It all began with a John Wayne movie.
While she herself has an exotic background—born in Kirkuk, Iraq, to a British father and a Lebanese mother, Madeleine Pickens grew up in various locales around the world—it was America’s Wild West heritage that captured her imagination. After going to the then-British Bahamas in 1966, she arrived in the United States in 1969 on a green card, later becoming an American citizen and eventually a resident of Dallas.
When asked what attracted her to America, she is effusive. “Oh, gosh! Watching all the American movies—John Wayne and cowboys—oh, it was so exciting! I mean, what a sexy history you guys have—and I’m part of it now!” she says gleefully.
“Remember the show Bonanza [and] the Ponderosa?” she continues, caught up in the nostalgia. “I used to watch that show and I hated it when it came to an end and then you had wait until the next week. I absolutely loved it. I used to envy [actress] Linda Evans, having all those brothers, living that life on the range. It was so, so beautiful. I was certainly going to run off with John Wayne; there was no question. All that was so dreamy,” she says, laughing at the memory.