I love Austin. In fact, Robert Duvall calls me “The Mayor of Austin”. I’ve been lucky enough to work with him in two different films. “The Apostle”, which he wrote and directed and, more recently, “Broken Trail” for AMC, which just won many Emmy Awards. When he was here filming once, I was in Austin at the time and I made sure he and his partners had the red carpet tour. I have sent a lot of people to Austin. Most of them fell in love with it, reporting back that two things were true, (1) the women were beautiful, and (2) the people were friendly.

There are so many reasons I return to Texas and to Austin in particular. My family is there. I am a fourth generation Austinite, and a fifth generation Texan. Growing up, we had a ranch in the Hill Country. I had to part with that ranch after my father died, and wasn’t sure if I would ever get back there with any kind of regularity. As fate would have it, I married a San Antonio girl named Daralyn Grammer whose parents live on a ranch near Blanco that is 10 or 15 miles from the one I grew up on.

I love Texas women, although I do seem to be surrounded by beautiful women regardless of where I am. Daralyn, my daughter Mackenzie, my stepdaughter, Avery, and our 18-month old, Shelby, are all beautiful.

We take Shelby to Texas as much as possible so she feels those Texas roots. I don’t want her to grow up and think that LA is all there is, I want her to step in cow dung and drive a tractor and swim in the river and catch fireflies and do all those things that kids in LA typically don’t get to do.

I am a diehard Texas Longhorn fan, which I come by naturally since the University and I go way back. Both of my parents graduated from Texas.
My Austin roots grow even deeper than that. My great grandfather worked in the Littlefield Bank on Congress Ave. in the 1920’s. My grandmother was a Bluebonnet Belle while at Texas and prior to that attended Austin High School. My grandfather was somewhat of a legend at Texas in the late 20’s. My mother, from what I can gather, ran the entire social schedule for the Tri-Delts at Texas in the early 1950’s.

My dad, Potsy Allen, graduated from Texas, went on to fly jets in the Navy and was very well known in business circles in Austin. That makes me feel very connected to Austin and to my roots there.

My friends from O Henry and Austin High are still my good friends today. I’m lucky that way. I’ve been in LA for twenty years, but my Austin friends have never wavered in their support. I have counted on my friends from home a lot over the years. Hollywood can get you all turned around, especially if you have any kind of success, and a lot of folks don’t have anybody in their corner intervening in their life in any positive way. You have to keep your head screwed on straight and remember where you came from, and you can generally be fine. I’ve been able to do that with the help of my fellow Texans.

Some of my favorite things in Austin are the restaurants, the downtown nightlife and, of course, Lake Austin. I really like how the people of Austin can rally for any particular event, whether it’s Eeyore’s Birthday, or a Frisbee tournament, or Trail of Lights or a football game. It doesn’t matter. Austin is a very social place. I also love the historical aspects of the city and preservation of old buildings and the fact that it is the political center of Texas.

The family aspects of the city mean a lot to me. People are involved in their kid’s lives there. I was lucky enough to grow up in old west Austin, in Pemberton, where there was a very family-oriented, neighborhood feel. I’ve tried as hard as I can to create that for my kids here in LA.
For reasons I can’t really explain, I always feel grounded and very much at home when I look up Congress Avenue and see the Capitol Building. I joke to my wife that it might be my office some day. I think she lives in fear that I might actually be serious.