Posted on 12/15/2005 6:04:54 PM PST by presidio9
Some former child actors cringe and protest when reminded by loyal fans of long-ago projects. Not Peter Billingsley, star of “A Christmas Story.”
According to journalist Rebecca Murray, “he seems to genuinely light up when the movie is mentioned.”
Billingsley is also used to passersby tossing their favorite quotes at him. “They all still love it,” he told Murray. People ask him if he’s tired of talking about it, but he’s not. “I’m really, really proud to be a part of it.”
Billingsley still appears in front of the cameras now and then. (He had an uncredited role in last year’s seasonal hit, “Elf,” playing - what else? - an elf. He also served as the movie’s executive producer.
He was executive producer on “Zathura,” which is still playing locally in theatres. In the upcoming comedy, “The Break-Up,” starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston, he also does dual duty in front of and behind the camera.
It’s all part of a day in the life of a talented man who, unlike some child stars, was able to make his way gracefully from kid to grownup and remain in show business.
He credits his parents with this successful transition. From the beginning, back in New York City, the Billingsleys looked on the whole thing as fun, and never let themselves take their son’s stardom too seriously. “It was also something that was just done for fun,” Peter said, in a 2002 interview with Wayne Chinsang. “If it wasn’t fun, it was going to stop.”
On the advice of friends who told her that her sons were cute, Peter’s mother took them to a agent. “The first one said we were too fat, the next one said too ugly, but the third one said, ‘Yeah, they’ll work,’” Peter said.
The three-year-old’s first gig was a Geritol commercial. Other commercials followed, and then some forgettable movies. The Billingsleys moved to Phoenix, Ariz., and struck gold in 1983 with “A Christmas Story.”
Well, not literally gold. The movie was made with a modest budget by a director, Bob Clark, who believed in it. “They (Bob and Jean Shepherd) tried for 12 years to get that film made,” Peter said. “Bob had to agree to direct another junky film for the studio to greenlight it. They hardly gave him any money. MGM didn’t support the release of the movie.”
“It was so different,” Jean Shepherd said in a 1998 interview for TV Guide. “It was too real, and MGM didn’t think kids would like it.”
There’s no way for Peter to avoid the movie, even if he tried, not even in his own family. When the Billingsleys get together in Phoenix for Christmas, someone will invariably slip it in the VCR.
He doesn’t mind the connection. “It’s a great film,” he told Chinsang in the 2002 interview. “It’s something I want to be known for.”
Besides a modest paycheck from the movie, Peter was allowed to keep one of the specially made Red Ryder BB guns, the cowboy suit, and the pink bunny suit. “It’s tucked away,” he said. “But the gun is really cool.”
Peter never really left Hollywood, although he did vanish from sight for a while, leading to those predictable rumors that he died a derelict drug addict and was buried in an unmarked grave.
That’s not his style. He joked with Chinsang about his unremarkable, non-glamorous upbringing. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “I grew up in a loving family in Phoenix. I tried a cigarette once.”
What Peter did do was move into editing, some writing, directing, and then producing, where he is most active today. He frequently teams up on projects with friends such as actor Vince Vaughn and director Jon Favreau.
Favreau and Peter collaborated on IFC’s popular “Dinner for Five,” which ran for five seasons. “Zathura” and “The Break-Up” continue their association as director and producer.
Peter acknowledges there have been many changes since 1983 in the way Hollywood markets pictures. “Today, there are so many things that are our of your control,” he said. “All that you can really ever do, which is what we did with ‘A Christmas Story,’ is tell a great story.”
That's just it. Any vulgarity there is is so innocuuous that your family seems to be the only ones who noticed it.
His "Phantom of the Open Hearth" is pretty good too.
I never liked it but have always been around it. Competed in athletics in high school and University. Plenty of colorful language in the locker room.
Having said that, I didn't hear anything in that movie that was really bad and I have seen it many times.
I dont think that I am cloistered, but I am sick and tired of common vulgarity shoved into everyday life. Just sick of it.
The store Media Play has replicas of those lamps for sale.
LOL...that movie just depicted everything, as true to life as it was during that time...hope that little girl was OK....
I didn't hear anything in that movie that was really bad
I guess I am tired of even a little bad...
Me too. And I also can never resist adding "must be from Italy".
The old man is looking at him like he had "lobsters growing out of (his) ears."
What was your favorite bar of soap???
Well, I feel the same way about many things but this movie is simply not one of them. You're really seeing and hearing things that are just not there.
My sister still hates me. My dad really wacked me, but I kept the BB gun. Until the day I was home sick and thought it would be entertaining if I went upstairs, cracked open a window, and fired my BB gun at the neighbors door across the street. (The neighbor would open the door-nobody there.) Then, I thought I would bounce a few off the large bay window. Great. I didn't realize a bb leaves a hole in plate glass. A short while later, a police car rolls up. I was a bad boy. No more BB gun.
For crying out loud. Do you also go around saying "Bah, humbug!" this time of the year?
I have seen that movie even more than 20times, probably 40 or 50 times...and I have never heard this language...just references to it, but not the actual words...I have to agree with some of the other posters, ,perhaps you are thinking of a different movie, or do have vivid imaginations...
That's really true of where I grew up. We weren't far from mountains and we had lots of temperature inversions that held smoke in and low to the ground. By the 60s things were getting better but I can recall dramatic improvement late in that decade and onward. Nothing I'm aware of now compares to those days pollution-wise.
I'm glad for the improvements but ironically there's a FR thread today saying energy costs in CA are creating huge demand for fire wood -- and there's a lot of concern about smoke pollution in the L.A. basin. Bottom line, people will do whatever's needed to stay warm. If energy's priced out of sight people will revert right back to campfire technology.
The real "F" word is NOT in the movie. He said "Fuuuuuuuuudge".
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