Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 12, 1993 TAG: 9302120312
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chris Gladden
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`SOMMERSBY' ROLES THRILL AREA ACTORS
Joe Basham, 70, has had the movie bug ever since he went to a Hollywood drama school on the GI Bill.When "Dirty Dancing" set up production offices at Mountain Lake in the mid-'80s, Basham and his daughter, Traci, auditioned. They were hired as extras, but Basham's part was cut, much to his disappointment.
So the retired car salesman from Roanoke tried out for "Sommersby" when the production came to Bath County last spring.
"I read an article in the paper and jumped into my old jalopy and went over to Bath County," Basham says. "I met Jon [director Jon Amiel], and he sat me on a couch and handed me a script and said here, read this."
The filmmakers gave Basham a speaking part, paid him $475 a day, covered his Screen Actors Guild card and provided him with $190 in spending money when he went on location at Charlotte Courthouse. He spent four days shooting a courtroom scene with stars Richard Gere, Jodie Foster and James Earl Jones. Basham even got a dressing room with a star and his name on the door.
All this was exciting stuff. But Basham still had to spend many months wondering whether he escaped the cutting room floor.
"I was sweating it," he says.
"Sommersby" opened last Friday, and Basham's fears were put to rest. Most of his lines were left in the picture, he appears in tight close-ups, and he got a screen credit in sizable letters.
He also got the movie fever big time.
"Here I am changing careers in the middle of retirement," Basham says. "I'd like to do it full-time."
The Virginia Film Office estimates that "Sommersby" brought the state $5 million. But the impact a movie shoot has on the morale of a community is an intangible that can't be calculated in dollars and cents. Movies that go on location create an intoxicating atmosphere from the beginning of production on through release.
"Sommersby" was greeted locally with sell-out crowds and a gala in Lexington that provided carriage rides for extras to the screening at the State Theater. Signs saying "Sommersby" in Lexington were put over the marquee, and "Sommersby" T-shirts were sold from a street-vending cart used in the movie. There wasn't a vacant seat in the house at $10 a pop.
Lexington played a brief part in the movie, doubling as Nashville in the 1860s. The scene was greeted with applause by proud Lexingtonians.
"Everybody wanted to push the rewind button," says Martha Doss, director of the visitor's bureau.
Bill Whitlock of Alleghany County was one of 12 extras known as the Vine Hill Gang who were invited to Hollywood for the movie's premiere. Vine Hill is the name of the town in the post-Civil War mystery-romance, and these extras played townfolk.
Whitlock, Mary Lynn Riner of Bath County and Sean Hevner of Staunton made the trip. "They treated us like kings," Whitlock says.
Amiel invited the Virginia contingent to lunch and dinner and introduced them to the audience at the premiere.
Whitlock never intended to be in movies but now he, too, has the fever. The novice actor says he was disabled in a white-water rafting accident and used horse-back riding for therapy. It came in handy for his screen debut. He appears in the movie around 20 times as a combination farmer-trapper, often on a mule.
"I'm the biggest guy on screen," he says.
Whitlock is an outdoorsman by avocation, who enjoys fishing the Jackson River for smallmouth bass. He went to the movie set to see if the production company would be interested in chartering his boats.
"This girl said, `Fill this form out,' and I said, `what for,' and she said, `to be in the movie.' "
Whitlock was cast and became an instant actor.
Amiel instructed him to follow John Wayne's philosophy of acting.
"Jon said, `I don't want you to act, I want you to react,' " Whitlock recalls.
Since the "Sommersby" shoot, Whitlock has taken to acting like his coveted bass take to spring lizards. "Look where horse therapy led," he says. "I've got possibly two or three more projects. Some people saw me and got me in touch with an agent. I was in Orlando for eight days for a national promo, and I did a saloon scene, probably for `Huck Finn.' "
Disney's "The Adventures of Huck Finn" is due out later this year. Whitlock also went to Gettysburg for an extra part in Ted Turner's production of the Civil War drama, "Killer Angels."
"The residual effect of `Sommersby' is that six or seven members of the Vine Hill gang will go on in their careers," Whitlock says.