Thursday, October 22, 2009

Biltmore Follow Up

Boy, you learn something new every day. A Daily Meaux reader contacted us in response to the Biltmore story to let us know that Acadiana's own Hoyt Harris was in a movie that filmed at the Biltmore.

He writes:
"Todays article on the Biltmore reminded me of a bit of trivia. In 1979, the Peter Sellers film "Being There" was shot largely at the Biltmore. A young actor playing the role of Riff, a Secret Service agent, was none other than KATC's Hoyt Harris. A small but brilliantly acted part, rivaling Sellers himself! Well, small, anyway. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/

Thanks for the heads up Alan

4 comments:

  1. Alan was nice enough to remind us that Mr. Harris hasn't been at KLFY in years(my how the time flies!). The post has been edited to reflect this correction.

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  2. Hoyt Harris has blogged about his experience working on BEING THERE. I believe he wrote about it on katc's "online community" section of the katc.com website. On that site, he blogs as "agentriff", the character he played in the Peter Sellers movie.

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  3. I found the following on amazon.com, where Hoyt Harris talks about being cast in BEING THERE:

    "BEING THERE was my first and last film. But what a film for a debut! While news anchoring at WLOS-TV in Asheville, N.C., I was cast by Hal Ashby himself to play Riff, head of the Secret Service detail that comes to the Biltmore House (stand-in for the Rand mansion in the movie) to "case it" before the U.S. president (Jack Warden) visits. As the only TV anchor/reporter in the cast, I had a "leg up" in getting stories for my newscasts. When the casting director called to tell me to be at the Biltmore House the next morning at 6--"for wardrobe and make-up"--I didn't dare call my bosses at the TV station for fear they wouldn't let me do the movie. I was going to be in this film if it meant quitting my day job. And now, some 27 years later, how glad I am that I am in it, if only in a small speaking role. All I had hoped for was to be chosen to appear an an extra in the funeral scene (they were casting several dozen locals) and wound up cast as a "day player" with my own dressing room, for God's sake. The high point for me was doing a TV report on makeup legend Charlie Schram, who had been the head of MGM's make-up department during its golden years, making up the likes of a teen-age Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in the "Wizard of OZ", among actors in many now-classic films. Being there is right; i.e. being at the right place at the right time, and, brother, was I ever!"

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  4. http://hoytharris.blogspot.com/2010/03/under-construction-being-there-at-being.html

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