The story was first published in July of last year after Sam was done with "A Star is Born." He's starring in "1883," a sequel to "Yellowstone," which is streaming on Paramount+.
The deep, sonorous drawl that is addictive to the ears can make women melt and make men wish they had just half his machismo.
His voice tickled the audience in the 1998 Coen Brothers film "The Big Lebowski" with lines such as: "Well, a wise man than myself once said, " Sometimes you eat the b'ar, and sometimes the b'ar, well, he eats you."
You know the voice from the ads.
Sam and his wife of 33 years, Oscar-nominated actress Katharine Ross, are not talking about their film and television careers, which are hotter than ever.
He is sitting on the patio of Starbucks at Delta Highway and Green Acres Road in Eugene talking about what he is going to do later that day, and he is not looking forward to it. I like Jerry's. It was not as easy as it was to move around town after Jerry's.
Not when you are starring in two shows on the internet and you are getting some Oscar buzz for your film. Not when you are starring with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in the remake of A Star is Born. Not when you are expected to star in a movie called "The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot."
Sam and Ginger pose for a photo outside of a coffee shop.
The man who has the world's greatest living mustache, according to David Fear, is starting to talk about how "it's insane", all of this work coming so late in his career, when a stranger, Ginger Balazs, suddenly walks up and wants him. You look like my husband. I have to show you a picture of him.
Elliott kindly says no. I don't want to look at a picture. We are in the middle of an interview.
Delores Wilson, a co-worker of Balazs at Columbia Bank, is a big fan of the Neflix sitcom "The Ranch", which features a Colorado family that is also stars a man and a woman, and she wants to take a photo with him.
When it happens again and again over the course of a couple of hours, both women apologize, and as he does when it happens again and again over the course of a couple of hours, he takes a selfies with each of them before they return to work at the bank next door to Starbucks
A national treasure.
A 93-minute film made in just 18 days for only $1.2 million in Los Angeles has been playing at the Broadway Metro in Eugene since June 30. It is a rare leading-man role for the man, who is known mostly for playing cowboys in westerns, but he is also an aging actor with a golden voice who is diagnosed with cancer and is trying to figure out what to do about it.
The similarities between the two are not random. After working together on "I'll See You in My Dreams", Haley wrote a script for Elliott.
Some of the best reviews of his career are coming from the role.
The New York Times and Rolling Stone both used the term "national treasure" in describing the performance of Elliott.
That is a scary thought, says Elliott.
He is also getting some early Oscar consideration.
Rolling Stone wants Sam Elliott to win the Oscar.
Sam is an Oscar Worthy in The Hero.
The best actor prediction for the Oscars.
Sam was in Eugene to visit a coffee shop.
The latter website lists five actors that are front-runners for the best actor Oscar, including Daniel Day-Lewis and Tom Hanks.
Eight months before the Academy Awards,Elliott doesn't put much stock in reviews or Oscar predictions.
You have no control over that, he says. I don't know.
It would mean a lot to him to be sitting next to Ross, who was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in "The Hero" fifty years ago. I wouldn't pooh-pooh that. I think there is a lot of solicitation and maybe some politics in it.
The reward is if people go see the movie. The reward is in the making of the film and the work.
Eugene paid a visit to Sam, who calls Brownsville home for part of the year.
Texas has roots.
Samuel Pack Elliott was born in 1944 to Nelson and Glynn Elliott, who later taught at Reynolds High School. Glenda lives in Southern California.
Their parents were born in Texas, where the family's roots go back generations and one great-great-great-grandfather served as a surgeon during the Texas Revolution in 1835-36.
After his father was transferred, the family moved to Portland. Young Sam was a freshman at Madison High School and a senior at David Douglas High School. A top prep hurdler in the state,Elliott was hoping to become one of the legendary UO track and field coach Bill Bowerman's " Men of Oregon."
I had visions of being a man of Oregon but I wasn't academically inclined and didn't have what it took. I messed around and got kicked out.
He only lasted two terms.
After leaving the UO, he went to Clark College in Washington where he ran both the 120-yard high hurdles and the 360-yard intermediate hurdles.
He re-enrolled at the UO in 1965, and is still hoping to get a four-year degree. Academics were not his thing.
His father died of a heart attack at the age of 54.
That killed me.
His mother died in Portland in 2012 at the age of 96. The family home is in northeast Portland.
NelsonElliott told his son that his chances of landing on the big screen were not realistic because he never graduated from college himself.
He told me that I had a snowball's chance of having a career in Hollywood. My dad was a realist.
He was a hard worker. He had a work ethic that I have fashioned after, and I thank him for that every day.
In the late 1960s, Sam was signed as a contract player by 20th Century Fox after moving to Los Angeles.
His first role was on the TV cop drama "Felony Squad". He got his first film role in 1969 as Card Player No. 2, which was also starred Ross, although they would not begin dating until 1978 when they starred in the horror film The Legacy.
Sam and Sophia pose for a photo outside of a coffee shop.
There is a person seen in Eugene.
In the mid 1990s, Ross and Elliott purchased a 200 acres in Linn County.
They are only here for a short time each year and will return this week to their seaside home in Malibu, which they have owned since the 1970s. Someday they hope to live in Oregon all the time.
At some point, that is the dream, according to Elliott. I have always loved the valley.
He buys his groceries at Market of Choice, steaks at Long's Meat Market, and gardening supplies at Down to Earth, all in Eugene, and he is just one of us.
David Cothern, who works in the Down to Earth nursery, says that he is the greatest guy. It was easy and personable. What a better world it would be if all of Hollywood were like that.
And when he wants fish and chips? He goes to Newman's Fish Company.
He says he has eaten at Newman's three times this week.
If you keep your eyes open, you might even see him at Saturday Market. On July 1 he was there with his daughter.
I covered my head and had a ball.
Covered your head?
He says a stocking cap.
In July?
I looked just as weird as the rest of them. I like the Saturday Market.
Mark Baker can be reached at markbakera@comcast.net.
This article was originally published on Register-Guard, where it was written by Oregon's Sam Elliott.
