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“Yellowstone” spoilers follow.
If you just watched the “Yellowstone” mid-Season 8 premiere, I’m going to guess this is not the first article you looked up. Kevin Costner’s John Dutton III is dead, and a war is about to break out. With this in mind, here’s hoping Taylor Sheridan can deliver the bloody calamity with the fierceness “Game of Thrones” couldn’t muster up with the anticlimactic Battle of Winterfell. Time will tell, and y’all will no doubt be tuning in to see the iron-packing action.
While you wait for the mayhem to kick up, you might need some questions answered in the wake of the eventful premiere. One of those could very well be “Who is Billy Ray Klapper?” There was a title card dedicating the episode to him, which puzzled viewers who didn’t know him as a member of the cast. Additionally, he wasn’t a member of the crew, nor did he have a litany of credits on IMDb. He was just a character in this particular episode.
So, really, who is Billy Ray Klapper?
The man who spurred on a loving Yellowstone dedication
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The man Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) drops by to see in the mid-season premiere was the actual Billy Ray Klapper, and if you know from cowboying that name should carry a good deal of weight. Before he died last September, Klapper was one of the most celebrated forgers of spurs and bits in the entire world. One of his biggest fans was Taylor Sheridan, whose Four Sixes ranch is adorned with an assortment of Klapper’s distinctive one-piece spurs (which are extraordinarily rare given that, according to the National Ranching Heritage Center, he only made 783 pairs over 55 years).
The scene in question is a love letter to Klapper, and concludes with the great craftsman giving Rip a pair to wear for himself. If Sheridan’s goal was to put Klapper on the show’s fans’ radar, he succeeded tremendously — though they’ll need deep pockets if they want a pair of their own.
You’d think other Western filmmakers would’ve gotten around to honoring Klapper in such a fashion over the years, but according to the IMDb this was his only on-screen appearance. He doesn’t even have so much as another special thanks credit to his name. So this was likely the last chance anyone would have to pay tribute to the man, and it’s a shame that he wasn’t alive to see it. But somewhere at that big Bar-T in the sky, I’d like to think Klapper knows and is grateful for the love.
Now let’s get back to fighting over John Dutton’s death!