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David Mitchell
Mary Ann,
You are corrrect.
I should have added all that. But he did live in Bluffton for a short period while he was writing "Prince of Tides". My best friend (cobra pilot, house & boat builder) also knew him while he lived here. There is a property near us where he lived in an old double-wide, owned by one of his father's old Marine buddies.
And yes, hIs life did revolve mostly around Beaufort and Charleston, but I think he moved away to Rome (Italy) for many years before his short period back in his favorite Beaufort - just before he died. We probably both will remember how much the local press made out of his death. You'd have thought it was the end of the world in Beaufort.
(I have bragged - jokingly - to my kids that I have something in common with Pat Conroy. That he and I both were the featured article on the Sunday front page of the Beaufort Gazette (and Hilton Head "Island Packet"), and both with articles written by David Lauderdale - a favorite local reporter). But Pat conroy was featured two weeks in a row. I only made it once - LOL.
Correct me if I am wrong here:
He angered so many people with his outspoken critical manner (though well desrved when he spoke out about local racism in the school system) that he was shunned by many and even banned from events at his alma mater, The Citadell ("Lords of Discipline") for years. But times changed. When he was burried frrom St. Peter's Catholic Church in Beaufort a few years ago, the Citidel sent a large contingent of cadets, who I was told, lined the entire walkway from the parking lot to the church door as an honor guard.
It is said that he had been widely disliked for his abrasive manners (due to his manic depression), but seemd to come back to his beloved Beaufort in those last few years a changed man - staying on his meds, and with a third wife who helped him take the "edge" off his temper. Before returning full-time, he had been comming back to Hilton Head every year to give a keynote speech for local mental health charities.
You should share a bit more about some of your guests at your Inn, such as Blythe Danner, who was the wife in "The Great Santini", with Robert Duval (another good Conroy book and movie). And you might eplain a bit more about all the films shot in and around Beaufort.
A friend here is Bluffton is a semi-retired graphic artist, with a connection to the semi-retired movie producer in Beaufort. Every time Hollywood comes to shoot in the Beaufort area, she has done virtually every highway sign, bus decal, restaurant sign and menu, logo, old business sign, etc. for "The Great Santini", "Prince of Tides", "The Big Chill", "Taladega Nights", "The Note Book", and others for many years. She did not do Forrest Gump, but her husand's family farm land was used for the construction of the boyhood home - an empty shell that was then torn down after the filming.
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Al,
Yes, the book is almost always better than the movie. And they left out a major plot line in the "Prince" - his brother's post Vietnam PTSD issues and the Savannah river nuclear plant.
Interestingly, another really good locally written book/movie, "The Secret Life of Bees" (Gina Prince Bagwood) stayed quie faithfull to the book. Four black ladies and a little runaway white girl in South Carolina in the 50's.
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