Cuzzin, this one time, Barbara Hershey saved a Blackfoot Hershey Squirt (me).
I’m filming “The Last of the Dogmen” in Canmore, AB. I’m an Archaeologist, and there’s this one scene where I had to carry a bunch of stone artifacts and put them on a table.
Simple, right? Well not for me, O’MAHK’SIIK’IIMI.
So the director goes “ACTION!” and Tom Berenger starts doing his cool Tom Berenger thing, and Barbara Hershey starts doing her cool Barbara Hershey thing.
Right. In. Front. Of. Me.
For a second, I forget I’m in a movie and go full fanboy. My braids stiffen up and I’m like “OMG, Barbara Hershey is Barbara Hershey-ing and Tom Berenger is Tom Berenger-ing right in front of me! OMG OMG OMG!!!”
Blackfoot are guided by our ancestors, so right then my late grandma Leona‘s voice echoes deep into the black matter of my brain “O’MAHK’SIIK’IIMI, you’re in a movie!”
Oh yeah!
I snap out of my Blackfoot blackout and pick up my tray of precious fragile artifacts. I walk smoothly towards the scene, Tom and Barbara are center screen, foreground, talking made up archaeological mumbo jumbo - something about a long lost tribe in the Rockies. Yeah, ok (lol).
I appear center screen, background.
Once again I forget I’m in a movie, and forget to watch where I’m walking.
Crash, boom, bang!
Blackfoot down, feet in air, artifacts smashed and tattered, film crew super silent, movie director extra pissed, Blackfoot very sad.
I panic, bust out crying, and run off the set, lol. I can still hear the director swearing “Dafuq is wrong with that guy. He can’t even walk!”
My grandma’s voice tells me “O’MAHK’SIIK’IIMI, keep your cool, don’t lose it on that Napikoan!”
I do the opposite and decide I’m going to run back home, right now, all the way to my rez, 100 miles away. I’m on my homeland anyways. How hard can it be, right?
I rotate east towards the foothills to begin my 100 mile run … and there stands the breathtaking Barbara Hershey.
I’m lost in her eyes as she gently tells me “don’t worry, it’s nothing, that old director was wrong, let’s finish this scene.”
I wipe my Blackfoot tears, pick up my pride, take a deep breath, tell my grandma she’s always right, and finish the scene like a champ.
Later, Barbara invites me to lunch and I ask her all about that movie “Beaches”, with Bette Midler - we laugh and laugh and laugh. I’ll keep that part of the memory to myself though.
CLICK HERE and skip to 3:12 to see me in the final scene!
Couple years later, I’m in this TV movie called “Children of the Dust”, with Sydney Portier, Farrah Fawcett and Billy Wirth. Billy played one of the vampires in “The Lost Boys”, and starred in our favorite movie, “War Party”. He’s a real cool dude, and invites me and The Shuswap (my bro, Kevin Sandy) to his fancy movie trailer.
I didn’t smoke weed at the time, but Kev sure did, so him and Billy roll it up, light up, smoke it up, inhaaaale, exhaaaale. A huge puff of ganja fills the RV. I go to get some air, and right at that moment there is a hard knock on the door. I open the door, a big puff of that sticky icky icky smoke bellows out … right in the face of …
SYDNEY #$%&@ PORTIER!!!!
… I panic, but he is cooler than a polar bear’s toenail. Sydney says, all regal sounding and stuff “Boys, I am flying to Paris to see my wife tonight. See you tomorrow on set. Smells good in there.”
… then he winks and leaves (lol)
The next day I got fired by the director, ‘cause I wouldn’t ditch an Elder lady in the jail wagon we were escaping from. I said “that’s not realistic, we wouldn’t just leave an Elder!”
I was immediatly escorted off the set.
So sadly, I have no clips for you of that movie. I did get to meet Farrah Fawcett though, wow!