HOLLYWOOD: Brooklyn Cowboy

When the overdressed Pontiac convertible pulled up to the studio gate one morning last week, the guard waved it in without a moment’s hesitation. Philippine water-buffalo horns, 30 inches wide, arced away from the radiator; door handles, gearshift and fender ornaments were all pearl-handled Colt six-shooters, and silver-plated rifles were mounted on the trunk lid. Chromed horse heads studded the I dashboard, and the bucket seats were up holstered in the soft white leather of unborn calf. The chunky, grey-thatched driver was dressed to match. Inside the lot, he braked to a stop, grabbed an armful of fancy jeans, vests and jackets from the back seat, and bustled busily into the dressing room of TV’s Scott (Slingshot Slade) Brady. “Nudie,” self-made giant of the western clothing trade, was merely delivering the goods.

Peanut Eater. The personal attention he gives his customers helps Nudie gross $300,000 a year with his high-class ranch wear. Not only does he dress 80% of all movie and TV western stars; he also rakes in three-quarters of the other tailor-made western clothing business in the U.S. Says he: “This is a far cry from P.S. 156 in Brooklyn.” It is so far that Nudie, now 56, is the only person who remembers his real name. Whatever it is, he guards it fanatically. He is Nudie, even on his checks.

Once, he admits, he was “Battling Nudie,” but in those days, in his early teens, he was a boxer of small talents, fighting for as little as a dollar a bout. He learned the rudiments of tailoring in a cousin’s shop, then headed West and worked as an extra in Wallace Reid pictures. “Every scene had to have a bunch of people in the background eating peanuts,” he remembers. “I was hired as a peanut eater.” When the peanuts palled, Nudie bummed his way back to Manhattan and went into Specialty Costumes (“What that means is that I was in the G-string business”).

At first, everything Nudie did lost money. After he married a girl from Mankato, Minn., he tried the dry-cleaning business and went broke again. Back in Los Angeles, he opened a small tailor shop and was almost starving when he offered to make some uniforms for Tex Williams’ cowboy band. Then Tex went on the radio coast to coast and gave Nudie a plug, and the little tailor was on his way to his first ulcer and his first $100,000.

Best Customer. With Nudie setting the styles, movie cowboys moved out of pinched jackets and cornball jeans; the drape shape took over. When the Ivy League look came along, Nudie’s customers got that too: “everything slim jim.” Then TV arrived to give Nudie’s business a real bulge. Wagon Train, Roy Rogers, Annie Oakley, Wyatt Earp and almost all the electronic range riders bought his clothes. Still, he complains, it could have been better. “They wear the same damn clothes for 39 shows.”

To achieve authenticity, Nudie has been forced to cut “gambler-stripe” pants from upholstery material, flowered vests from drapery material. In the back of his own shop on Hollywood’s Victory Boulevard, he often works side-by-side with his ten Mexican tailors, his leatherworker and his bootmaker. Last week, when Actor Brady came to the store for a second fitting, Nudie was there to take care of the TV cowboy himself. “Get the sag out of my fanny, will you, Nudie?” said Brady. The tailor nodded. Brady took a second look. “Only an idiot,” he pronounced, “would wear clothes like these.” Nudie looked hurt; his own best customer, he always wears cowboy suits himself.