In a message dated 7/13/03 4:02:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
<<
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 22:12:12 -0400
From: Bill Bowers <
BBowers@one.net>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Back to Willeford
It's probably due to Summer Drift ... or maybe the
digest I receive in the
morning will be crammed with Willeford
references....
In the meantime, those of you totally unfamiliar with
Charles Willeford
could do worse than to check out
http://www.dennismcmillan.com/charleswillefo/excerpts.htm
A 'sampler' page of excerpts from most of Willeford's
books. [I,
naturally, enjoyed the portions of "Cockfighter Journal
1989"....]
This page is part of a site
http://www.dennismcmillan.com/charleswillefo/index.html
created by Maura McMillan back in the beginning of
2001, and apparently
still maintained.
There is an extensive time-line style Biography, and
also a page titled:
"Never-Before-Seen Visual Art by Willeford" ... which,
considering I spent
most of 1967-68 at the same Filipino base at which
Willeford did time
[9/36-10/38] thirty years earlier, and I was also
familiar with (what was
left of) the indigenous population, I would have
enjoyed anyway.
...but, given where I now reside, I found it
particularly delightful!
[Also, a page and a link on the film adaptations, plus
more. Go forth, and
browse....]
- --
Bill Bowers
[Thanks
for the reference, Betsy.]
>>
Thank you Bill for leading us back to the month's topic so
gracefully and also for providing these neat links. I
followed them and read the selections of Charles Willeford's
diary entries made during the Georgia filming of
"Cockfighter," one of my favorite Willeford novels and a fun
film which I now own in DvD.
That said I have to correct one "fact" Charles mentions in
his diary entries.
He and the rest of the "Cockfighter" cast and crew were
staying at the Georgian Terrace Hotel at Peachtree Street and
Ponce de Leon Avenue back in 1974. Charles says the ballroom
was the location for some of the filming of "Gone With The
Wind." I am 98% certain this is incorrect. As far as I know
there was no Georgia location filming in the production of
"Gone With The Wind." Growing up there I would have known
about it. I would have stumbled over the worshipers.
The Georgia Terrace was the hotel for the Atlanta premier of
the movie. It was the hotel where many of the stars, such as
Clark Gable, stayed. I am certain that in the ballroom of the
hotel there were dances and events but not anything filmed
for the movie. I don't doubt that the staff misinformed
Charles during his stay.
The Georgia Terrace Hotel location was the center of my
favorite, and most visited, area of Atlanta. It was across
the street from the Fox Theater, which still stands unlike
the Lowes Grand Theater, which burned from arson even as
activists tried to save it. The land is now the home of
Georgia Pacific.
That area was also two blocks down from the Peachtree Book
Store where I received the bulk of my education. There I went
from Frank Buck to Lowell Thomas to T.E. Lawrence to Poul
Anderson to Fred Brown to Charles Dickens to a universe of
writers. It opened the world of books to me. Although it may
still have been in business, my friend and educator had sold
it just a few months before Charles' time there. Too bad as
they would have hit it off.
And The Georgia Terrace Hotel was just a couple of blocks
from the Ponce de Leon nightclub "The Blue Lantern Lounge"
which for many years (until the late 1950s) my favorite blues
artist Blind Willie McTell (remember "Statesboro Blues?)
serenaded for tips couples in the parking lot.
It also wasn't far from The Stein Club, a watering hole
mentioned more than once by Ralph Dennis.
Anyway, enough of my tribute to the area. Aside from that
error, I enjoyed Willeford's comments on the filming. I was a
reporter in Georgia at the time and during the filming Troy
Donehue visited the state legislature and was introduced. I
ended up cheek to cheek with him at the doorway and he was a
bit glassy-eyed that day.
As the boys at the Pentagon say when changing the subject
"Break! Break!"
Some months ago I picked up the book HUNTING WITH HEMINGWAY
by Hilary Hemingway and Jeffry P. Lindsay (Riverhead Books
2000). Hilary is the daughter of Ernest Hemingway's younger
brother Leicester and Jeffry is her husband. The book is
presented in part as an evening's backyard conversation with
several guests as Leicester tells stories (some certainly
fanciful) about his brother. A participant in these
"conversations" is Charles Willeford, who Hilary refers to as
"Uncle Charlie." While the stories by Leicester openly
stretch the truth, the portrait of Willeford rings
true.
Richard Moore
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