I first met Cassidy Freeman on the set on the TV series “Longmire”. (I did background actor work on 16 episodes of Longmire). Not only an extremely talented actress but one of the nicest people you will ever meet. Today she lives in Santa Monica, California (by the way, that is where I was born a long time ago) and has a place in Santa Fe, New Mexico (where I currently live). That’s us in the picture below.
She grew up in Chicago in a family that was totally involved in opera and music and from her earliest days spent time on-stage acting, singing, dancing. More recently she’s been in “Smallville”, “Razor Sharp” to a recurring part on “NCIS: New Orleans” and is currently starring brilliantly on “The Righteous Gemstones”.
What you probably don’t know is she is a very experienced Cowgirl. “I rode a horse before I could walk,” Freeman says. Cassidy Freeman first came to Livingston, Montana in 1982 and a part of her heart has been here ever since. Early memories are filled with working on the family ranch; moving cattle, training horses, irrigating and building what she calls the Freeman family fence. “It was the least straight fence ever made,” she tells me. “An early family affair.”
“My parents bought our ranch before I was even born, so I’ve known Montana as long as I’ve been alive,” Freeman says. “My time there growing up was when my family got to spend time together, without school or work or agenda. We all lived very busy lives in Chicago, and Montana was when we clocked out and checked in.”
Animals and nature went hand in hand during her childhood, Freeman says. “Every dog and cat we had were both city pets and ranch pets. They had to be, just like us, able to adapt. But I know they felt so free on that ranch like I did. I spent one summer in a tractor, haying, and my dog Marley spent every day with me, at my feet on that tractor. Our cats, Fric and Frak, would stay out all night and we would wake up to a handful of mice they’d hunted in the night, lined up on the mat outside the front door. Since I was old enough to reach the footrests, my brothers taught me how to drive an ATV. I used to ride it all the way down to where the road became county road, always wondering how long it would take me to drive the 14 miles to town, but never doing it. Too many adventures awaited in the opposite direction, toward the wilderness.”
Horses, of course, were the preferred mode of travel. “I rode a horse before I could walk,” Freeman says. “I remember as a child riding a huge gray Quarter Horse named Chester. Then, when I was 8, my parents bought four Paso Fino horses that Buck Brannaman came to help us train before he was “Buck Brannaman.” I had broken my foot at camp and had a cast on my leg up to my knee. My mom was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to ride, let alone train, my young, slightly skittish, Paso named Jamoca. My mother and I stood in front of Buck as she explained to him why I might be challenged during our weeklong clinic at the ranch, primarily, I’m sure, concerned for my safety. After she finished, he asked, ‘Is this the girl you’re speaking about,’ playfully bringing attention to the fact that I’d been standing there the whole time. ‘Yes,’ she said. He then turned to me and said, ‘Cassidy, do you want to train Jamoca?’ I said yes. He said, ‘Are you scared?’ I said nope. He said, ‘Great, let’s get started.’ ”
Animals and nature are still integral to Freeman’s life, and she spends time in Montana whenever possible. It was Freeman’s inspiring and much-loved mother, a Midwesterner who earned a college scholarship at a fancy Eastern school, then followed it up with law school, who was most passionate about ranching (she became a self-taught expert on bovine genetics). After her too-early death five years ago, though, it is Freeman’s father who carries on the ranching and provides a Rocky Mountain home for Freeman and her siblings.
CREDIT: Some of the quotes are from an article in the magazine Cowgirl