Bo

  One of the perks of living in Greenville was running into celebrities.  I had already run into George Clooney and Renee Zellweger, and I ran into another one--Bo Hopkins.  The name may not be as familiar as the other two, but he has had a long career as a character actor.  In fact, he was in the first episode of "Charlie's Angels" in 1976.  

 He was born in Greenville and had come back to his hometown to try and raise money for a movie project he was writing on Shoeless Joe Jackson.  Shoeless Joe was a disgraced professional baseball player from the early 1900's involved in a betting scheme.  Most people think now that he was innocent of the charges, and that was what the movie was going to be about.  So, Bo threw a party at Fluor Field in Greenville to drive interest for his project.

 I went to the party, because it was free.  He had grown up with the members of "The Swinging Medallions" band, and he invited them to play.  They were great.  Bo even got up on stage and sang with them.  It was a raucous Saturday afternoon.  During a break, I went up to Bo and introduced myself.  I then used the line I use on famous people, so they will listen to me:  "You and I have something in common."  He was listening.  I told him that we had both acted in movies and TV, and that we had both worked with Burt Reynolds.  I told him he had worked with Burt in "White Lightning", and I had worked with him in "Semi-Tough".  Then Bo said something that startled me.  He said, "Oh, I remember you."  I was shocked.  

 The only way he could have remembered me was if he had a photographic memory; freeze-framed the video to the part of 20 of us sitting in the stands; and remembered my red sport coat.  If you haven't read my story about that movie, they took 20 of us and moved us around the Cotton Bowl to be behind the actors on the sidelines for tight shots to make it look like there were fans in the stands.  I hope Bo was just being polite, but it really startled me.  We talked a bit about his project, and I asked him to write a part for me.  He said he would.

 I left the party with hopes of being in another film, but his project never got off of the ground.  He couldn't raise the money he needed to do the film.  Too bad.  I would have liked to have talked with him further about what else he remembered about me.  And I didn't even think to get his autograph.