When Hollywood Came to Moundsville

“Kid Kirk” and the Making of Fools’ Parade

In the opening scenes of the 1971 motion picture Fools’ Parade (based on the Davis Grubb novel of the same name), as the stars of the film leave Moundsville prison and climb into a car with the credits still rolling, a young man dressed in overalls can be seen peering at the coming attractions in front of the Strand Theatre. He turns around and looks at the car as it stops at a stop sign.

That young man is 18-year-old Jeff Kirk of Martins Ferry, Ohio. His family once owned and operated Kirk’s Art Studio on Market Street in Wheeling. How did young Jeff end up appearing, even briefly, in a major Hollywood motion picture? It was all about a vintage car.

At age 16, Jeff joined the Northern Regional Panhandle Antique Car Club, a division of the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA). A producer from Columbia Pictures contacted the club about a new motion picture to be filmed in Moundsville, and to star the likes of Jimmy Stewart, Ann Baxter, Strother Martin, George Kennedy, and Kurt Russell.

“The producers asked people to bring in period cars as the film was set in the early part of the Great Depression in the 1930s,” Jeff explained. “And my car’s a 1927 Willys-Knight, which I purchased with my Grit newspaper route, for $350, when I was 15. So I had a car when I was 15. And I remember driving it in the driveway, which isn’t even 100 feet long. But that’s how I learned to drive a standard.”

Willys-Knights were manufactured between 1914 and 1933 by the Willys-Overland Company of Toledo, Ohio, an automobile manufacturer owned by bicycle maker John North Willys.

Jeff had just graduated high school. When he heard about the casting call for vintage cars for the movie, he went to sign up. The car got a part, and so did its owner. “While I was there, the stand-in for Kurt Russell quit. And they were saying, ‘Hey we need a stand-in for Kurt Russell. Hey! You look like him. You be it! And that’s how I became Kurt Russell’s stand-in. The funny thing was, my car got $35 a day for the use of it, and I, as a stand-in, got $15 a day.”

It was the fall of 1970 and Jeff was on the set for about six to eight weeks. “I got to sit and talk with all the actors. There’s not much going on when they’re making a movie, I found. Being a stand-in is a little bit slow. You stand in the section where the director tells you to stand. Then all the grips and staff set all the lights and get all the cameras and everything just right, which takes sometimes, 45 minutes. Then the actor steps in and says, ‘I don’t know Mattie, do you think we should go across the river now?’ ‘Cut! Stand-in!’ You stand back in, and then you wait until they change the camera direction and start all over again. But then I had to do a couple stunts, actually. I had to jump in front of the train at nighttime while it was raining. That was exciting.”

Thus, Jeff’s second appearance in the film is as Kurt Russell’s stunt double, running and dodging a train, the same train –Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s Southern 4501 locomotive – used in another West Virginia movie called October Sky, some 30 years later.

As the actor’s stand-in, Jeff spent a lot of time on set with Kurt Russell. They chatted. Jeff learned a few things about Kurt. “Kurt Russell is a year older than me. I was 18, he was 19. And he told me that this was going to be his last movie. He felt that he had done all of those many movies for Disney and all the many movies he’d made as a child star. So he wanted to try another profession which he loved, which was baseball. I said well Kurt, you already know how to do this. He said, ‘Well, I’m tired of it. I want to do something else.’ So I think he did play in the minor leagues for a little bit, but then, of course, he came back into making movies, those great movies like Escape From New York, and Overboard. He’s been in a lot of great movies. I wish he’d make some more. We would talk every day, and I did take him for a ride in my Willys-Knight.”

In addition to Russell, Jeff interacted with many of the actors on set, such as venerable character actor Strother Martin. “He was in Cool Hand Luke. He was the warden. He said, ‘What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate.’ But he told very humorous stories and had a lot of Limericks on Nursery Rhymes that aren’t quite correct. I remember them, but I can’t repeat them.”

“Of course, Jimmy Stewart was quite the gentleman. Jimmy Stewart, for the movie had to wear a glass eye. And this was a contact that covered his entire eye. It wasn’t like the contacts you wear today that maybe change your brown eyes to blue. It was a full contact. And I think it was made in California by some optical person, but when it got here and he was wearing it, it would get dirt and stuff under it from the dusty conditions down at Moundsville on the set. And he came to the Wheeling Clinic here several times. As I recall, I thought it was Dr. Nugent [see comments section below] that worked on it. But they would polish the inside of the glass eye. And there’s a real important part of the movie where he pulls the glass eye out and touches it on the face of one of the henchmen sent to kill him (played by Wheeling’s Morgan Paull). And it was really great. I got to see him pull the eye out. He wore it several hours every day. I don’t think I could have done it.”

“Jimmy Stewart and I talked a lot. He was a very down to Earth person. You would never have known that he was a huge star. And he was at that time. He told me about flying in the war. World War II. He was a pilot for the bombers. And he was lucky to get out of the war without being killed. Some of the B-17s went down. I remember him saying that he didn’t like flying today because of them serving meals on the airplane. He said, ‘There should not be any meals on commercial flights!’”

“I also got to speak with Bob [character actor Robert] Donner. He was the conductor on the train. And they took a liking to me. I was just a young kid at the time. And he would call me ‘Kid Kirk.’”

He also interacted with familiar faces like William Windom, who played the dynamite salesman, and David Huddleston, a big guy who was “as jovial as he was on screen.”

Jeff had lunch with the actors on set on a daily basis. “I remember the food was fantastic. They brought their commissary from Los Angeles. Columbia Pictures was who made the movie, and I had never eaten food like that. They had lobster and filet mignon for lunch. It was quite amazing.”

“The only person I didn’t talk to at length was Anne Baxter. I just said hi to her. And she said “Hi!” [haughty tone]. “She didn’t like any of the accommodations here in Wheeling. They had her put up at the McLure Hotel, which, at that time wasn’t restored. And it was old.”

Most of the actors were more than willing to be photographed. Many of them did poses for Jeff’s camera, including young Kathy Cannon, who went on to appear in Battlestar Galactica.

Another of the young actors was Morgan Paull, who was from Wheeling. He had previously appeared in Patton as one of Patton’s aides. Jeff saw a photographer following Morgan Paull around as he went from actor to actor on the set one day. Reasoning that the photographer must be from a major newspaper or magazine, Jeff decided to get in on the shot when Paull stopped by Kurt Russell. “I photobombed them,” he joked. “One of the first photobombs. So I walked over to the photographer after that, because I’d heard him say, ‘And now we need somebody local to give some local interest to the movie.’” Jeff explained that he was Kurt Russell’s stand-in and that he was from Martins Ferry, Ohio. The photo ended up in Parade Magazine the following Sunday.

Jeff was on set for the river houseboat explosion. Bob Bond of Bond Hardware in Shadyside, Ohio used his own boat to pull the prop houseboat from shore. “When Ann Baxter pushed the boat out from shore with a stick, he was back there with the engines pulling it away.” Jeff has an 8 mm film of the explosion. The footage also includes Jimmy Stewart showing Jeff his glass eye and posing for the young filmmaker.

Jeff’s third and final appearance in the film was a memorable one. “We had 300 people on set for the end of the movie when they were coming out of the courthouse. And I’m at the top of the stairs, at the top of the landing, when Jimmy Stewart comes out. And [director] Andrew McLaglen says [on his bullhorn], ‘Now remember, don’t look into the camera! Action! And we start walking down the steps and Jimmy Stewart pushes me aside. You can see me in the movie. And then I looked at the camera and he [McLaglen] saw me. Out of 300 people. ‘Cut! Kirk! Don’t look at the camera!’”

The camera faux pas was followed by a minor continuity error that only Jeff could identify. “Immediately after that …I get in my Willys-Knight and drive past everybody. So I’m on the steps and I’m driving within two seconds. So that’s pretty cool. You can’t see me in the car but it’s me driving it. ”

44 years later, and he is still driving it. Jeff still has the 1927 Willys-Knight—the first car he ever bought, but not the last. He now owns 25 additional vintage automobiles.

 

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Fools’ Premiere

“I got to go to the premiere, and I sat with Kathy Cannon, at the Court Theater. It was a big deal. Jimmy Stewart came back. And there were thousands of people outside cheering everybody.”

And they will be cheering again when Moundsville’s restored Strand Theatre – the same theater where 18 year old Jeff Kirk stood reading the coming attractions while Hollywood cameras rolled back in the fall of 1970 – presents screening of Fools’ Parade again tomorrow, September 4 at 2 PM.

Kid Kirk will be there with his movie star car.

[- Based on a July 9, 2015 interview of Jeff Kirk. All set photos are copyright Jeff Kirk.]

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Coming Down the Pike Soon:

Part 2 of our insider look at the production and premiere of Fools’ Parade will feature some of the amazing images from the Thomas Burns Collection, just acquired by the Ohio County Public Library Archives. Mr. Burns (1919-1989) was the manager of the Court Theatre when Fools’ Parade premiered in Wheeling on June 17, 1971. Jimmy Stewart, Governor Arch Moore and other luminaries were in town for the big event. Don’t miss part 2! In the meantime, enjoy the gallery below which features more photos taken by the young Jeff Kirk on the set of Fool’s Parade.

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