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.”
Parents, nor kids, in the 40s-50s were innocent. They used this language just as we do today.
Some people never were vulgar then as the never are now. My friends and I didnt spend time with people who were vulgar.
Maybe you should watch it on TV, when it comes on this Christmas season...I know it comes on sometime on Christmas eve, ,and runs throughout Christmas Day..you will have the chance 12 times in a row, to watch this film on TV, and perhaps you will enjoy it more...
It really is a wonderful film for Christmas, and you do need to give it another chance...(tho not everyone likes every movie, heck, I dont really like 'Its a Wonderful Life, except for its ending, but thats just me)
But give this wonderful little film another chance...you may be pleasantly surprised...
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.)
Please read up-thread. Evidently there are two versions of the movie on DVD.
Well, in a sense she was still imagining things... the only words on the DVD that are muffled in the TV version is sonofa___... there certainly is no F word (which is what she said she heard) and I wouldn't want anyone to think there is...
Leave it to Beaver, and The Brady Bunch I always found to be too clean for my liking...they did not at all reflect what I saw and heard as a child, and I know I grew up in just an ordinary home during the early 1950s...we saw our parents argue, we heard our dads and the men in our families use coarse language, and sometimes the men got drunk, and once in a while they actually got into knock-down drag out fights..and cussed each other out...but as kids, we knew our parents loved each other, loved us, and if things got out of hand once in a while, well, that was life...at least for me..
We all have lived different lives. I like the way you phrased it.
That is true.
Luckily, not everyone resorts to potty mouth vocabulary.
He had green eyes, so help me! Green eyes!
But give this wonderful little film another chance...you may be pleasantly surprised...
I don't have any broadcast television. But I will rerent the DVD someday if there are two versions available.
He's better lookin' now... Man - he was one ugly kid :~D
About half way through those lyrics, I realized they were talking about a baby...but its so cute, and yes, its misleading at the beginning...thanks...
They might say 'crap', but that's hardly a curse word.
I guess it depends on your tastes and valuse. To me that word is as vulgar as any of the other four lettered words.
That should've been "Yellow eyes"... I was thinking "They look green, not yellow," then typed the wrong thing.... TGIF!
I am going to have to get the DVD and see for myself just what is going on...I keep meaning to get the DVD, and just never do, because it runs so much on Christmas Day, and usually runs once or twice during the year...but I am going to get the DVD and see exactly what they do or dont say...should be interesting...
OK - then don't watch it. The film certainly does have as part of it's story line, that dad cusses a blue streak once in awhile and the boy picks up some, though none of it is actually said, it's left to our imagination what he says..
If you would find the idea that someone cusses offensive, even if you can't really hear it.... don't watch it again.
He's actually quite a cutie, in a goofy way, if you go for that, which I do. ;)
As a kid, or as a grownup?
CUTE! You are a lucky guy to have such a sweetie in your life!
As a grown-up. I must agree with your choice of words as regards him when a kid.
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