Whatever happened to Jacy Farrow?

by Ceil Cleveland

Ceil Cleveland and Larry McMurtry grew up as friends in the little Texas town of Archer City, fictionalized by McMurtry in The Last Picture Show, which later became a film by Peter Bogdanovich. Among the locals, Cleveland has long been assumed to be the principal model for the novel's iconic character, Jacy Farrow - played in the movie by Cybill Shepherd. Says Cleveland: "In modern American literature, especially Texas literature, Jacy has become an archetype: a beautiful, flirty, teasing, bitchy, blonde in a convertible.... Now this Jacy wants to tell her story ... my story.". The boys' world in Thalia - the legitimate one of football, rodeos, learning to cuss, and dreaming about girls - was the world of Texas in that era. Girls had bit parts. We could play if we learned our lines and attempted no ad lib. Some of us were cheerleaders, jumping, squealing, shaking our hips and pom-poms, the rewards of the boys on the field after the game was over.... I projected myself into every pictur