bob dylan and sam peckinpah, as told by rudy wurlitzer

Bob Dylan came to see me and said, "you know I think I was the reincarnation of Billy the Kid". And I said, "really? That’s interesting". And he said, y"eah. Is there any way I can be in that film"? So I called the producer and I said, "listen, Bob Dylan wants to be in the film" and I wrote him a part really off the cuff. Then I took Dylan down to Durango to meet Peckinpah. It was night when Dylan and I got off the plane and we caught a cab to the house Sam had outside of town. When we got there, there was a shot, and this maid ran out of the house screaming. Dylan was freaked! So I thought, oh man, we’re going to blow the whole thing. We went up to the house, opened the door and it was all dark, just a light upstairs. So I called, "Sam, are you up there? Anyone up there? What’s going on?" No answer. We crept up the stairs and Dylan was behind me — we go down the hall where Sam’s bedroom was, I slowly opened the door and Peckinpah is standing in front of a full length mirror completely naked. He has a pistol in his hand and he had shot his own image in the full length mirror. I turned to Sam, and I said, "Sam, I don’t know if you know it, but this is Bob Dylan, he’s going to be in the film, I wrote him a part." Sam paused and turned to Dylan and said, "I’m a big Roger Miller fan myself." -- Rudy Wurlitzer