THE COWBOY AND HIS ELEPHANT

The elephant that escapes the cull is called the Storyteller.
She tells the other elephants of the good and evil that men have done to her and her kind, and holds these truths in her heart forever.  And in the end, in summing up, her story is taken into account.  She is ancient and wise and sublime, and her words weigh heavily in the final ledger.

On a spring day in 1965, men from Chicago's Leo Burnett Advertising Agency arrived on Bob Norris' ranch to scope it out as a backdrop for a series of still photos that the agency was shooting for Marlboro, a campaign to sell their filtered women's cigarette to a generation of men.

Bob watched from a distance as the cowboy model took his duds out of the trunk and prepared to change.  He had a bright, new neckerchief and new jeans, a shirt with ironed creases, and shined boots.  Riding nearer, Bob saw the model's complexion was strictly indoor.  He carried a little suitcase for makeup that he applied with a brush.

Neal McBain of the ad agency saw how painfully obvious it was the model was a fake cowboy.  He realized that no makeup or costuming could create the real cowboy's look - the lines from years of the sun and wind, the well-worn clothes, the layer of dust.  He looked over at Bob:  "You're already dirty, Mr. Norris.  Let's use you instead.  What do you say?"

Over the course of the day hundreds of photos were taken of Bob on his horse Buck.  Several months later, an ad appeared on the back of Life Magazine - a picture of Bob and Buck welcoming people to Marlboro Country.

Over the next twelve years, Marlboro paid Bob pretty much to be himself.  In the commercials, he rescued stranded calves, worked the cows, rode his horse through snow, roped wild horses, and stopped to give his horse a drink by picturesque waterfalls and streams.  He was the American cowpoke in the minds of a million magazine readers and TV viewers.

THE COWBOY AND HIS ELEPHANT brings together this American icon and a orphaned African elephant in a true story that is a celebration of the unique friendship between two species, with roots that run deep in the values and traditions of the American West.

To learn more about Bob Norris and his orphaned elephant, click here