Call
Her Anything but a Cowgirl
It
sits almost hidden from the busy traffic that crosses Highway 246. With its
overgrown foliage and gravel driveway leading to the back yard, the out-of-date
white house is easy to miss. Time stands still here. Birds fly in and out of
the tree holes they’ve made home. The lush and gracefully aging lot juxtaposes
the speeding cars and larger-than-life Casino just two minutes away. It’s a
remnant of a period when the Valley was sparsely lit with such homes; long-gone
but never forgotten.
The
2000 Power Stroke ford pick-up truck is parked in a make shift driveway. The
truck is the only reminder that it is the year 2007. The door opens and she
steps down first and then out. With a slight limp she approaches.
“Hello.
I’m Bev,” she says, “Nice to finally meet you.”
Named
after the glamorous metropolitan Los Angeles area Beverly Hills, Bev Chandler
Walter is an old-timing cowboy who is still tending the fence.
“Don’t
call me no cowgirl,” she says. “I’m a cowboy. Cowgirls are all frills and don’t
do a thing. I have a friend who once said to me ‘them’s pretty and I aint
pretty.’”
Her
two dogs, 2-year-old Zack and 9-year-old Chalk race to the sound of the unfamiliar voices and jump into the
bed of the pick-up as Bev tells of
some of her most enjoyable times spent during the two plus decades as a
Valley resident.
“My
best time was spent amongst the branding parties,” she says. “All the ranchers
would get together and brand the young calves.”
“I
remember the Valley used to be one of the best cattle ranges and feeds around.
Then they found that grapes could grow and thrive here.”
Bev
has always been a tomboy. She is the seventh of nine children born to George
and Connie Chandler, with two sisters and six brothers.
“Most
of them are all gone now,” Bev says. “I was an oops, [but] I had five older
brothers to sit in the laps of and climb trees with. They were like gods to
me.”
Bev
grew up in Orange County and always intended to be a cowboy. WWII made sure her
career swung in full force.
“Since
all the boys were drafted into the army, I was the one doing all the work,” she
says. “I’ve done man work all my life.”
After
marrying her husband Albert Walter in 1977 Bev and her husband moved to Santa
Ynez in 1982. They bought and managed a ranch but was victim to three arson set
fires.
“We
lost everything,” Bev says. “I’ve even got pictures of burned cattle that will
make your stomach turn.”
After
Walter died in 1991, Bev threw herself into her acting career. She has stared
in various motion pictures and commercials including “Of Mice and Men” and Bank
of America commercials, and she keeps moving forward.
Right
now westerns are really taking off and she is considering leaving the Valley to
follow her desire to act.
Wherever
she goes, her horsemanship and cowboy legacy will be sure to follow.
“They
don’t make ‘em like me anymore,” she says. “I must have inherited being a great
horseman from my grandfather.”