At one 'shoot' celebrities killed thirteen deer and one elk ('hardly a bloodbath', said an organiser) but the vocal local uproar was heard all the way down in publicly fur-coat free Hollywood . 'It's completely silly', Russell says of his critics asking:' What's the difference? I can't imagine why this happens. I think as long as they don't have pictures of you strangling your children everything is OK.' So, far there has only been the opposite of that. Even the five dogs and two cats have the run of their ranch at Old Snowmass fifteen Rocky Mountain miles away from the more fashionable -- and crowed -- Aspen. The actress who we first me as all jiggle and graffiti on 'Laugh-In' and then went through a remarkable metamorphis to become one of Hollywood's leading ladies and producers has a vegetable garden with lettuce, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower and spinach. 'She cans some of it herself,' says her mate proudly and that's maybe where he gets his Popeye-style action man moves. He certainly sounds spinach-bound:' I'm the boss at home while Goldie provides the feminine, maternal touch. I'm the chief authoritarian and father figure.' They've played house a long time without the benefit of a preacher man:' I'm just a normal person and so is Goldie. I have no corner on the market when it comes to relationships but it's certainly nice to want to be together as opposed to just staying together. Marriage? Why? Once in a while the kids harp on about it but it's not something we think about every day. When I was working with Michelle Pfeiffer ( 'Tequila Sunrise') she said:' You're probably the most married man I know. And that's probably right.' He would have been happy living full-time in Colorado and commuting to Hollywood but Goldie and the children -- her son Oliver,19, and Katie,18, by second husband Bill Hudson, his son Boston ,16, by former wife actress Season Hubley, and their son Wyatt, ten -- wanted to be closer to 'civilisation' at times. 'Goldie hated having to drive miles for a pedicure,' growls Russell. It's a two-way deal. He is a Hollywood brat. His father Bing Russell played the sheriff in 'Bonanza' for fourteen years. He still hangs on to his childhood loves -- car racing, hunting and baseball ( the Colorado spread is known as 'Home Run Ranch'). When he was ten two of his baseball heroes were signed on for a film. He talked his father into arranging an audition for him. He missed he baseball movie but he hit a home run with a role in 1963's 'It Happened at the World's Fair'. The star was Elvis who sixteen years later Russell played in the critically well received television movie 'Elvis'. He signed on with Disney and appeared in a decade of films like 'The Strongest Man in the World', 'The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes' and 'The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band.' On that last film he spent much time watching a blonde dancer who was five years his senior:' It was torture. I was sixteen and they were making me sing and dance and do dumb numbers so I couldn't drive and there was this gorgeous dancer named Goldie Hawn on the movie.....'
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