The Kangaroo Kid Surfs Again - Part 1
This was written by Peter Phelps, the Australian actor who played 'The Kangaroo Kid' in "The Exchange, Pts. 1 & 2" about his time on The Young Riders. His comments are different to any others I've seen about the show, but in the interests of free speech, I include it as a legitimate viewpoint.
I'd been in LA a couple of weeks and was convincing all but the highly-discerning
checkout people of my Midwest heritage, when I was called to meet with the makers
of an established series for a guest lead in their show. As an Australian. This
accent I knew. The show was 'The Young Riders,' a western series where it seemed
all the good guys were really good-looking and the bad guys weren't. They wanted
me to play the part of The Kangaroo Kid. I was told my previous films in Australia
had put me in good stead for this part. This was surprising because mostly when
I met folks while looking for employment in the US, my resume is gazed upon
with nodding indifference, I guess because none of the films I have appeared
in reached the blockbuster status - a requirement if you don't want to keep
throwing a photo and a two-page printout of your working life at strangers.
I agreed to play The Kangaroo Kid. Speedos [an Australian swimsuit brand - ed.] didn't crop up in the script, which was a good sign, and I could stay on a horse long enough for the camera to capture anything heroic. The classic scenes of riding into town with a couple of six-guns appealed to my childhood fantasies, of course; so too did the thought of enough money to keep me going another few months.
I must have impressed the producer, Jonas McCord, because after my first week of shooting in Arizona he had extended my working visa for another eighteen months and negotiated with the network for me to join the cast as an ongoing, regular cast member.
A season with a series here means about 250,000 bucks in US greenbacks. I pictured a house on the north coast with spare change, and a Land Cruiser in the driveway.
The two episodes in which I appeared as The Kangaroo Kid were the season's finale, so any cast reshuffles would be happening as I swaggered down the dusty trails of Tucson, Arizona.
The producer had picked my up at the airport and driven me to the location to meet the crew, my horse and my six-guns. This is rare. Usually you are lucky as supporting actor to hitch a ride with an assistant director who was going to the airport anyway to pick up the rushes (the previous day's filmed footage).
The existing cast welcomed me very graciously, which doesn't always happen with 'the new guy." The location was straight out of a John Wayne movie; in fact we used the same street and sets in Old Tucson as on the The Duke's The Alamo .
Eyeing a probable year or more with these people, I endeavoured to fit in as smoothly as I could. The guys in the cast were all about twenty-six, married, in AA programs or the like, and everyone it seemed, drove a mammoth four-wheel drive and/or a Harley Davidson. The Wild West. I thought the best way to get to know my fellow workers was to do the social circuit of Tucson with the boys. This included a pool hall with posters on the walls of my co-stars. I got some idea of how long they had been in this place by the amount of attention the local female populations gave to tour tables. Another joint I had to experience was an 'upmarket' strip club, known to the boys as 'Church.' As in "Have you taken the Aussie to Church yet?" on my second day there, or "Met this girl in Church last night." A permanent section around the catwalk was reserved for the town's resident cowboys and the boys all had their favourite 'exotic dancers,' who at one time or another were seen in locations other than their place of employment.
From: Sex Without Madonna, Peter Phelps, pp. 92-94