Alias Taylor Sheridan
"Yellowstone" writer-director gave me an exclusive story, but controlled it like a Dutton
Now that I look back I can see that Taylor Sheridan may have had a point. The new king of TV (Yellowstone, 1883, etc.) gave me an exclusive interview- for a regional travel magazine- then demanded I take out stuff, like his real name, which he said wasn’t accurate.
“Well, Sheridan Taylor Gibler Jr. was the name on the speeding ticket you got in San Marcos when you were going to Texas State,“ I said. Oh, boy, that set him off. “You wanna play that way? Maybe I need to get my lawyers involved.” Also on the line were his British manager, and his publicist, but I didn’t flinch. I was standing up for journalism, and also on my fifth Heineken. “With all due respect,” I exasperated, “this is FUCKING INSANE!” Who cares that his last name sounds like an elf’s? Did John Wayne browbeat the writer who found out he was born “Marion”?
Sheridan’s next call was to the Texas Highways fact-checker, whose dilligence led to this 9 pm phone call. When the story came out in December 2020, it was Gibler-free, as it should have been. TH is a publication whose big investigative piece that year revealed that real kolaches aren’t meat-filled (AKA “Klobasnekgate”).
This Sheridan piece was in the eye of the pandemic and I hadn’t worked in nine months, so I kinda overdid it, researching a 1200-word article like I was writing longform for the New Yorker. I interviewed Taylor’s mother, his uncle, the townspeople of Cranfils Gap, even a castmate in the Paschal High School (Fort Worth) production of Grease, in which Taylor played Kenickie.
The subject was not impressed with my thoroughness, saying I also had to take his family out of the story because his brother was a journalist in Mexico who reported on the drug cartels. “I know,” I said. “It’s on your Wikipedia page.”
This assignment for Texas Highways had started off so well. Sheridan wasn’t doing any interviews, as he was busy directing season 4 of Yellowstone, which he also wrote. But he loved the magazine, which had recently published a feature on Yellowstone’s singing ex-con Ryan Bingham that I wrote. I also had a surprise “in” with Sheridan’s best friend from childhood, who worked for Bosque Ranch Productions. Scotty drove “The Van from Hell” during SXSW is how I knew him. He was one of Margaret’s boys.
The interview with Hollywood’s hottest writer-director went as well as I could’ve hoped for. Sheridan’s articulate and anecdote-savvy. And he didn’t mind me geeking out over Yellowstone, whose first three seasons I watched back-to-back-to-back, breaking only for the bathroom and the pizza guy. Sheridan pitched the Dutton family saga to Paramount as “The Godfather on the country’s biggest cattle ranch,” and I figured out the correlating Corleones: the Kevin Costner character was Don Vito; Kayce, the handsome war vet, was Michael; Rip, the adopted consigliere, was Tom Hagen; Jamie was Fredo. The oldest brother who died early was Sonny. Beth was the only daughter, so she was Connie (if the Talia Shire character talked in action hero catchphrases). I knew the plot and characters almost as well as the man who made them talk.
The story was a breeze to write, but after I turned it in, the editor said it needed a quote or two from someone who knew Sheridan in Cranfils Gap, about 85 miles south of Fort Worth. I asked all over town, which took about 10 minutes, and came up with only one name: Darren, whose mother worked at the bank. She called him and relayed what Darren had said: make sure it's alright with Taylor for him to talk about him. When I emailed that request to Scotty, I got a call back from Sheridan’s manager. Her client had a BIG problem with me talking to Darren.
That was weird. Doesn’t Taylor Sheridan have bigger things to worry about, like creating 1973, about a young John Dutton, who sold flowers on the Drag before deciding to migrate to Montana after seeing a Bobby Bridger show?
Of course, I doubled my effort to find this Darren fellow. Yes, they had been friends, he said, but hadn’t seen each other since they were 14. His father leased land from the Giblers to raise sheep, but when he abruptly got out of the Angora business and left his cardiologist landlord high and dry, the boys stopped hanging out. Apparently, Taylor Sheridan keeps grudges that started with Taylor Gibler.
Here’s my restored “Gibler draft” of the Taylor Sheridan story for Texas Highways.
This memory of Taylor Sheridan was stirred up recently when I saw the photo below, which could be called Gibler meets Goeb. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick also forsakes his real name: Dan Goeb.
Patrick has stated that one of his goals is to convince Taylor Sheridan to relocate his many productions to Texas by raising tax credit incentives to film here. These days, most movies and TV shows set in Texas are filmed elsewhere because states like Georgia and New Mexico offer filmmakers greater incentives.
A Sheridan-led buyer group recently closed on the 266,000- acre Ranch 6666, which could turn the area between Lubbock and Amarillo into Hollywood-on-the-Range. Taylor Sheridan is a big-time player in the television and rodeo scenes- an island industry unto himself. And I’m just a pawn. Looking back, I should’ve been more understanding.
Now go home and get your fuckin’ shine box, Gibler!
Hmm, sounds like the story was written by a drunken fan boy who got his heart broken.
I also binged Yellowstone - I was a late comer to the series. Once I started watching I could not stop. The Godfather comparison is interesting. Beth will always be my favorite character. I enjoyed 1883. I am on the fence about 1923. It does make for good TV. Thanks for sharing your memories of Sheridan.