Cross & Crescent

Powers Boothe’s (Texas State-San Marcos 1970) decision to attend Texas State-San Marcos (at the time called Southwest Texas State College) was pretty simple.

“Well I’d like to tell you that there was some great and long searching process, but there wasn’t,” he says. “As you recall we had this ‘little’ thing going on then called the war in Vietnam.”

Born and raised on a farm in Snyder, Texas, Boothe was very fortunate to be able to make the easy choice to enroll in college instead of the military.

Because his small hometown was so close-knit, several of his classmates also decided to attend Texas State and to join Lambda Chi Alpha.

Budding Young Actor

Boothe says he never sought out to become an actor. He did a few plays in high school and then got involved with the theater department at Texas State, but he initially planned on becoming a teacher.

One summer in college he performed in summer stock and there were a couple of people there from Southern Methodist University who suggested he apply to the school’s graduate theater program.

“They had a great program there,” he says. “It was a very, very talented group of students. We’ve had out of that bunch Academy Award winners, Emmy winners, Tony winners, and Pulitzer Prize winners.”

After earning his master’s degree, Boothe spent the next 10 years working in theater, playing different roles from Shakespeare and eventually making it all the way to Broadway in New York City, New York.

Emmy-Winning Role

Only a few years after making his Broadway debut, Boothe moved to Los Angeles, California, and soon landed the role that would launch his Hollywood career.

In 1980, Boothe unexpectedly won an Emmy for his portrayal of crazed cult leader Jim Jones in the CBS TV movie “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones.”

Boothe says he approached his role of playing Jones like it was another role in repertoire theater.

“I made no judgments about the guy until afterwards,” he says. “Fortunately, there was a lot of documentary footage on him so I could watch all of that. And I had a really good cast to work with and that was very helpful.”

When he won the Emmy he beat out some very stiff competition that included Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, and Tony Curtis.

“For a kid from a farm in West Texas, New York and L.A. seemed like going to the moon,” he says. “And to come out here (Hollywood) and do a project and be recognized by your peers and be nominated, much less winning, was pretty amazing.”

Love of Westerns

Boothe has played a wide range of characters in TV and film since his Emmy-winning performance but he particularly has enjoyed his role in Westerns.

“I’m a huge Western fan,” he says. “I grew up in Texas, for goodness sake. I’m a John Ford freak. I love all those movies.”

His performance as Curly Bill Brocius in the 1993 hit movie “Tombstone” gave Boothe a great opportunity to leverage his Texas roots.

Tombstone was his first opportunity to do “a real, full out, bona-fide Western,” he says. “One of the interesting things about that, among many, was that it was a very large cast, lots of principals.”

In addition to Boothe, the movie starred Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Bill Paxton, Sam Elliott, Thomas Haden Church, Charlton Heston, and many others.

“Everybody involved cut their money to do it because they just loved the script,” he says. “There was some trouble getting it made. We were shooting into it about two weeks and they fired the director, who was also the writer.”

‘Deadwood’ Ending

About another 10 years after “Tombstone,” Boothe was approached to play a feature role as brothel-owner Cy Tolliver on the HBO series “Deadwood.”

Created by David Milch (who also created “NYPD Blue”), “Deadwood” quickly became one of most critically acclaimed dramas on television, winning multiple Emmys and Golden Globes between 2004 and 2006.

Unfortunately, after three successful seasons, HBO canceled the show, much to Boothe’s surprise.

“It was stunning to us all because we finished our third season — and it wasn’t a matter of negotiating a fourth season — they had already said we were going to do that. They were negotiating our fifth season,” he says.

The series had all the necessary ingredients required to be successful: critical success, good ratings, and great foreign and DVD sales.

At this point, one possible option may be to make one or two TV movies to allow for “Deadwood” to have an official ending.

“I would love to do that because I think the audience deserves it,” he says. “But unfortunately the way things are…the longer they wait, the more difficult that becomes because people get other jobs.”

Surprise Star of ‘24′

This past season, Boothe played Vice President Noah Daniels on the sixth season of the Fox Network’s smash hit “24.”

The award-winning show was created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran in 2001, and it is set in a fictional anti-terrorism unit.

In this season’s show, Boothe’s character assumes the presidency when the president is injured in a bomb explosion and the United States is being threatened by terrorists.

“I certainly enjoyed this year,” he says. “It came as a bit of a surprise to me. We had been told that ‘Deadwood’ wasn’t coming back and a couple weeks after that, I got a call from (Fox) and they asked me to come in and discuss a part.”

A big fan of “24,” Boothe thought the role created for him was a good fit.

“It came easily in that I’m sort of politically astute,” he says. “No matter whether I like the president or not, I like the presidency.”

The plot for next season is still in development so Boothe is not sure yet if his character will return, but he remains hopeful.

Lambda Chi’s Influence

When Boothe arrived at Texas State and shortly thereafter joined Lambda Chi Alpha, he knew he had made the right decision.

“It was wonderful for me,” he says. “It was a great experience. It certainly enriched my college life. It was my family away from home. I can’t imagine what undergraduate school would have been without it.”

During his Lambda Chi days, Boothe served as the ritualist and he says he definitely understood the importance of this role.

“I took it quite seriously,” he says. “It meant a lot to me when I went through it when I was initiated. And I wanted it to be something the new initiates would remember and respected. And that would kind of unify us all.”

At the time, his chapter also became the first fraternity to have a chapter house. They set the standard that ultimately allowed other fraternities to have houses.

Boothe says this challenge of obtaining a chapter house was a prime example of how the brothers came together to achieve a common goal.

“I know I would not have had as successful a life there socially or academically or anything else without the Fraternity,” he says. “We took care of one another and challenged one another, whether it was intramurals or charity events or to make grades.”