There is a local legend that when the famed character and West Fulton resident John McGiver read the script for 1969's Midnight Cowboy, he tossed it in the trash, apparently uninterested in the opportunity to play Mr. O'Daniel. According to the story, when his wife asked him what it was, he dismissed it as something he didn't want to do. She lifted it from the garbage and reminded him he had mouths to feed, so he'd better take the job. The anecdote of McGiver's reaction to the script for Midnight Cowboy is likely untrue (more on that later). Still, it is conceivable that the seasoned actor, whose career began in earnest in the mid-1950s within a well-oiled studio system working under the strict censorship guidelines of the Hays Code and the threat of McCarthyism, would not have understood how the script that just crossed his desk could have the possibility of success. But by the late 1960s, the Hollywood McGiver knew had become confused and out of touch with the counter-culture, the Hays Code was gone, and McCarthy's influence had thankfully come to an end. McGiver, like many others involved, would be forgiven for not yet understanding the New Hollywood.
When British director John Schlesinger brought the idea of adapting James Leo Herlihy's 1965 novel to United Artists and producer Jerome Hellman, it could not have been made. The Hays Code was still in place (although dying a slow death), and as film historian and journalist Mark Harris points out in his essay about Midnight Cowboy, an argument was ongoing at Warner Bros. about exactly what the acceptable number of times "goddamn" could be used in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? — hardly a welcoming environment for a film about down-and-out hustlers and male sex workers on the fringes of New York City. But things were on the cusp of change, and to his credit, Schlesinger, a rare-for-the-time openly gay filmmaker, on the heels of an Oscar nomination for 1965's Darling, gambled that the writing was on the wall, and along with Hellman, committed to bringing Midnight Cowboy to life.
The radical shift that occurred in the late 1960s in Hollywood is a well-documented phenomenon (for a deeper dive, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood and Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood are revered explorations of the subject). In a nutshell, Hollywood studio heads were out of touch and confused by the counter-culture. Like many of their generation, they could not understand the youth of the 1960s, which meant they could not sell to this new audience. Easy Rider, an independently produced film that was a success without traditional studio backing (Columbia Pictures distributed the film but had no role or say in its creation), did its part to briefly upend the entire business model—the studios now needed the artists more than the artists needed the studios. The implication was that if studios wanted a hit (wanted their money), they would have to loosen the reins and allow a new generation of filmmakers, writers, and actors to run wild. The world had cracked open, and the studios' walls were not strong enough to withstand the tectonic shifts of the late 1960s.
Schlesinger hired the wonderfully named Waldo Salt to create a screenplay for Midnight Cowboy while he worked on another film (1967's Far from the Madding Crowd). Salt had been blacklisted in 1951 for refusing to testify before McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities and, like many other screenwriters, had struggled to find work ever since. By 1968, the Hays Code was officially gone, and that Spring, filming for Midnight Cowboy began. Their gamble had paid off, and the door was open for Schlesinger's film. (Salt would go on to win an Academy Award for Midnight Cowboy. Take that, McCarthy.)
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) replaced the Hays Code with an internal rating system in 1968, a self-regulatory effort designed by MPAA president Jack Valenti to ward off external censorship. When Midnight Cowboy opened in May 1969, the rating system had four ratings: G, M (for "mature audiences"), R, and X. For years the legend had been that the MPAA gave the film an R rating, but after consulting a psychologist, who cited a "homosexual frame of reference" and its "possible influence on youngsters" they changed the rating to an X (homosexuality was still officially considered a mental illness in 1969). The story goes that an undaunted United Artists opted to lean into the controversy and slapped an enticing tagline —"Whatever you hear about Midnight Cowboy is true"—on the promotional campaign. It was only after the film won the Academy Award for Best Picture that a cowardly, embarrassed MPAA re-rated it R. But, as Glenn Frankel reveals in his brilliant 2021 book, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic, that legend simply isn't true. In reality, the MPAA had given the film an R rating, noting that it was a provocative yet serious film (at the time, an R rating meant no one under 16 would be admitted). It was United Artists cochairman Arthur Krim who was uneasy with the rating, and after consulting his psychologist acquaintance Aaron Stern, who had regressive views about homosexuality (the quotes about the film are his), self-rated the film an X without consulting anyone else involved. "Since Krim's maneuver was done behind the scenes, most people assumed the ratings board was responsible," writes Frankel. The MPAA did re-rate the film to R after the Academy Awards, when the request came in, because they already had.
Even the Midnight Cowboy's main backdrop, New York City, would have been an unlikely possibility only a few years earlier. In the Spring of 1966, newly elected Mayor John Lindsay signed Executive Order Number 10, establishing The Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting. It may be difficult to imagine now, but the Big Apple had hardly been depicted in film since the early 1930s. There were, of course, exceptions (1951's The Model and the Marriage Broker, another movie with Schoharie County connections, shot scenes in the city). Still, it was rare, and Hollywood sets and California cities served as stand-ins when needed. Lindsay's order changed all of that. By the time filming began for Midnight Cowboy in 1968, the world had bent in its favor. The gritty depiction of a now-extinct Times Square, riddled with peep shows, grifters, and condemned buildings, which Schlesinger captured, could only be utilized and preserved on film (in a Hollywood production) through Lindsay's rather radical proposal.
At its heart, Midnight Cowboy is a buddy movie about two lonely people-pleasers with no healthy way to attain the affirmation they so desire. Jon Voight's Joe Buck looks so lost at times that it's easy to forget that an actor with enough confidence to star in a film is actively portraying him. There's also something comedic about Buck, a naïve rube with the world's worst idea for making it big, wandering the streets of Manhattan in his Western wear. I can't help but think that Will Ferrell walking the streets of the city in Elf upon his arrival owes something to these scenes in Midnight Cowboy. In an example of just how disconnected the studio heads were from the zeitgeist, one producer suggested that Elvis play Joe Buck and sing songs throughout the film. Given Elvis' willingness to be a "narc for Nixon," it's hard to imagine "The King" would have been interested in the role.
Dustin Hoffman was eager to play Enrique "Ratso" Rizzo, but getting the part required unmooring himself from the clean-cut kid image he'd cultivated (or rather, that had been cultivated for him) after the success of The Graduate in 1967. He reportedly told a skeptical United Artists producer to meet him on a street corner to chat. The producer waited but didn't see Hoffman, who had dressed as a vagrant, hovering nearby, asking passersby for change. Hoffman eventually revealed himself to the flabbergasted producer, and the rest is history. Joe Buck and "Ratso" Rizzo remain an iconic and unlikely duo, as two lost souls in need of more humanity than New York's cruel and seedy underbelly could offer.
The story about John McGiver tossing the script in the trash is likely apocryphal. Frankel writes McGiver was among the first actors to sign on and "relished the seediness of the part" of the wild-eyed zealot O'Daniel. But it is entirely understandable why an actor would have balked, not have seen the vision in the script for Midnight Cowboy or even thought the production possible. Few at the time could. Oddly, the McGiver tale seems to align more with one involving Barnard Hughes, who had "deep reservations" about playing Townsend P. Locke in the film. After expressing concern about the impact his portrayal of a rather pathetic closeted gay man might have on his children, his wife, actress Helen Stenborg, told him that turning it down would be foolish, and he ultimately accepted the part. There is no indication that Hughes had thrown the script in the trash, but every good story has its flourish.
