Joey Rocketshoes Dillon | |
|---|---|
 Joey Rocketshoes Dillon | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Lake Forest, Illinois, U.S. |
| Genres | western music |
| Occupation(s) | Gunslinger, Hollywood Gun Trainer, actor, musician, comedian, songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar, vocals |
| Website | www |
Joey Rocketshoes Dillon is an Armorer in the film idustry, is an expert handler and trick showman of Western firearms, historian, production consultant, and singer-songwriter. Notably he is a three time world champion gunslinger. [1]
Born in Lake Forest near Chicago, Dillon's family moved to Lake Don Pedro, California where he states he had the Western influence around him with learning how to ride horses and shoot guns with his father. [2] Performing tricks first came with cap guns. "When I was young, I had a wooden and metal pirate pistol from Disneyland," he said. "It was so easy to spin back and forth, I'd go to sleep at night twirling it around my hand. We're all blessed with certain talents -- I'm not good at everything, but this (gun-spinning) is something I can do well." [3] Once he mastered these he moved on to unloaded real guns. After high school, he moved to Chicago in hopes of becoming a comedian and actor. He took classes with The Second City with a mind to someday be part of Saturday Night Live. While there he honed his comedic talents as a standup at open mic nights. In his early twenties Dillon relocated to Union, Illinois he happened to move next door to Donley's Wild West Town and presented to the management his unique ability as a gunslinger. He quickly landed a position as a part time entertainer, to which Dillon recalled: "I'd have a little portable stereo on a picnic table, I'd hit play on a Western-sounding song, and I'd sit there and spin guns." [4]
By the age of 22, he became a world champion gunslinger. [5] Eventually moving to screen work.
Dillon has worked as an Armorer and Gun Coach for Hollywood films while also appearing himself as an actor in both movie and television series of typically a Western genre. [6]
He has been an Armorer and Gun Coach on such films as "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," "Deadwood the Movie," "Godless," "The Harder They Fall," "The Highwaymen," HBO's "Westworld," and many more.
Dillon also works on the side restoring and refabricating vintage cars, bikes, movie props, guns and other objects. [7]
Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef Jr. was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In his film debut, High Noon, he was asked to have his nose altered to play a sympathetic character. However, after declining this request he was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw cast role. Van Cleef was often typecast as a minor villain for the majority of his career, proposedly due to his physical features. After suffering serious injuries in a car crash, Van Cleef's acting career started to decline. However, Sergio Leone offered him a major role in For a Few Dollars More. The film proved to be a huge hit and cited him as a box-office draw, largely in Europe.
Gunslingers or gunfighters were individuals in the American Old West who gained a reputation of being dangerous with a gun and participated in gunfights and shootouts. Today, the term "gunslinger" is more or less used to denote someone who is quick on the draw with a pistol, but can also refer to riflemen and shotgun messengers. The gunfighter is also one of the most popular characters in the Western genre and has appeared in associated films, video games, and literature.
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage, and television actor and producer.
Herb Jeffries was an American actor of film and television and popular music and jazz singer-songwriter, known for his baritone voice.
William Brocius, better known as Curly Bill Brocius, was an American gunman, rustler and an outlaw Cowboy in the Cochise County area of the Arizona Territory during the late 1870s and early 1880s. His name is likely an alias or nickname, and some evidence links him to another outlaw named William "Curly Bill" Bresnaham, who was convicted of an 1878 attempted robbery and murder in El Paso, Texas.
Fast draw, also known as quick draw, is the ability to quickly draw a handgun and accurately fire it upon a target in the process. This skill was made popular by romanticized depictions of gunslingers in the Western genre, which in turn were inspired by famous historical gunfights in the American Old West.
Arvo Ojala was a Hollywood technical advisor on the subject of quick-draw with a revolver. He also worked as an actor; his most famous role was that of the unnamed man shot by Marshal Matt Dillon in the opening sequences of the long-running television series Gunsmoke. As a joke on the producers, James Arness and Arvo actually did the opener once with Dillon falling to the ground.
Trick riding refers to the act of performing stunts while riding a horse, such as the rider standing upright on the back of a galloping horse, using a specially designed saddle with a reinforced steel horn, and specialized kossak loops for hands and feet. The horse is likewise galloping free. Trick riding is not to be confused with equestrian vaulting, which is an internationally recognized competitive sport governed by the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI).
Western lifestyle or cowboy culture is the lifestyle, or behaviorisms, of, and resulting from the influence of, the attitudes, ethics and history of the American Western cowboy. In the present day these influences affect this sector of the population's choice of recreation, clothing, and consumption of goods.
Frank Boardman "Pistol Pete" Eaton was a scout, sheriff, and cowboy.
Rex Trailer was a Boston-based regional television personality, broadcast pioneer, cowboy and Country and Western recording artist. He is best known as the host of the children's television show Boomtown which initially ran from 1956 through 1974.
United States Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, Inc. was a privately held firearms-manufacturing firm based in Hartford, Connecticut. This company is not to be confused with and has no affiliation with the U.S. Arms Company in Macon, GA. Until 2011, United States Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, Inc. was known for producing single action revolvers, which were clones of the Colt Single Action Army revolver. The factory was located "Under the Blue Dome", in the East Armory building of the former Colt Armory complex, where Colt's Manufacturing Company produced many of their classic firearms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Fastest Gun Alive is a 1956 MGM Western film starring Glenn Ford, Jeanne Crain, and Broderick Crawford directed by Russell Rouse.
.
Gunspinning refers to the old west tradition and Hollywood legend of a cowboy gunslinger twirling his pistol around his trigger finger. Gunspinning is a western art such as trick roping, and is sometimes referred as gunplay, gun artistry, and gun twirling. Gunspinning is seen in many classic TV and film Westerns, such as Shane and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Timestalkers is a 1987 American made-for-television science fiction film directed by Michael Schultz and starring William Devane. The film is based on Ray Brown's story The Tintype.
Harry C. Neumann of Chicago, Illinois, was a Hollywood cinematographer whose career spanned over forty years, including work on some 350 productions in a wide variety of genres, with much of his work being in Westerns, and gangster films.
Cimarron Firearms is an American firearms importer that has been in operation since 1984. The company's field of specialty is reproduction firearms from the American Civil War to the end of the Old West period. Founded by Mike Harvey in Houston, Texas, the company is now based in Fredericksburg, Texas.
Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival is an annual event held at the William S. Hart Park in Old Town Newhall, Santa Clarita, California. Each year, over 10,000 visitors from all around the world attend lectures and performances on multiple stages by famous poets, authors, instructors, musical acts, and dancers, in fields including Western, Bluegrass, Americana and Spoken Word to folk, Native American and Mexican American traditions. Guests participate in cowboy and cowgirl living history through activities such as life around a chuck wagon, roping, bull riding, crafts, games, and trying an assortment of dishes including BBQ and peach cobbler. Guests can also attend a demonstration of plains Tipi living, tours of the historic Heritage Junction town and train engine, appearances by lasso expert Dave Thornbury and gunslinger Joey Rocketshoes Dillon, the Buffalo Soldiers camp, and a Western and Civil War reenactment.
Old Henry is a 2021 American Western film written and directed by Potsy Ponciroli. It stars Tim Blake Nelson as the titular character, a farmer who must protect his son from outlaws, with Scott Haze, Gavin Lewis, Trace Adkins, and Stephen Dorff in supporting roles. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 7, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States by Shout! Studios on October 1. It was critically acclaimed, with praise to the story, Ponciroli's direction, and Nelson's performance. The National Board of Review selected the film in its annual list of the Top Ten Independent Films of the year.