Fact Checking Bill Leighty
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12 responses to “Fact Checking Bill Leighty”
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But to build on the issues raised by reader “how_it_works”, the entire anecdote is built around the filming of the movie Navy Seals. The story is that the production company wanted a permit for a specific scene so Bill went to X, Y, and Z and Z had had what X wanted so everything worked out. But the scene ended up being filmed overseas anyway.
NOVA’s annual emissions inspections is indirectly attributable to Bill Leighty and Navy Seals.
The problem is that filming began in September 1989. It was moved overseas in November 1989. There’s no way legislation introduced in January 1988 would have been related to the filming.
Moreover, there wasn’t even a script for the film until after the 1988 writer’s strike, which ended in August of that year.
In order for all of this to make sense on the timeline presented, for 1988 legislation the production company would have wanted to get the permit in the fall of 1987. The original director died in that summer and it’s unclear when a new one was brought in, so maybe they’d be making this decision without a director. It would be nearly a year before they had a robust script and a year before filming.
Sources:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100232/locations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_SEALs_(film)-
A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night. -Marilyn Monroe, actress (1 Jun 1926-1962)
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I know next to nothing about the making of movies. However, it does seem plausible to me that the production company was scouting locations in 1987 for a movie that came out in 1990. After all, Leighty said they had changed their minds about the setting for the opening scene by the time he could assure the permits for the scene in the Chesapeake Bay. Finally, as you point out, there was a writers’ strike in 1988 that would have delayed the production.
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I wonder why the producers didn’t approach the Navy and use the beach at Little Creek thus avoiding the State altogether?
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Well, memories of the day begin to soften and fail.
I can only imagine it gives some solace as night approaches.
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Appreciate your efforts to fact check.
All in all, the book is too fast and loose with the facts. I’ll take a pass.
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When the newspaper assigned me to cover state government and politics full time almost 40 years ago, I thought about starting the diary habit. Had I done so, and done a better job of holding onto interesting documents, I could have written one helluva insider account. A bio of Jerry Falwell, too. Few reporters knew him like I did. But doing it from memory now would produce the same problems of faulty details. You wanna hear the good stuff, buy me a drink…I’ll open with my Irish grandma’s favorite line: If all stories are true, this is no lie…
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I’ll take you up on that sometime.
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In my extended family, it was my Aunt Mary who was the best storyteller. Boy could she captivate an audience, and keep them laughing. Having spent much time with her, I found that the stories “improved” with each telling.
I’m sure you have some good stories about Virginia politics. Jerry Falwell was quite a personality. Jerry Jr. perhaps even more so, but not necessarily in a good way.
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I still remember the liquor “ad” about Jerry and his mom…
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Not to late to write it down.
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too.
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