Photos Courtesy of the Ohio County Public Library Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart, the lead actor in “Fools’ Parade,” signs an autograph for a young girl at the movie’s Wheeling premiere in 1971.
MOUNDSVILLE — It has been 50 years since Hollywood showed the rest of the world a glimpse of the Ohio Valley. For a few months, the region was host to a slew of movie stars, who came to Marshall County to shoot a film modeled after a Moundsville novelist’s hometown.
Aug. 18 will mark the 50th anniversary of the large-scale release of “Fools’ Parade,” a 1971 “dramedy” set in the fictional town of Glory, West Virginia. Wheeling was the first city to premiere the film on June 17, 1971, but the rest of the world got its chance that August.
Starring Jimmy Stewart and George Kennedy — as well as a 19-year-old Kurt Russell, Strother Martin, William Windom, Mike Kellin and Anne Baxter — the movie was filmed in Moundsville and in the nearby areas.
Novelist Davis Hunter, who wrote the 1969 novel the movie was based on, was born and raised in Moundsville.
One scene was set on the Ohio River, where a free-floating boat explodes in a dramatic fireball. Many people recall going as children to “watch them blow up the boat,” but for some others, the arrival of the stars was an opportunity for a chance to get closer to the action.
Moundsville resident Jim Cochran, now 86, recalls having been mailed a token paycheck and taking the producers up on a catered dinner. Cochran, a longtime chronicler of Moundsville for the Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register, was a minor, unnamed extra in the production. During the last day of production, Cochran recalls heading to Trinity Episcopal Church Parish Hall to grab a plate to eat and found an available chair — as it turns out, next to Stewart, the film’s leading man.
“It just so happened that the seat was open. I sat down and (Stewart) was talking to everyone around him,” he said. “He wasn’t a big-shot or anything. Most of them enjoyed their stay because it was something different for them. … Everything went smooth, really. They were here for that, and six months later, they came back for the premiere.”
The Court Theatre in Wheeling was the site of the local premiere in June 1971. The large-scale release came in August 1971.
One day of filming, Cochran remembers, he suddenly found himself relatively alone in Moundsville, as not only did the film crew relocate north to Glen Dale to film the scene where the boat explodes, but so did many residents who wanted to see it.
In this scene, Baxter’s character attempts to use a pistol to open a locked trunk she believes to be carrying money, but which has instead been packed with dynamite. The ensuing explosion completely demolishes the houseboat — and the character. The scene was filmed from the banks of the river.
“That afternoon, all of a sudden, there’s nobody around in the courthouse area,” Cochran said. “Finally, I found someone who said, ‘They went to Glen Dale!,’ and I went up to watch that happen. They shut down traffic on the Ohio side, and the railroads, and everything.”
While the stars were in town, they didn’t keep themselves confined to their trailers, either. One man, John Fahey, was a golf caddy at the Wheeling Country Club one autumn day when Stewart and some friends came knocking.
“It was a fall morning, I would have been 16, and it was cool — I was the only caddy there,” Fahey said. “(My boss) came back and said, ‘You’re going to caddy for a big actor!’ A car pulls up with three guys in it. Two of them rode a cart, Jimmy Stewart walked, and I caddied for him.”
While Fahey didn’t get a chance to talk much with Stewart — caddies aren’t supposed to bother the golfers, after all — he did follow him through the links.
“After it was over, people were asking, ‘What was it like?’ And I have to say, it was just another round of golf. He didn’t talk much. I think (Stewart)’s probably just pretty quiet. Not an exceptionally good tipper, either. … As a caddy, you’re taught not to talk to the golfer unless he initiates the conversation.
“… I didn’t know he was that famous until after the movie came out,” he later added.
Cochran added that he saw most locals respecting the stars’ privacy, and wondered out loud if the small-town charm made for a more enjoyable filming experience compared to the norm.
“The people of Moundsville were real nice to these people, and if you saw them somewhere, you let them say the first thing,” he said. “You’d get a good conversation with them. There wasn’t anything where anyone got out of line.
“They had police around, but I never heard of anybody doing anything they shouldn’t,” he added. “They really enjoyed, I think, their stay here. It’s different than being out in California.”
Benwood resident Karen Rose was around 11 at the time, and recalls wandering around the town while filming was taking place. Rose’s father loaded her and several family members into a station wagon to head to Moundsville and see the stars.
“You had to stand back, but you could watch them,” Rose said. “I had pictures of Jimmy Stewart walking across the set. Kurt Russell, he was young.
“George Kennedy and Strother Martin, they came over and gave me autographs,” she added. “George Kennedy sat on a bench next to me and put his arm around me. I have a picture somewhere of him with just me on the bench. They were really nice.”
Rose, unfortunately, had no luck in tracking down that photo, despite time spent searching family photo albums.
The movie’s premiere the following summer, according to Cochran, was “a gala affair” with an estimated 12,000 people coming downtown in their finery to take part in the parade and other events surrounding the event.
Among the dignitaries in Wheeling that day were Stewart and then-Gov. Arch Moore. Throngs of people came to celebrate, and one more beam of spotlight was cast on the area.
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Fools' Parade, Filmed In Moundsville, Remembered 50 Years Later - Wheeling Intelligencer
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