Country musician Willie Nelson and writer Bill Wittliff collaborated on several film projects in the 1980s, breathing new life into the Western genre and expanding Nelson’s cultural reach as a movie star.
Forty years later, The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University is partnering with Luck Presents—which produces events on Nelson’s Luck Ranch in Spicewood—to celebrate Wittliff’s contributions to cinema and storytelling. “Look West” takes place November 8-9 at Luck Ranch.
The weekend will feature screenings of “Barbarosa,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Raggedy Man,” “Legends of the Fall,” and a marathon of the “Lonesome Dove” six-hour TV miniseries. There will also be musical performances by James McMurtry, John Moreland, and Amy Irving, who co-starred with Nelson in “Honeysuckle Rose.”
“It’s an opportunity for us to not only celebrate Bill Wittliff, which we love to do, but also to expose the work that’s being done here at the Wittliff Collections and at Texas State University,” said Mark Willenborg, marketing and promotions coordinator at The Wittliff. “We’re dedicated to preserving the cultural and creative legacy of Texas and the Southwest and to inspiring the next generation, which is what Bill always wanted.”
The Wittliff Collections will also curate a temporary exhibition at the event to showcase archival materials from the movies being shown. That could include media kits, publicity photos, costumes, or other props.
“It gets us in front of a new audience,” Willenborg said. “Bill didn’t just want to put this stuff in a vault—he wanted to put it out there so a student who had an itch to be creative could see how this work is done.”
The late Bill Wittliff, along with his wife, Sally, established the Wittliff Collections at TXST in 1986 with their gift of papers from author and folklorist J. Frank Dobie. The gift coincided with a busy era for Wittliff, who was having a successful run as a Hollywood screenwriter.
Wittliff wrote and directed the 1986 movie “Red Headed Stranger,” which starred Nelson and spurred the construction of the Old West town movie set at Nelson’s Luck Ranch.
Of the movies featured at the “Look West,” Wittliff wrote “Barbarosa” (1982); co-wrote “Raggedy Man” (1981) and “Legends of the Fall” (1994); co-wrote the screenplay of “Honeysuckle Rose” (1980); and wrote the teleplay and co-executive produced “Lonesome Dove” (1989).
“Bill was an integral part of getting the film industry started here in Texas,” Willenborg added, “because when he became a hot writer for Hollywood, he stayed in Texas, and the industry came this way.”