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.”
I had imagines of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory -- the grandparents all smashed into that one little bed.
Great songs...the Lydia Pinkham song I know...
Well here goes...two of my dads favorites...hope I dont get banned...
1st song...
Eep, Iip, give me piece a pie
Went up the stairs to shut off the gas
Fell down the stairs,
And broke my (now here you are expecting the word Ass, to rhyme with gas...but no...as you are about to say Ass, you begin the song over again,
Eep, Iip, give me piece a pie
Went up the stairs to shut off the gas
Fell down the stairs,
And broke my ...(repeat over and over again...and one must spit when saying Eep, and Iip...its hard to explain, but hysterical when sung...
Song #2
The night was cold,
The sky was blue,
And down the alley,
The shit wagon flew,
A biff,A bang
A crash was heard,
The driver was killed
By a frozen, flying turd...
My hubby and I sing these songs to each other several times a week...(thanks dad for these memorable little ditties)
I know...everyone smashed into one bed...I can hardly believe I constructed that particular sentence so badly...an English teacher would really give me a failing grade for that one...
Look up the singer Oscar Brand and you can likely buy a few of them recorded.
Regarding Darren McGavins other acting roles...he did have at least two reoccuring roles on the X-files, as he used to be an FBI agent and I believe he knew Mulders father, when Mulders dad was alive and in the FBI..
And I loved McGavin as Kolchak in the Night Stalker...you know they had a new Night Stalker TV program this season(which has since been cancelled)...anyway, I watched the first episode, and Darren McGavin had just a small cameo role, something like just a face in the crowd, but it was him...
When we were kids, McGavin had a TV program, something about a riverboat, Riverboat may have even been the name of the program...but we watched it as kids, and dad loved it, because Mcgavin was the captain of the Riverboat, and he was always hollering at everyone, and my dad got such a big kick out of that, he just watched to see how many times McGavin would holler and scream at someone...
This eventually came to be the county courthouse. In the middle 19th century in some states the position of "Ordinary" was similar to todays clerk of court and justice of the peace and in some areas the probate judge.
My GGFather was ordinary in a Georgia County.
Regarding your post #233...now that post made me laugh, made me remember my mothers mother, a very loving, sweet woman, but a woman who was also very loud and boisterous to the point of being embarrassing at times, and also completely uneducated and almost illiterate...
Grandma loved going on picnics...and so whenever the whole family went on a picnic, dad would pick up the grandparents and take them with us for a picnic...now we always went out to this one Forest Preserve, outside of Chicago, called Busse Woods...but Grandma always, always, called it Pussy Woods...now she had read the sign Busse, but to her, it read Pussy...and that is what she always called it...mom and dad and grandpa and the aunts and uncles would just roll their eyes, and try to correct her...but she was obstinate and would never change what she said...us kids, I guess were too little to understand what the humor was, we just knew that when Grandma said, "Pussy Woods", all the adults would fuss and roll their eyes, and we kids thought it was all too funny, without knowing why...
It was especially embarrassing when grandma would holler out to her neighbors as we passed by them in our car, "Yoo Hoo, we are all going out to Pussy Woods", and she would holler it as loud as she could...
For some reason grandma never thought what she was saying would raise eyebrows...she just never caught on, and she made us all laugh...
Bump!
Thats in interesting piece of information about the word 'ordinary'...thanks very much for that...
I loved OVALTINE---you did try the chocolate kind didn't you? I even got a red plastic cup in the mail that said Ovaltine on it. I don't think it actually would have survived anything hot in it though.
Very interesting...
Being that this was released in 1983 in theaters as a rated PG movie, there was no excessive language. The version aired on TNT is only edited for commercials, not for content - it's the same as the DVD release. I don't ever recall the language being edited for broadcast while on TNT, TBS, TCM (or any other network cable station).
Actually, it was always kind of fun to hear the Old Man come in from outside sputtering about "that g-d damn Olds has froze up again...that son of a b-tch would freeze up on the equator in July!!" unedited on network TV!
A bit off topic...I recently came across a copy of "Poltergeist" that I had taped off of TCM back in the mid 90's; I had wanted to tape it due to it being in 'widescreen'. I was dismayed to rediscover that the language was edited on TCM back then; nowadays, they run their movies completely unedited. As a purist, I prefer to see unedited movies (especially for what I pay for cable television!).
Now I'm anxious to see the original version! Sorry we picked on you, Chicken.
"I just went to the Post Office and told the postal clerk that the item I was sending was "fra- gee-lay" and everyone started laughing!!!"
That has really entered the language. The FedEx man brought us a box the other night and said it was "Fra-gee-lay"; I got excited and said, "It must be a Major Award!"
Your first song reminds me of Shaving Cream, by Benny Bell. And the second... LOL... not exactly a romantic serenade! But it sounds like something *my* folks would sing.
Note to self: Have Chickensoup moved to the "Just Darn!" ping list.
My father and mother were born in 1940. They always made fun of this song about women in France not wearing any pants.
Parents, nor kids, in the 40s-50s were innocent. They used this language just as we do today.
We just don't think about it.
My wife loves it as much as, you do. She says it reminds her of when she was a little girl at that age. I just had her read the post and she is hunting down the VCR tape of it.
I have to go buy a DVD because the VCR isn't hooked up.
It is amazing, isnt it, ,that such a wonderful little film, which initially had trouble getting made, could have had such a great influence on our language...
We have to go out and by the DVD of the movie also...we never had it on tape tho...
My husband has an extensive tape library of all his favorite movies...but now, with the DVD players, he is slowly replacing all his tapes with DVDs...(this is gonna take forever)...
This is one of my all time favorite movies. I'm really fond of it. The nostalgia and sentiment bring back nice memories. (I'm shocked to read that someone finds it offensive.)
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