Location Is Everything

They took over Beatty for several weeks for the shooting of ‘Cinderella Man.’ The street was part of my daily bike commute and every morning I zipped past rows of antique cars, as well as big parked trailers on my way to work. I have this vanity that Russell Crowe saw me and that inspired him to try to ride a bike through Yorkville. The poor man only got a few feet before he was hounded off the road by the paparazzi. I do not envy stars the prison that is created by their celebrity. A luxurious, but inescapable prison.

We were pleased to be offered a tidy sum of money for our house to be used in a movie shoot. Exterior filming only. Two characters would fight on the sidewalk by our front gate, and one of them would then break away and run up our path to the porch. It was a delightful coincidence to discover that made-for-TV production was written by a friend of ours. Not so nice, however, to find out when we watched the movie that our place had been chosen by ‘locations’ as the home of the scumbag, lowlife bad guy in the drama.