All my life I lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina, until last year, when I moved to college in the one-stoplight town of Boiling Springs, 4 hours away. Some of my fondest childhood memories from Fayetteville are of the times I hung out with my friend Hannah. We went to the pool together, made stupid bucket lists that we always promised to complete and never did, and baked Christmas cookies. I was there when we decided to smell the different spices in the spice cupboard and she got a dill seed stuck up her nose and her mom had to pick her up, and she was there when we made brownies and the glass mixing bowl fell on my foot and I split my foot open. We were just always around each other.
One thing I remember about hanging out with Hannah and her family is that they went to the movies a lot. Actually, while I saw a fair amount of movies growing up, I think nearly every movie I saw in theaters I saw with her family. Who kick-started the love of film in the Hedgepeth household? It’s safe to say that Hannah’s dad, William Hedgepeth, can be credited with that. He sees about 18 movies in theaters every year, and at some points in his life, would see as many as 30 movies in theaters a year. I interviewed Mr. Hedgepeth, who is 56, on September 12th about his love of movies and his history with films to see what ignited his passion for a good movie.
Q.What was one of the first films you remember watching in a theatre?
A. One of the first movies I watched was Billy Jack. I probably shouldn’t have been able to be in that movie because it was probably rated R. I was probably 10 or 11. It was a good movie, though. It was a kung fu movie about a veteran who saved a little town.
Q.What do you remember about those early film experiences (food, type of theatre, friends, family, how you felt, etc.)?
A.Whenever I went to the movies, it was always with my friends. My parents would tell me I could watch the movies from the 40s and 50s and 60s at home. I knew all about the old actors and actresses and I liked to see it on the big screen rather than the little TV screen.
Q.Did any of those actors actresses really stick with you? Who were your favorites?
A.Gregory Peck. He was famous in To Kill a Mockingbird. That’s when he became big. Spencer Tracy, too, and of course, John Wayne.
Q.Do you remember when the event films like “Jaws” and “Star Wars” were in theaters?
A. Oh, yeah, Jaws was really scary. That was a good one. I worked in a movie theater for several years, and I got to see countless movies for free all over town– the theaters had an agreement so I could go to the different theaters– so I’ve seen more movies than most people probably have. Nothing like Jaws and Star Wars had been done before that, which I think is why they were so popular. But then, a young man named Steven Spielberg and a guy named George Lucas turned the industry upside down by making a movie about a shark and a movie about space, and they made movies about something that didn’t seem like they could be really real to people.
Special effects were just beginning to catch up with the movie business. Today we have CGI computer graphics, but [Spielberg and Lucas] came along at the right time to do something in the theater that hadn’t been done before. It’s sad, I guess, from one perspective because movies relied on the acting to be good, but today with the CGI, they rely more on the “wow factor.” Saving Private Ryan has a good combination of both. That was the difference though. The technology was beginning to catch up and they could put it in their movies and make it work and make it look real. You felt the shark was real. You felt Darth Vader was real.
Q.Did you watch many films growing up?
A. Yes, lots and lots of movies. I liked war movies and science fiction and Westerns. Twelve O’Clock High was a war movie and Saving Private Ryan was a war movie– and of course, Star Wars.
Q. Did you ever go to Drive-In Movies when you were younger?
A. I did–just a few. Not a lot. That was fun because somebody would have a pickup truck and we would load everyone up, but I preferred the theater instead of drive-ins. It was always nice during the hot summer days, though, and we always went to horror movies at the drive-in.
Q.Did you ever go rent from a video store?
A. I did that a lot. I would rank movies, “A,” “B” and “C,” and I would wait for them to come out on video. I would see the “A” ones in theaters, and I’d usually wait for the “B” and “C” movies to come out on video. The best movies tend to come out in summer, so the rest of the time, in the fall, winter, and spring– I’d rent those movies.
Q. What kinds of films do you watch now?
A. Same thing. Western, war movies, and sci-fi. I’ll watch other things, too. [My wife] doesn’t go to see the same thing because she likes those love stories. I like a good suspenseful drama, too, but not a lot of them are made really well. I want to go see that Wind River movie, though.
Q. What do you think makes a movie good?
A. I just want it to be good entertainment. Good acting. A good story. If they make a movie on historical perspective, I want it to be accurate. Even if it’s fantasy, you don’t want it to be silly. I want to see a movie that I can believe is true. The actors can take a storyline and make a story more believable. But a good character can carry a movie.
Q. Do you think your love of movies has influenced the way your kids see movies?
A. They’re looking for a good movie. The love of movies– it’s rubbing off on them and it’s one of the legacies I can leave them.
Jenna Shackelford
9/15/17
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