- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons".
Today, In this "Ask Judy",
I'm going to cover some aspects of life,
real life versus fiction.
So, if you're enjoying these,
please do hit like and subscribe.
The first piece of real life information I have
was shared with me by viewer Scott.
So, I wanna thank you for sending this along.
This is an article from the "Richmond Times-Dispatch",
Sunday, December 10th, 1972.
So, a quite a nostalgic piece
of newspaper information here.
And this was by reporter Alison Griffin,
and she interviewed Marion Hamner Hawkes,
who was the real life Mary Ellen, John-boy's oldest sister.
So, I wanna share with you some of this article,
so it gives you a little bit more information
about what was real
and what it was like for her
to be the inspiration for my character of Mary Ellen.
So, it says here,
"When Mrs. Glenn Hawkes of Richmond
watches the television series, "The Waltons"
on Thursday evenings, she often cries quite a lot.
She's watching her childhood being lived all over again.
Mrs. Hawkes, now the wife of a professor of psychology
at Virginia Commonwealth University
and the mother of two boys,
was one of the eight Hamner children of Nelson County
about whom "The Waltons" was written."
When they were talking about the episode,
"The Minstrel", which was going to be aired very soon.
Of course, this was the first season of "The Waltons" 1972,
so it would've been very new
for all of the Hamner family,
the real life Hamner family,
to be watching their childhood reenacted.
"So, regarding 'The Minstrel',
the tomboy Mary Ellen reaches the restless stage
of girlhood when she is impatient to get away from home
and she falls in love with a boy who plays a guitar.
In fact, Mrs. Hawkes said in an interview,
'I did get away from home at that time.
I entered the School of Nursing
at the University of Virginia,
but in the end, I became a medical secretary,
and the boy I fell in love with played a trumpet.'
So, though every episode
in "The Waltons" is not based on literal fact,
Mrs. Hawkes said,
'The whole series really captures beautifully
what our life was like.
It's quite authentic.
Many of the instance really did happen
like when we had to sell the calf
and when I sold Earl's, John-boy's typewriter to a junk man.
It was a borrowed typewriter.'"
So, good to know that those two episodes
were indeed based on real life fact.
"Later on, she says,
'Mrs. Hawkes, Mary Ellen grownup, is a tall,
slender, composed woman with a soft voice,
just the kind of person you'd imagine
had been raised by the gentle ma and pa of "The Waltons".'
Mrs. Hawkes said that there were two sets
of grandparents who played important roles
in the Hamner children's lives,
but the budget of the series
wouldn't allow for such a large cast.
So, the grandpa and grandma
of "The Waltons" were sort of composite
of all four of their grandparents, she said."
So, for those of you who've wondered
how come we didn't see Olivia's parents?
Budget. (chuckles)
How many times have I said that?
Like why? Where were the children?
Where were the grandchildren?
Where was John Curtis? Budget.
Sad, but true facts of making movies,
and sometimes you have to make those compromises.
It's like, well, can you do all of it?
Is it better to do none of it
or as much of it as you can and as your budget allows?
And I guess our producers did their best
to balance those two things
and tell stories that the audience would enjoy.
And if not, being able to reflect everything that happened
and every character that we came to know and love.
As the article goes on, she says,
"Their father in real life was a machinist
at the only industry
in Schuyler at the time, the Alberene Stone Company.
When he was laid off during the depression,
he worked very hard for very little money
doing things like cutting wood," his daughter said.
So, I really thank you, Scott.
It was so fun for me to go back and read this article.
I did have the pleasure
of meeting Marion on a couple of vacations.
She did come out to Hollywood, came onto the set,
and we got to spend a little bit of time together.
So, I enjoyed getting to meet her
and she was indeed a lovely woman.
I didn't get a chance to meet the rest of her family,
but I hope that they have all enjoyed watching the show.
And I know the brothers
and sisters of Earls that I have met
really have enjoyed being represented
through our depictions of the characters on "The Waltons".
The next of my sharing of real life
and how real life crossed with filmmaking.
This was inspired by my conversation with David Harper,
where we were talking about different things
during the series
and he mentioned, reminded me
that one of our early makeup artists,
Robert Sidell, Bob Sidell,
had this connection to the actual movie, "Argo".
And so,
it made me go - doing a little research,
because I couldn't remember the details of this,
just knew I'd heard them.
So, in researching around, I came across this article
in "The Hollywood Reporter"
that said, "The January 17th, 1980 issue
of "The Hollywood Reporter" was full of ads
promoting that year's Oscar hopefuls,
amid all the hoopla, it was probably easy
to overlook one relatively unassuming full page,
black and white display ad
announcing a new movie called "Argo".
In fact, there never really was a movie called "Argo"
that was ready to go before the cameras,
at least not in 1980."
As the article continues, it says,
"As the 2012 "Argo" reveals,
that trade ad for the 1980 "Argo"
was part of an elaborate and daring secret CIA mission
to rescue six US State Department officials
trapped in Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis."
So, this we know is true information.
"The Hollywood Reporter included,
merely played along with the ruse unwittingly.
But it all boils down
to one line that a movie producer
played by Alan Arkin delivers in the new film,
'If you wanna sell a lie,
you get the press to sell it for you.'
Affleck's movie, "Argo" begins with the storming
of the US Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries
in the blessing of the Ayatollah Khomeini
on November 4th, 1979.
52 Americans were taken hostage,
but unknown to the Iranian,
six others escaped and found refuge
in the homes of the Canadian embassy's top officials.
But even with newly issued Canadian passports,
the six still needed new cover identities
if they were to fly safely out of Iran."
Clearly, this was also the basis
of what the actual circumstances had been.
"So, in real life, enter Tony Mendez,
a CIA expert in exfiltration,
who came up with an outrageous proposal,
the six could pose as members
of the Canadian film crew scouting locations in Iran.
First though, he had to set up a Hollywood facade,
and so he turned to makeup expert, John Chambers,
winner of an honorary Oscar for his work
in 1968's "Planet of the Apes".
The men had collaborated
on secret projects in the past
that relied on Chambers' expertise
to provide disguises for CIA operations."
So, clearly, John Chambers
had actually done work with the CIA in the past.
So, Mendez and Chambers were real people
in real life that were then depicted in the movie.
So, continuing with the information
about the real operations here,
"As the operation got underway in 1980,
Chambers enlisted Robert Sidell,
a makeup artist with credits
ranging from "The Waltons" (chuckles)
to "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial".
Sidell didn't know about his colleague's CIA connection,
but knew something was afoot
as soon as he was introduced to Mendez,
who asked him to sign a secrecy agreement.
'At first I was floored,
then we got down to business,' he says.
If their production was to have any credibility,
the newly minted producers needed a real script.
As the movie tells it, there was a script
called "Argo" sitting in the slush pile,
which was perfect since its sci-fi setting
required filming in a desert setting like Iran."
The real story is more complicated.
"So, with 10,000 in financing from Mendez,
Sidell and Chambers formed a production company
called Studio Six, named for the six Americans in hiding,
and rented offices at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood.
To make it all look authentic,
they took out trade ads and began giving interviews.
Sidell told the Hollywood reporter
that foreign financing was behind the film.
When asked what he was planning,
who he was planning to cast,
Sidell as if enjoying an inside joke, said,
'We're sworn to secrecy on the names.'
Sidell recruited his wife, Andy,
to handle the company's three public phone lines,
plus one that was solely for incoming CIA calls.
That line rang only once
during the three weeks they were in the office.
And when Andy answered the phone,
a voice said, 'They're out, it's over.'
The hostages were free.
"Argo" then simply disappeared,
because initially it remained classified.
We'd say, 'It's not canceled, just postponed', says Sidell."
So, that is the story
behind our former makeup artist, Bob Sidell,
being involved in a CIA operation
that served as the means to extricate those hostages,
and also for the future film by Ben Affleck called "Argo".
So, if you haven't seen the movie
or you've been a while since you've seen it,
you might go back and watch it again,
and look at how
these Hollywood and life
can sometimes be stranger than fiction.
I hope you enjoyed this slightly different version
of "Behind The Scenes of The Waltons"
with some real life information about
the inspiration for the character of Mary Ellen,
Marion Hamner Hawkes,
and our little connection via
six degrees of separation
or whatever it is with the film "Argo"
and our makeup artist Bob Sidell.
I will be back
with more "Behind The Scenes of The Waltons"
and more "Ask Judy",
and who knows what else I might dig up as 2023 goes forward.
Thanks for watching.