They are still out in Arizona, but now it's the film companies who take them there - together with the equipment, the props, the people, and the horses to turn out a fifty-minute television Western in five days. But even with air-conditioned dressing rooms, gallons of iced drinks and the comfort of a luxury hotel at night, life in the desert with the thermometer at around 115 degrees is not so easy - the rattlesnakes and the poisonous cacti have scant respect for star actors.
The High Chaparral series, which returns to BBC-2 next week, is filmed almost entirely on location in and around Tucson Arizona. For a few hectic days last summer a BBC crew joined the production unit to film it in action and to talk to some of the people involved.
Among those appearing: Linda Cristal, Leif Erickson, Cameron Mitchell, Henry Darrow, Mark Slade and producer, William Claxton
(Colour)