Wayne Engle
Senior Reporter
Madison Courier
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Caviezel, the star of “Madison,” was the last of the actors to arrive for the Ohio Theater’s premiere presentation of the movie made six years ago in Madison and along the Ohio River. Jake Lloyd (now 16 and with a young lady of equivalent age on his arm); Paul Dooley, who played Mayor Don Vaughn; and the other actors in the movie arrived before Caviezel, making their way down the red carpet from the corner of Main and West streets to the marquee of the theater, pausing for autographs as digital camera and home video shots were taken by enthusiastic fans.
But it was the man who played hydroplane driver Jim McCormick, winner of the 1971 Gold Cup, who most entranced the crowd. The tall, slim Caviezel moved slowly down the double line of fans, an excited buzz and clicking of cameras accompanying him.
To the women and girls in the crowd, there was one big reason they came to see Caviezel.
“Yes, he’s hot!” said Debrah White of Whiteland, who had driven down with her husband as they do many weekends during the year. “He’s very handsome — VERY handsome. And I’ve heard he’s a very nice man, too.”
Stacy Robertson of Milton, Ky., flashed a small piece of paper that Caviezel had signed for her. “That’s priceless,” the young woman said. “He’s dreamy — he’s a good-looking man.”
Caviezel appeared calm and cool in a light-colored summer suit. But at one point someone wiped sweat from his forehead. He took his time, signing any autograph requested and chatting with those who gazed starry-eyed in his direction.
A little girl wanted an autograph, but had no paper to offer Caviezel. He playfully pretended to sign her forehead; she said, “Yeah! Go ahead!” But he laughed and said, “No — you don’t want me to sign that — your mom’ll kill me.” She finally produced an empty soft-drink cup, and he scrawled his name, then moved on.
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Before the actors arrived, a number of those waiting to enter the theater for “Madison” were local people who had had a small part in the filming.
Vicky and Joe Germano stood in front of the tent nearest West Street. Vicky Germano had had a small, non-speaking role in the Gold Cup race sequence as a spectator. She said as she waited, “My biggest goal is to get my poster signed — if I could just find Jim Caviezel.”
Vicky Germano; her sister, Maria Canada; and Canada’s three young sons had played spectators standing on the river bank during the Gold Cup, cheering for the hometown Miss Madison as she took the honors.
“It was fun at first; by the fourth take we really had our cheering down right,” Germano said. The director didn’t agree with that assessment; 10 takes were shot.
“The boys were getting pretty cranky by that time,” Germano said, laughing.
Joe Germano said he liked the old 1960s and 1970s cars that were brought in for the filming — “muscle cars,” as he called them.
Greg Chatham of Madison was Jake Lloyd’s stand-in during the filming. Now a much-taller 15 going on 16, Chatham said he would very much like to get more movie work — including speaking parts.
Chatham did most of Lloyd’s night scenes — including the one in which the Miss Madison crew goes to Columbus to swipe a World War II airplane engine from a display on the courthouse lawn to install in the Miss Madison. “I was up there all night,” Chatham said.
Chatham had been talking to Jake Lloyd down at the riverfront one day before filming started, and then had walked away. His mother, Patricia Hammons, said film personnel chased down her son in a golf cart to ask if his mother would let him act as Lloyd’s double. She agreed.
His biggest “stunt” as Lloyd’s stand-in was climbing up a water tower along the waterfront to wave to his movie dad as McCormick drives the Miss Madison down the home stretch to the Gold Cup championship. Chatham said he climbed the tower, then when the camera swiveled around to show his face, a switch had been made and it was Lloyd who was actually seen.
Over where the ticketholders were waiting to enter the Ohio, Jeanine Little and her husband, Bob, were with friends. “He got us tickets, and he said, ‘You’re going.’ We said, ‘OK!’ ” Jeanine said, laughing.
She had been wearing a dressy gown earlier, as had many women in the crowd. But by this time she had changed into a top and slacks. “It got too hot for the gown,” she said.
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Mike McCormick was the boy in real life whom Jake Lloyd plays in “Madison” — Jim McCormick’s son, 10 years old when Miss Madison won the Gold Cup in 1971.
“He plays me as I was at 10,” Mike McCormick said as he sat at one of the tables in the big tents put up on Main Street for the premiere. “We had a lot of talks during the filming.”
McCormick said he was the little guy who desperately wanted to learn everything about hydroplane racing, and be a driver himself some day.
“I stayed with the Madison crew on the circuit. I washed parts, I got greasy. ... I was just a little kid, probably in their way. But they never pushed me away. I wanted to learn every nook and cranny of that boat. They were great guys, and I sure miss the ones that are gone. But they’re here in spirit.”
As McCormick discussed his friends who are no longer living, and his father, who died at age 61 on Feb. 12, 1995, he became choked up, and had tears in his eyes.
McCormick said Jim Caviezel was totally believable as his father. “He studied the part very well. He played my dad to a ‘T,’ ” he said. “His personality off-screen is so much like my dad’s. Dad’s nickname was ‘Gentleman Jim,’ and I feel Jim (Caviezel) is the same type of man — a fine, Christian man, devoted to his family. The same traits.”
A local woman said Caviezel, a devout Roman Catholic, attended Mass Sunday morning at Prince of Peace Catholic Church, and at the pastor’s invitation gave the homily.
McCormick said he drove limited hydroplanes for some time as an adult before health problems forced him to quit for a while. But he still owns a five-liter boat, and intends to begin driving again. “I’d like to drive the Miss Madison myself — like to get my shot,” McCormick said, grinning.
As to the town where his dad gained his biggest win —
“Thank you, Madison, for all the memories and all the good times,” Mike McCormick said. “It’s my second home, and when I retire, I’m going to move here. I love Madison; the good friends, the town; it’s a lot more than just boat racing.”
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As the crowd left the theater after “Madison” was screened, the comments were uniformly favorable.
“I loved the aerial shots,” said Mike Moore of Madison. “I can’t see that well on the riverfront, but in the movie I could see the boat much clearer, and I could actually see how he drove it. The camera angles were beautiful; the acting was great. I’ve been waiting for six years for this movie, and it was worth it.”
Trey Barlow, who grew up here and had returned from his home on the East Coast for the premiere, was a production assistant whose name was on the screen.
“Two thumbs up! Lots of fun,” he said. “Lots of thrills and excitement, and victory for Madison. Great cinematography, and I think it portrayed Madison well. It was also exciting to see my own name up there on the screen.”
Ginny McClanahan of Madison said watching the movie made her proud to live here. And she said her son Kyle McClanahan played Kent in the film.
In addition, her father, Ellison McClanahan, since deceased, hauled the Miss Madison to Chicago for the scenes shot there. He also furnished a blue 1968 Chevrolet Impala that was seen in “Madison.”
Diane Trice of Chicago said she enjoyed the movie because she likes true stories, and she likes the fact that “Madison” is based on a true story.
Her friend, Roger Wolsai, appeared as “angry citizen” in a meeting scene early in the film. He said he liked it because “it was a feel-good type movie.”
Fred Farley, longtime official historian for the unlimited racing commission who was present at the 1971 race, said he thinks the movie is bound to be a positive thing for the sport of hydroplane racing.
“Now the American public will know what we’ve known for years — it is the greatest spectacle in sports,” Farley said. “It’s a faithful representation of that sport. Granted, there’s some fictitionalizing in the movie, but the characters ring true. It’s true in the spirit of the characters, whom I knew very well.”
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The moviegoers filed into the big tents for after-show food and beverages. Up at the Main-Mulberry intersection, there was a free concert for a crowd of fans arrayed in a half-circle in the middle of the blocked-off intersection. Most took their ease in lawnchairs, some with their coolers close at hand. Small children ran back and forth in the middle of the street, or stood and swayed in time to the music.
The paying guests in the fenced-off tents, more formally dressed on the whole than those at the free show, began drifting east toward the end of the tent nearest the bands. The music, which quickly filled the whole downtown area, was infectuous, the end to a unique day in the river city that hosted a movie.