Tommy, as his friends know him, was practically born in a saddle.  He is the son of a bull rider-turned-movie stuntman. He grew up on his father's horse ranch. As a teenager in the early 1980s, he was a California junior rodeo champion.  "I don't think it's a stretch to say that I was riding before I was walking," Howell says. "I pretty much know what being a cowboy is all about."  Funny thing, though: Despite his expertise, he spends almost no time on horseback in the role of a land-grabbing town boss in "A Gunfighter's Pledge."

"I play a bit of a dandy in this movie," Howell notes. "That's happened to me before, where I'll be  in  a Western, but I'm sort of the city folk in the Western. So I'm either in a buggy or behind a desk.

"Meanwhile, they've got these New York actors playing the tough guys on horseback who are coming up to me, asking, 'How the hell do I hold my reins?'"  Not that Howell is complaining this time. His "Gunfighter's Pledge" costars, Luke Perry (as the hero) and Francesco Quinn (as a crooked sheriff), know their way around horses, so it didn't make him crazy to watch them riding.

"It's hard for me to watch most Westerns and not pick them apart," Howell says. "When you grow up on horseback, you can certainly tell when people can't ride. It's difficult for me to watch an actor pretending to be raised in a saddle when he's bopping up and down like he's straight out of New York City."  But this time Howell, the former kid star whose early credits include "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial," "The Outsiders," "Red Dawn," "Soul Man" and "The Hitcher," was delighted that he could put his energy into his showcase role.

In addition to acting, Howell wears other hats. He won VH1's magic competition/reality show "Celebracadabra" and plans to do live performances at the Hollywood Magic Castle in October. He's creator and host of CMT's "Hillbilly Deluxe," a show he likes to describe as being "like 'That's Incredible' gone redneck." He's also going to direct a vampire movie called "Bite" in August.  "To still be in the business and to be working," he says, "I feel very blessed and I'm very thankful for that."

Howell, married 17 years to wife Sylvie, with three children, says the secret to his longevity in show business is the "blue-collar" work ethic that his father, Chris Howell, instilled in him.  "I was raised in this business to become a stunt man," Howell says. "Things changed and I became an actor, but I was raised with the stuntman mentality, so I don't really have expectations or demands when I'm going in to the set. I don't make demands like get me cucumber finger sandwiches and pick all the brown M&Ms out of my M&Ms bag. That's just a waste of time."  Besides, if he did behave that way, Howell's dad would probably give him a swift kick in the seat of his pants.  "And I thank him for that," Tommy Howell says. "Having the opportunity to grow up in the business, the opportunity at a young age to have the responsibilities I was able to handle, the money that I was able to make, I attribute the fact that I never made it to the Betty Ford Clinic to my father.

"To grow up in this business and not have drug problems or sexual problems or financial problems or emotional problems, it's hard, so difficult, so rare -- there are so many things that can go wrong. And my father has been that Rock of Gibraltar for me. What an example he's been able to set my whole life."