Memoirs of a Spaghetti Cowboy

Tom Hunter has made movies in some of the world's most dangerous places. This lively, unpredictable memoir chronicles his life in film. But Hunter also tells of being a two-year-old runaway, a teenager who loses his virginity and meets Senator Joe McCarthy the same weekend, a Marine Corps office, a top Ford model and a stage actor cast - and fired - by Edward Albee. Hunter's adventures, recounted in fascinating details and with suspense and humor, include writing and packaging "The Final Countdown," with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen ... and somehow surviving ten years of la dolce vita in Rome

"Memoirs of a Spaghetti Cowboy" chronicles Tom Hunter’s lifelong attempts to balance a passion for the arts with the demands of the real world. After growing up in Savannah, Georgia, he went on to travel the world as an actor, starring in spaghetti westerns for Dino deLaurentiis and co-starring in over a dozen more movies. The book serves up behind-the scenes glimpses at people that Hunter worked with over the years, among them Clint Eastwood, Robert Mitchum, Jack Palance, Uta Hagen, Burt Reynolds, Kirk Douglas, Johnny Mercer, Ava Gardner, even O.J. Simpson, and many more. In this book, Hunter also reflects on his writing career. The Human Factor, his first screenplay, was shot in Naples and starred Academy Award winner George Kennedy. Ted Koppel commended it on national television as the first film ever about terrorism against Americans living abroad. Not long after, Hunter found himself holding a squirming toddler named Charlie Sheen on his knee, while discussing Charlie’s dad Martin’s starring role in Hunter’s second screenplay, The Final Countdown