05/20/2026
DID YOU KNOW??? Collbrans very own Marlboro man! Super neat!!
Yes, one of the famous real-life Marlboro Men, Bill Walck, was from Collbran, Colorado. Born in 1954, he was a rugged, working cowboy whose striking look caught the eye of talent agencies and the Leo Burnett advertising agency.Walck was one of the many real-life ranchers and rodeo cowboys featured in the long-running print and television advertising campaigns. While there were several different men who played the Marlboro Man over the decades (including notable figures like Colorado Springs rancher Bob Norris and Wyoming's Darrell Winfield), Walck is the specific cowboy famously associated with the western Colorado town.1988, Billy Walck photographed by Norman Clasen for Marlboro.
In the early 80's Marlboro introduced a new face for the decade, his name: Billy Walck from Collbran, Colorado, born in 1954.
Here an extract from an article published in the Denver Post in 1991, written by Jim Carrier. It tells how Billy Walck was discovered.
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I found I was not the only one looking for the Marlboro Man. Talent agencies constantly watched for a face that they could sell to Leo Burnett and Philip Morris. They took hundreds of photos, submitted brief biographies and waited for the payoff, rumored to be $10,000. At rodeos and major gatherings of western heroes there was almost always a talent scout usually a woman eyeing the cowboys for something other than a roll in the hay. Liz Kennedy Rine was such a scout. I found her on Nob Hill in San Francisco, raising a family.
From locations work, Liz Kennedy moved into real-people casting, and Ken Krom, Leo Burnett's creative chief, asked her to look for another Marlboro Man.
"He was enormously taken with the subject. One of the things he wanted was a man 'with the history of the West etched in his face' that kind of thing.
"You're not going to find him," he told her. They wanted someone 25 years old, to grow into the job.
Liz carved the West into sections, took a month at a time, and scoured each region. "I didn't do New Mexico or Arizona. You get a more Latin, sun look there. I went to the remote ranches. I saw a lot of buckaroos. They're interesting-looking with fascinating faces, but they're not the Marlboro Man.'
A friend said of Liz at the time: "I could just picture this beautiful woman walking into bunkhouses all over the West."
"It's true," she said. "I wasn't married and I was off looking for the world's most handsome man and getting paid for it."
She solicited advice from other women. "I learned not to ask a young woman. They came up with pretty faces, but not the look. Instead I'd ask 45-year-old women working in post offices. They have better taste. The cowboys thought I was hitting on them. They always thought they were being set up by a buddy."
"I took pictures of some young 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds who might grow up into the Marlboro Man some day. They couldn't have too fine a features. They had to have a lot of strength in their face. . . . It couldn't be too handsome, but all man. He's got to be tall. A short man is just not going to grow up to be the Marlboro Man." At the time, "Magnum, P.I." was popular on TV "and there were so many mustaches." Leo Burnett also wanted good hands. Of the cowboys she photographed, many had disappointing hands, too long or too stubby.
After her first month-long sortie she narrowed 40 candidates to 10 and sent the batch to Leo Burnett. "They liked my stuff" but found no one, so they approved an extension of the search. "I'm a quick judge. I must have seen, in a considering kind of way, 10,000 faces. I thought I found five." One of her favorites was from Wisdom, Mont.; another was Jack Davis from Livingston, Mont. A third was from Colorado, found after contacting a woman in Grand Junction who ran a team-roping club for kids.
"This isn't the way you picture it, You're supposed to find him walking down the street. It didn't happen that way. I asked if she knew anybody especially good-looking. She gave me a list. I called everybody on the list. One name was Billy Walck of Collbran, Colorado. I made arrangements to meet him downtown. He was very quiet, subdued. I thought he was too young, but he had that real strength -- but it wasn't phony. He had a mustache I didn't like. I thought he could become the chiseled look."
Because it was winter, Billy was wearing a Scotch wool cap. "I made him get a cowboy hat. We borrowed a dark brown one. I took a bunch of pictures."
Billy Walck, 36, was raised on a ranch in Collbran. He was in little britches rodeo and all-league football.
He and his two brothers were presidents of the rodeo club at Colorado State University; all had professional rodeo cards and had families who participated in rodeo. He was married with two children. Leo Burnett liked Billy Walck and he became a regular Marlboro Man. "I don't think I ever went out again," said Liz. But Marlboro continues its search for a new face.
"How many Marlboro men are there out there?" I asked, "It's a strange, ethereal kind of handsome. "He's got to be real, but better than real. I kinda believe in the Marlboro Man now. "Maybe there are only three more to find out there. They were extremely lucky to find one."
