Wyatt Earp, the famous lawman, strides along a dusty street in Dodge City.
"Wyatt Earp," someone yells behind him. The sheriff wheels and a hulk of a man, the marshal of Dodge City, fills his vision.
"Don't shoot," the giant yells, smiling. "If you miss me you'll destroy your reputation."
The marshal is actually David Stone, the 6-foot-8. 270-pound president of Portales National Bank of New Mexico. Most of the year he oversees his twobranch, $60 million-asset bank near the Texas border.
But he also has something of an acting career, and on this day he's Larry Deger, marshal of one of the wildest towns of the old West in Kevin Costner's recent film, "Wyatt Earp."
"It's a lot more fun than collecting loans." said ML Stone. "To see yourself on the screen, that's the dream of a lifetime. "I can't imagine any boy growing up watching Gene Autry or Will Rogers and not wanting to do this."
Mr. Stone has about 20 lines in the movie and appears with Costner in a number of scenes.
He has appeared in five films since his acting career began eight years ago, including "Lonesome Dove" and "Natural Born Killers."
In the latter director Oliver Stone's most recent film the 53-year-old banker plays a country cop who nearly beats to death a psychotic killer (played by Woody Harrelson) on a crosscountry rampage.
While he earned $6,500 from his three-week contract with "Wyatt Earp," Mr. Stone prefers the job security of banking to the uncertainty of a full-time acting career.
"It's a nice break from banking, but I just do it two or three weeks a year during my vacations," he says.
"It's just so refreshing to not have to worry about who's not paying a loan or what the regulator is doing."
Mr. Stone, whose only previous acting experience came in high school, decided about eight years ago to give it a try. He hired an agent and started reading lines.
In addition, in the last three years he and a partner have written 25 country-and-western songs, eight of which have been recorded.
Wyatt Earp and Larry Deger aren't the only Western legends Mr. Stone is familiar with. He saves his true admiration for his grandfather, James, and his father, Douglas.
Having grown up a cowboy with next to nothing, James Stone started a five-branch bank in Elida, N.M., in 1906 and eventually owned an 87,000-acre ranch with 5,000 head of cattle.
He achieved all of this before the age of 46, when he died of a gall bladder attack.
Mr. Stone's father, Douglas, worked at Portales National for 47 years, the last 22 as president. When his father died in 1981, Mr. Stone, who had worked in several banks in Dallas after graduating from the University of Texas, became the third Stone president at Portales.
Portales National has displayed some erratic numbers recently.
While it enjoys a healthy 12% capital ratio, its returns on assets and equity plummeted in March 1994, with its ROE reaching negative 17%.
The bank has bounced bank in the most recent quarter, however, registering an ROE of 4.8% and an ROA of .55%. Its earnings per share went from negative 20 cents to positive 30 cents:
Mr. Stone would not comment on what caused the low numbers. Such episodes undoubtedly make - a few days on a film set that much more rewarding.
"When I turned 40, I realized I wasn't doing a lot of things that were fun? said Mr. Stone. "I decided I wanted to make the second half of my life more fun than the first half."
As for his next film, Mr. Stone is waiting for the phone to ring.
