The Legacy of Junior Bonner and the Summer of 1971
B y Stuart Rosebrook
Fifty years ago, the city of Prescott welcomed a Hollywood film crew and helped make a Western classic.
Over Labor Day weekend in September 1970, screenwriter Jeb Rosebrook received a call from his agent Mike Wise. “Robert Redford wants a rodeo story. Do you have one?” Wise asked. Little did the agent know that his North Hollywood-based writer had just written a first draft of “Bonner,” a short story about an aging rodeo star whose career, family and hometown are all on the line. Wise also didn’t know “Bonner” was a highly personal tale about my father’s adopted hometown. Rosebrook had found his inspiration for “Bonner” after a short visit back to Prescott on July 4th for the 1970 World’s Oldest Rodeo. Little did anyone know the short story would change the fate of so many, so quickly-especially our family.
My father, who first came to Prescott as a nine-year-old boarding student to attend fourth grade at the Orme School in 1945, had not been to Prescott since 1955, and the changes he witnessed while driving into the historic Yavapai County seat from Cordes Junction…