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Hugging Blondes
Political junkies who make it a point of checking out the weekly publication formerly known as the Shopper (now Halls Shopper News) may have been puzzled when they opened up their paper the week after Jim Williams upset school board incumbent Steve Hunley. Adorning the front page was a picture of Williams embracing a blonde. Not just any blonde, but recently-retired school administrator Shirley Underwood in a punked-out fright wig. The shot, which was, frankly, weird, was staged by Shopper publisher Sandra Clark, and was a parody of a front page photo of Hunley hugging Ritta community activist Gail Weaver Farzanegan (who is blond) that ran in the News-Sentinel last month after the H.T. Hackney zoning battle. Hunley had gotten involved in the fortuitously timed anti-Hackney cause, which came to a head a week before the election. He blamed "biased community newspapers" for his defeat. Hunley, who sells petroleum products for a living, may soon be buying ink by the barrel, since he has been sending out feelers to start his own newspaper.
Vision This
Leave it to County Commission's resident wag Mark Cawood to try out a trendy new name for the bickering body:
"One County, 19 Visions," he intones before meetings.
Well, We Do Have Some Historical Fort Sanders Apartment Complexes...
What better project could an embryonic regional film commission, trying to lure big-budget movie productions to a largely-untapped area, hope for than a new version of a revered Knoxville classic? That's the hopeful position for Mona May, one of the chief volunteers for the newly-established East Tennessee Film Commission, who is in talks with an unnamed Los Angeles company to bring a made-for-television production of James Agee's A Death in the Family to Knoxville.
May first told County Commission about the project during an update on the film commission on Tuesday. She met the producers at the International Locations Expo in L.A. in February, and is currently trying to find just the right turn-of-the-century house for the shoot.
"They're very interested," says May, who formerly served as chair of the Florida Film Commission. "What a wonderful way to kick off the film commission, to have a movie based on a story set in Knoxville by a Knoxville author filmed here. It may be a good omen."
A previous version of Agee's novel, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama All the Way Home, was filmed here in the early 1960s.
May also says the same production company is interested in shooting a second film immediately after A Death in the Family.
The film commission received $25,000 in start-up money from County Commission in February, and Knox Area Chamber Partnership president Tom Ingram said Tuesday he plans to ask for full funding—around $150,000—in April.
Queen Horner
Printed on purple paper with an image of a grinning monarch complete with a crown and scepter, the invitations proclaimed that "The Queen has arrived." The ruler in question is County Commissioner Mary Lou Horner, and the occasion being celebrated was Horner's 75th birthday party (which actually happened here a few months back). The festivities were held at Pete DeBusk's lodge, and DeBusk was just one of the humble servants who bowed down to Knoxville's most enduring redhead, who brags that she wore a crown and a purple cape to her birthday bash.
March 30, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 13
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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