Raised in Arkansas, Hal Needham is one of the great American stuntmen, as well as the director of screwball, fast-car classics like "Smokey and the Bandit" 1 and 2 and "Cannonball Run." He'll be in Little Rock for the Little Rock Film Festival, and will provide the introduction for a special outdoor showing of "Smokey and the Bandit" on Sunday, June 5, at the Riverfest Amphitheatre, sponsored by the LRFF and Movies in the Park. Needham recently chatted by phone with Arkansas Times reporter David Koon from his home in West Hollywood, Calif.
AT: You were born in Memphis, but grew up mostly in Arkansas?
NEEDHAM: I was born in Memphis, and moved to Arkansas when I was probably 3 or 4 years old. Then I left when I was probably 11 or 12 — somewhere in that neighborhood.
AT: Where did your family live in Arkansas? I don't think it ever says in your book.
NEEDHAM: You got your pencil handy? I lived in El Dorado, I lived in Enwright, Georgetown, Oak Grove, Pangburn, Perkin and Sidon and West Helena. How's that for covering the state? We were sharecroppers, so every year, we were moving to a new place to live. That's why we moved around so much.
AT: What was it like moving around that much as a kid?
NEEDHAM: It wasn't very much fun. We didn't call a moving company to bring over a big van and a bunch of guys. We threw all our junk on a farm wagon with a team of mules, we hooked our cultivator behind because it had wheels, and tied the milk cow to that and away we went down the road.
When we'd move, as best I can remember, we'd leave late at night, maybe 1 o'clock in the morning, and it would take us all night and the next day to get where we were going. One time, as I remember, it was 10 or 11 at night, and we're going down this muddy road and our team is so tired they can hardly pull the wagon, and we get stuck. So my stepdad goes back to a house that wasn't very far back and asks the guy to pull us out. The guy said, "Well, I've got a team of mules back there, but they've never been hooked up. Let's see what happens." Can you imagine hooking a team of mules to a wagon that have never been worked? They were raring and jumping. I thought they were going to tear the wagon up, but they finally got us out, and we went on. It was not fun, the way I lived in Arkansas.
AT: From reading your book, it sounds like you were desperately poor, even by sharecropper standards.
NEEDHAM: We were bottom of the totem pole! We were always way back in the woods. All the towns I named you? We never lived in any of them. We were within 10 or 12 miles of them. So, yeah. We didn't have running water. A couple of times we had a well out in the yard, but most of the time we had to go carry water from a spring or the river or some damn thing. No electricity, obviously, and the only heat we had was a fireplace and cookstove. We were poor. Really poor.
AT: The accounts of it you write are harrowing. I especially liked the story about your mother canning all those vegetables so your family could live through the winter.
NEEDHAM: The summertime was spent prepping for wintertime. She'd put up three or four thousand quarts in the summertime. We canned everything, including meat, because we had no refrigeration and it would go bad. She canned everything — vegetables out of the garden, we'd pick blackberries before we'd go to work. She'd be cooking breakfast and we'd go out picking blackberries and she'd can them that day.
More by David Koon
-
Films in bloom
LR, Ozark film festivals highlight in spring.
- Mar 14, 2013
-
Former LRPD cop Josh Hastings pleads not guilty
Josh Hastings, the former Little Rock Police Department officer who was charged with manslaughter in January in the August 2012 shooting death of a 15-year-old boy during a burglary call at a West Little Rock apartment complex, plead not guilty to the charge today.
- Feb 28, 2013
- More »
Latest in Cover Stories
-
A guide to the 2013 Little Rock Film Festival
With film picks, a survey of the Arkansas program, a complete schedule and more.
- May 16, 2013
-
A downtown dream realized for Little Rock Film Festival
Screens straddle the river.
- May 16, 2013
-
Ten to watch at the Little Rock Film Fest
Films not to miss.
- May 16, 2013
- More »
Event Calendar
-
Re: It was a good week for celebrity visits to Little Rock
Mark Pryor's standing well with both the NRA and the IRS. After all, he got…
- on May 18, 2013
-
Re: Locally made at the Little Rock Film Fest
"Mary" by Zach & Caleb Turner.
- on May 17, 2013
-
Re: Jim Something
Wow David, excellent piece.
- on May 17, 2013
Site Index
News
Cover Story / Arkansas Reporter / The Week That Was / Smart Talk / The Insider / The Observer / Editorial / Max Brantley / Ernest Dumas / Gene Lyons / Bob Lancaster / Words / Guest Writer / Letters
Entertainment
A&E Feature / To-Do List / In Brief / Movie Reviews / Music Reviews / Theater Reviews / A&E News / Art Notes / Graham Gordy / Books / Media / Dining Reviews / Dining Guide / What's Cookin' / Calendar / The Televisionist / Movie Listings / Gallery Listings
This Week's Cover
Quick Links
Special Publications
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
