Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 23, 1994 TAG: 9407210010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Smith Mountain Lake is a nation away from Hollywood, but the two seem to be getting closer all the time.
First there was the movie "What About Bob?" starring Bill Murray, which was filmed at the lake in 1990. Now there's Mary Scott.
The new executive director of the recently merged Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce/Partnership, Scott spent most of the 1980s as an advertising executive for New York-based companies that market big-budget movies. The list of accounts on which she worked reads like a "Who's Who" of Hollywood blockbusters: ``Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,'' ``Aliens,'' ``Crocodile Dundee,'' ``The Accused'' and more.
Since April 1, Scott has used her promotional skills to sell Smith Mountain Lake. As executive director of the chamber/partnership, she promotes the lake's tourism and business.
"The pace of life is slower ... and healthier" at the lake, Scott said. "It's an area that's very sentimental to me, and I'd like to be part of its growth."
Scott grew up in Patrick County and fondly recalls summers she attended 4-H camp at Smith Mountain Lake.
As the only paid employee of the chamber/partnership, Scott is a full-time spokeswoman for the organization and sees that proposals and activities of its board members are enacted.
She also oversees the day-to-day operation of the Smith Mountain Lake Visitors Center, which is just south of Hales Ford Bridge in Franklin County on Virginia 122. It fields phone calls and inquiries about the lake from visitors around the world and sends relocation packages to new homeowners.
From Scott's office window at the visitors center, one can see people para-sailing and racing by on Sea-Doos. Fishermen tie their boats in at the marina below, and children play miniature golf at a course that resembles a frontier town, standing over the lake on piers.
Scott left the glitz of movie premieres and the stress of 90-hour work weeks behind her in 1990. The next year, she moved to Franklin County with her husband, Michael, to build a house at Smith Mountain Lake.
She returned to the working world in 1992 as an administrative assistant at Bernard's Landing, a resort community on the lake. She then briefly considered a career making wedding gowns, but when the position of executive director for the chamber/partnership opened up, she knew it was a perfect fit.
Philip Hager, president of the chamber/partnership, said Scott "brings special talents and promotional experience" to the job. He said her strong organizational skills have helped bring together the members of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce/Partnership, which merged Jan.1.
Scott attended Limestone College in Gaffney, S.C., where she received a bachelor's degree in theater arts. She followed that with brief stints in Richmond working as an actress at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and as a costumer at King's Dominion.
Having no luck at finding permanent work, she packed up her Volkswagen and moved to Manhattan in December 1980. Twenty days later, she was working as a secretary at a New York ad agency.
Similar to Melanie Griffith's rise up the corporate ladder in the film "Working Girl," Scott worked her way up through three agencies until, in 1987, she was a vice president with the firm of Darcy, Masius, Benton and Bowles.
Even though she had no formal experience in advertising, Scott said she was a quick study.
Also, "I didn't have the `It's 5 o'clock, time to go home - it's 12 o'clock, time to eat lunch,' mentality. If you've ever been with a theater company, you know what's it like to work long hours."
And long hours were definitely part of her job, Scott said, recalling that during the marketing of "Aliens," she once worked 39 hours without going home.
As an advertising executive, she test-marketed movies, helped create national ad campaigns, coordinated show times with theaters and acted as a liaison between movie companies and television networks for the approval of ads.
The job had its perks. At one film premiere, "I turned around, and Mary Tyler Moore was on the escalator right behind me. She was like an American tradition. It was really exciting."
Thinking back, Scott said, "I had a great career. I got paid pretty well, I got to go to California three or four times a year, I went to Vegas, I ate in the best restaurants in New York ... and I never paid to see a movie. I saw `Bounty' when it was still half in black-and-white and half in color ... I got to see `The Little Mermaid' when it was still in black-and-white drawings. Those are things you can't do in any other kind of work.
"But it was also the kind of position where it was not uncommon for me to put in 90 hours" a week.
Now Scott says her life is much more relaxed. Her primary goal for the near future is to increase awareness of Smith Mountain Lake's resources and entertainment offerings among Virginia residents and those in the Roanoke Valley who vacation at Myrtle Beach or Nags Head.
But with her background in movie promotions and Smith Mountain Lake's history as a film location, Scott may find herself back in the movie business.
She hopes to work with the state government to lure more film projects to the lake.
"It brings a tremendous lift to the economy whenever something's going on like that in the vicinity. Plus it brings the community together."
Hager agreed. He said a film project could be very beneficial to the lake community - but he hopes next time the lake gets some credit.
The chamber/partnership president said Smith Mountain Lake's visitors center still gets referral calls from New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, where "What About Bob?" was set.
by CNB