in his autobiography he tells of how he became the superb horseman that made his career in movies: he had never been on a horse but saw an ad on the bulletin board at the Union for somebody to exercise the polo team's ponies, applied for it, got it and spent every afternoon riding very good horses. Go back and look at The Magnificent Seven and watch his work on the horse: he did his own jumps and looked magnificent on horseback,. He went to UT because it had the lowest tuition of any good university in the country and he was a poor Jewish kid from New York. John and Nellie Connally were fellow members of the Curtain Club at UT when he was there.
I feel bad. I thought he was a great actor, but I'd have never guessed he was from New York, Jewish and a UT grad. He played the bandito so well I thought he was Hispanic.
There are two kinds of people in the world my friend, those who like Eli Wallach and those...don't want to talk about them. Did you see The Holiday? He was great in that movie. I recommend it.