Urban Cowboy - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Urban Cowboy or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Urban Cowboy

[liam]

John Travolta said of this movie in the film's publicity: "Today, half the country would like to be a cowboy, while the other half would like to look like one". Of the movie, Travolta added that it was (to date at the time) " . . . my most physical movie. That thing was brutal and hard on the body. I was trained by super stuntman Chris Howell and he taught me how to hang on and hang in there. To master it, finally, was a great feeling".

[bessie]

Mickey Gilley: As himself.

[ella]

Gary Busey, fresh off of his Oscar nomination in the Buddy Holly Story, revealed in his memoirs that he was offered the lead role of Bud as his next project. After considering it, he turned it down on the advise of his agent to do Foolin' Around instead, where his payday was to be much higher. He later regretted his decision, wishing he went with his initial intent to pick Urban Cowboy instead.

[jeffrey]

The soundtrack album was a major hit. It sold several million copies and featured the hit tunes "Looking for Love", "Can I Have This Dance?" and "All Night Long".

[addison]

Writer and Director James Bridges said of this movie for its publicity: "The film is a real look at the lifestyle of a mechanized West and the need for fantasy by those in contemporary society who work daily in dangerous jobs. In the saloon they go to at night after work, these men create another reality for themselves, almost a small town where they live the cowboy myth."

[ronnie]

This movie was adapted into a Broadway stage production of the same name in 2003, where it played for sixty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre opening on February 28, and closing on May 18.

[nora]

Johnny Lee: As himself.

[carl]

John Travolta had a mechanical bull installed in his house two months before production began. He became so good that he was allowed to dismiss the stunt double and do the takes himself.

[amber]

Sissy Spacek and Michelle Pfeiffer were amongst the actresses considered for the role of "Sissy".

[bryan]

The interior of the "Gilley's Club" country-and-western venue was ravaged by fire in 1990, with the bar closing down after a dispute between its owners. In 2006, the exterior shell of the facility was demolished by its owners, the Pasadena Independent School District. Reportedly, only the old sound-recording studio remains which is located on the Spencer Highway. A new "Gilley's Club" opened in Dallas, Texas in 2003 and is now known as "Gilley's Dallas".

[caroline]

The film's "Urban Cowboy" title is a real-life expression used in popular speech. The Allwords Dictionary define the term as a "person living in the city that dresses in Western-style clothes". They state that the phrase's etymology has it derived from its use in this movie.

[bryan]

At the end of the movie, villain Scott Glenn attempts to steal from the bar managed by James Gammon. And a few years later in the movie Silverado, Scott Glenn would steal from Gammon again: although Glenn played the good guy stealing back loot that Gammon's gang stole from a wagon train.

[amber]

After initial box-office returns were surprisingly low, a newspaper poll was taken in the summer of 1980 to figure out why teenagers were not flocking to see the film. One of the main complaints from kids was that they did not know what the word Urban meant.

[manuel]

Product placements and promotional tie-ins included Stetson hats, Budweiser beer, Coors ale, and Lone Star beer.

[brent]

In the early scenes of the movie, John Travolta as Bud sports a beard. According to Director James Bridges, Travolta wanted to keep the beard throughout the film but, after a lunch-date with the actor in a very popular restaurant failed to attract even one autograph-seeker, Travolta was convinced to shave it off.

[brent]

In an interview with Scott Glenn (Wes Hightower), he stated that he had a bit of an attitude problem back then and would refuse to audition for roles. The producers wanted him to audition and Scott would have none of it; It's unknown how Scott orchestrated this exactly, but he arranged to be at Gilley's when the producers were there; and in character and in costume, and in front of the producers, he approached the biggest, roughest looking guy at the bar and told him, "you're sitting in my seat and you need to leave immediately" (loose paraphrase); luckily, according to Scott, the guy got up and left the bar stool; thus Scott was hired on the spot as Wes Hightower.

[frederick]

The name of the Esquire Magazine article by Aaron Latham that inspired the film was "The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy".

[chad]

Rene Russo screentested for the female lead.

[ronnie]

Immediately upon completing the editing of The China Syndrome (1979), Writer and Director James Bridges began writing "The Urban Cowboy", whose final title would be Urban Cowboy (1980), which Bridges directed on location in Houston, Texas.