working with stagecoaches, and loving good, old western movies. I would make them.  

But western movies went out of vogue. The audiences turned away from the original ‘action’ movies in favor of effects-driven computer-generated stories. Westerns were ‘old hat’, literally. And maybe blame that on trends and taste, or maybe it’s the fault of the filmmakers. Because audiences are fickle, but they are true. If they like something, they watch it. If they don’t, they don’t. Other than a few exceptions, writers and filmmakers of westerns have rehashed the same old stories with the same plots, since the beginning. It’s about revenge. Retaliation. Somebody killed somebody. Somebody needs to get even. You have your gunfighters, your town sheriff, your rootin’ shootin’ cowboys, your prostitutes. If these were the only stories and characters in the old west, how did it ever progress to our modern world?

I still want to make western movies. I have found so many true and untold stories of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, that tell the REST OF THE WEST. If western films were good, and engaging, with original stories, interesting and relatable characters, wouldn’t audiences still go see them? That has driven me as I’ve researched and written historical screenplays. But the world puts a lot of weight on your shoulders. And it’s so hard to throw it off. If you have a goal, the heavier the weight of the world, the harder it is to achieve it, or believe it is even possible. And yet Mary Fields pushed through all the obstacles to become the first African-American to work for the U.S. Postal Service. She was an achiever. She is my hero.  

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