Bob Hudgins rarely saw action as an Army soldier patrolling the Czech border in the late 1970s. But when he returned to the U.S., his first job required him to be shot and killed eight times a day.
Hudgins, who as assistant managing director at the Illinois Film Office scouts locations for such films as “Field of Dreams” and “Groundhog Day,” used to play gunfighter at Six Flags in Oklahoma City.
“There were six of us and we’d rotate through all the parts–the sheriff, the good guys, the bad guys,” he says. Hudgins, a theater major at Oklahoma State University, had a beard and long hair, so he usually played a bad guy.
“We’d shoot blanks at each other and with eight shows a day, I’d die eight times. Sometimes I’d take a fall from a building; to this day, I still have a bad back.” There were other drawbacks. “We used to wear full regalia–heavy chaps, hats, the leather. We sweated like pigs. Those were clothes you didn’t even bother washing, you just threw them away.”
