Buford Pusser - Pop Culture

Pop Culture

Pusser was the subject of three biographical books written by W.R. Morris: The Twelfth Of August: The Story of Buford Pusser (1971), Buford: True Story of "Walking Tall" Sheriff Buford Pusser (1984) and The State Line Mob: A True Story of Murder and Intrigue (1990). In addition, Morris also created a pictorial history book of Buford called The Legacy of Buford Pusser: A Pictorial History of the "Walking Tall" (1997). Pusser's daughter Dwana, released a book in 2009 entitled "Walking On," which is also an account of his life.

The 1973 movie Walking Tall was dedicated to Pusser. Based on Pusser's true story, it was a combination of very loosely based fact and Hollywood revisionism. This has since become a well known cult classic (with two direct sequels of its own, a TV movie, A Real American Hero, and a brief TV series, also called Walking Tall).

A remake by the same name was released in 2004 as a somewhat less realistic and more mainstream film. Also dedicated to Pusser, the remake stars Dwayne Johnson and again takes liberties with the story, giving the action a more modern setting and premise. In this version the main character is not referred to as Buford Pusser but as Chris Vaughn.

On a 2004 episode of the HBO drama The Wire titled "Moral Midgetry", Baltimore Police Detectives Jimmy McNulty and Kima Greggs leave Baltimore for Virginia where McNulty derogatorily refers to the southern sheriff as Buford Pusser.

Drive-By Truckers wrote songs about the events surrounding Pusser's wife's death and his colorful tenure as sheriff for their 2004 album, The Dirty South. The album contains a three-song suite, "The Boys from Alabama", "Cottonseed" and "The Buford Stick", that purport to tell "the other side of that story".

Jimmy Buffett references a run-in he had with Pusser in the lyrics of two of his songs: "Presents to Send You" ("But my last little bout/I had my hair pulled out/by a man who really wasn't my friend") and "Semi-True Stories" ("A walkin' tall sheriff/and a big Cadillac/and me in my golf shoes/on the hood makin' tracks/this daring young singer/was under attack").

After the success of the 2004 film, Walking Tall: The Payback was released in 2007 direct-to-video. The main character (Kevin Sorbo)'s name was changed to Nick Prescott, and the movie was set in the Dallas area. Later that year on September 25, 2007 Kevin Sorbo returned in Walking Tall: Lone Justice.

In a November 16, 2007 column, Bill Simmons, "the Sports Guy," compared NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to Pusser. Comedian and talk-radio host Dennis Miller occasionally refers to a "Buford Pusser Stick" on his radio show, in reference to a fictional scene from the movie Walking Tall where Pusser uses a stick to beat up everyone in a roadhouse.