Wild about the west Actor won’t be buffaloed by his ‘Annie’ role

It’s not easy being Buffalo Bill.

But Chris McDaniel doesn’t mind. For the past seven years, he’s adopted the look of the Wild West legend. Now, in the Troika Entertainment touring production of “Annie Get Your Gun,” set for a sold-out show at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono, McDaniel plays the role of William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a natural for him.

“It’s a real thrill for me to be able to play Buffalo Bill in this show,” said McDaniel, 46, from a tour stop in Youngstown, Ohio. “Looking like this, I’m not able to get cast in a lot of theatrical productions. So it’s good to be able to work on a project as part of a team with the rest of the cast.”

“Annie Get Your Gun” tells the star-crossed love story of sharpshooters Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, who fall in love, squabble, then get back together in true musical fashion, all while performing as stars of Wild West shows.

This production features such classic Irving Berlin songs as “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Anything You Can Do” and “The Girl That I Marry.” But the period piece also showcases a new script by Peter Stone (“Titanic”), which removes such politically insensitive sections of the original book as an antiquated view of American Indians.

McDaniel understands the need to update older musicals such as “Annie Get Your Gun,” originally staged in 1946.

“The new book has some fun things in there, and it’s more acceptable to audiences, since there’s not so many politically incorrect things in it,” he said.

Much of the time, McDaniel takes his one-man Wild West show to county fairs, conventions, variety shows, rodeos and business gatherings. His cowboy skills include trick roping, using bullwhips and quick-draw and fancy gun handling. (Other theater credits include the trick roper in “The Will Rogers Follies” and Andrew Carnes, Ado Annie’s father, in “Oklahoma.”)

Even though he was born in Louisiana and grew up in that state and Texas, the actor and singer actually came into his cowboy skills later in life.

His day job is as a sound engineer in Nashville and about a decade ago, he was working for the Gatlin Brothers. Larry Gatlin was chosen to take over the role of Will Rogers in “Follies,” and he needed to learn how to trick rope. He invited McDaniel to come along and “I discovered a passion I never knew I had.”

McDaniel went to a Wild West Arts Club convention, and learned how to use a bullwhip. He’d been shooting since his youth, so picking up how to quick draw and spin guns was a normal progression.

He developed his own one-man Wild West show, mounting it for three years at Opryland in Nashville before going on the road. A rodeo promoter asked if he would grow his hair, mustache and beard for a Buffalo Bill tribute, and “the look stuck,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel gets to use all his skills in “Annie Get Your Gun.”

“It’s to give the flavor of the Wild West show,” he said. “Buffalo Bill didn’t actually use those skills, but he had people who did.”

McDaniel, a Wild West fan since his high school years, has done quite a lot of research on Buffalo Bill. For example, he points out that while Cody is seen as the producer in “Annie Get Your Gun.” In reality he was the star of his Wild West show.

“I’ve gone back and read several books, including his autobiography, to get the feel of who he was, of what kind of guy he was,” he said. “I play Bill as a real character, not as a caricature.”

McDaniel credits Cody’s Wild West shows for America’s fascination with cowboys in books, film and TV.

“Buffalo Bill was responsible for the view of the cowboy as an all-American hero,” he said. “Before those shows, the cowboy was seen as a common laborer.”

Still, it’s difficult to get an accurate picture of who Buffalo Bill was.

“Truth and fiction have kind of merged and it’s hard to tell one from the other,” McDaniel said. “In his autobiography, he certainly embellished his story. Also dime novels by Ned Buntline caused him to become a legend while he was still in his 30s, but they were largely fictionalized.”

Overall, history has painted a kind portrait of Cody.

“On her deathbed, Annie Oakley said he was the most charming man she’d ever met and that he was at home in a teepee as in a mansion with kings and queens,” McDaniel concluded. “He was a very generous man. He fought in the Indian wars, yet he included Indians in his Wild West shows, and he treated everyone very well. I have a real affection for the man.”