‘Wyatt Earp’ Hero To New Generation

The gun he packed would give Dirty Harry’s oversized weapon a bad case of barrel envy. He spoke softly and always wore a trademark dark hat.

For six years back in America’s black-and-white heyday, actor Hugh O’Brian starred on a hit TV Western that would brand him for life as the lawman character he played.

Even today, nearly 40 years after the show bit the dust, O’Brian is still Wyatt Earp to his aging fans. On Tuesday nights during the late 1950s, my family’s cumbersome RCA television was always tuned to ABC when “Wyatt Earp” came on.

Is there a baby boomer alive who can’t still hum the melody of the show’s catchy theme song?

“Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp.

“Brave, courageous and bold.

“Long live his fame, and long live his glory.

“And long may his story be told.”

Yet to a growing army of teenagers, O’Brian is a hero for a different reason. They know him as the founder of Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY), a volunteer organization that recognizes and develops the leadership potential in high school students.

“What’s really remarkable is that these young people have never seen or even heard of the `Wyatt Earp’ show,” says O’Brian, who visited Gonzaga University on Tuesday to rally his HOBY supporters.

The HOBY story is impressive.

Each year, some 20,000 high school sophomores attend free gatherings. The seminars expose these select students to community leaders and professionals who offer their insights on their areas of expertise.

Having participated on a number of HOBY panels, I can attest that the conversation is frank and sometimes heated. Nothing is sugarcoated, and O’Brian likes it that way.

“I want them to hear the truth. I want them to hear both sides of a question,” O’Brian says.

The idea for HOBY came to him after an inspirational nine-day visit in Africa with humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer in 1958.

The Nobel Prize winner, O’Brian says, was convinced that the United States was the world’s only country with the ability to bring about peace. Schweitzer impressed on the actor that the key to enlightenment was to “teach young people to think for themselves.”

O’Brian says he meditated on those words for much of his 48-hour trip back to America. Gradually, he formulated the principles for what would evolve into a worldwide movement.

More than 280,000 teenagers have gone through the program. HOBY draws participants from 18,000 cities and 62 countries.

But here’s the really impressive part:

HOBY is run completely by volunteers, some 5,000 of them, who invest more than 1 million hours a year. O’Brian is a master at getting others to share his vision. As a result, HOBY’s $3 million annual budget is funded entirely through private-sector donations.

“I knew I was really on to something,” he says. “I just never figured I’d live long enough to see it grow like this.”

O’Brian is heavier than he was during his leading-man days. Even with a hearing aid, he has difficulty following low-volume conversations.

Still, no one would guess that this man will turn 75 in April. He still has rugged good looks, a full head of expertly styled hair and a commanding presence.

“You know what the three stages of life are?” O’Brian sneers with amusement after I tell him how great he looks. “They are Youth, Middle-age and `Hugh, you look great!”’

O’Brian shatters the stereotype of the Hollywood actor as pretentious jerk. A former U.S. Marine drill instructor, he speaks plainly, often tossing in a salty phrase or word to get his point across.

Once while doing a movie with Loretta Young, he discovered that the prim actress didn’t allow swearing on the set. She had a “swear pot” used to store fines she collected from anyone she heard uttering a profanity.

“Damn was a buck. Hell was $3 and anything with God in it was five bucks,” O’Brian says, relishing the story.

Not willing to be bullied, he walked up to her, rattled off a curse-filled sentence and handed her a $20 bill. He instructed her to keep the change as a down payment on future abuses.

O’Brian has 46 movies to his credit. His last big film was “Twins” in 1990, where he played the father of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. In 1994, he reprised his old TV role for a CBS movie of the week, “Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone.”

But the meaty roles don’t come often any more. O’Brian doesn’t care. He spends 70 hours a week on HOBY, traveling often to spread the word.

“A lot of my old friends in show business are bored to death. It’s gotten to the point where they can’t play golf every day so they sit around. If you let that happen, you get old real fast.”

O’Brian, however, wants to go out swinging.

“I’m so grateful that I found the love and the purpose and the passion that this organization has given me,” he says. “And I hope when I do go, I’m still carrying a full pack.”