In the 1960s, Abbey worked as a seasonal park ranger at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, on the border of Arizona and Mexico. In 1961, the movie version of his second novel, "The Brave Cowboy," with screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, was being shot on location in New Mexico by Kirk Douglas who had purchased the novel's screen rights and was producing and starring in the film, released in 1962 as "Lonely Are the Brave". Douglas once said that when Abbey visited the film set, he looked and talked so much like Douglas' friend Gary Cooper that Douglas was disconcerted. Nonetheless, over 25 years later when Abbey died, Douglas wrote that he had "never met" Abbey. In 1981, Abbey's third novel, "Fire on the Mountain," was also adapted into a TV movie by the same title.