Lou’s View: DEAD CELEBRITIES: THEY’RE JUST LIKE US!
By Lou Bernard
Man, we love to read about celebrities. Any magazine with famous people in it just flies off the shelves. Magazines like People, Entertainment Weekly, and plenty of others make a lot of money by reporting on anyone who is famous, and I’ve decided it’s time for me to get in on that.
Of course, that’s a little challenging because of two factors: I write mostly about history, and I write about local things in Clinton County. So I’m going to invoke a little loophole here, and write a column about celebrities from the history of Clinton County.
Oh, yes. There are some.
Have you ever watched the “Planet of the Apes” movies? The good ones, not the current ones? Then you’ve seen a Lock Haven celebrity. James Bacon grew up in Lock Haven. His parents are buried in Saint Mary’s Cemetery, in fact. He grew up in a house at the corner of Sixth and Church Streets, and moved to Hollywood as an adult.
Bacon became friends with many big stars, wrote about them, and had small parts in some movies. This includes the “Planet of the Apes” series; he was the only actor to have a part in each of them. His childhood home still stands, not too far from Lock Haven University and the railroad tracks.
If humor is more your thing, then how about the Beverly Hillbillies? You ever see Jane Hathaway, played by Nancy Kulp? Nancy Kulp had a relative who was a school superintendent in Mill Hall. Not only did Nancy Kulp live in a house near the Susquehanna River on Mill Street, she got her acting start in Lock Haven. She remembered it clearly in interviews, even though she was about three at the time.
Her parents had taken her to a musical show in Lock Haven, most likely in the old Opera House. Little Nancy, enchanted by the singing and dancing, slipped away from her parents—Safety wasn’t invented until 1979—And walked up on stage, interrupting the show. With the entire audience staring at her, she sang a song she’d learned, and everyone applauded.
“The sound of that applause never left me,” she said later in life. That incident is what led her to become an actress, instead of a firefighter, which was her goal before then.
And if you’ve ever been to the Lock Haven Hospital, first off, hope you’re doing better. And second, I hope you’re a fan of cowboy movies, because there’s a connection there.
The land for the hospital was donated by Lee and Bessie Graham, who previously had owned a horse farm called Graham Acres. They owned a lot of the property on top of the hill, but were getting too old to run the entire farm. So they reached out to a local doctor to ask if he’d like the land for a clinic. He responded that he wasn’t interested in a clinic, but the hospital was planning on expanding, and that settled it.
When they donated the land, they sold all of their horses but three. One of the three they kept was the grandson of Trigger….The horse from the old Roy Rogers movies. There is still a monument to the Grahams on the property, though it doesn’t mention Roy Rogers.
Clinton County has had our share of brushes with fame—These connections don’t even include the people who have traveled through or visited the area, such as Katharine Hepburn, who visited Piper Aviation. (I’ve heard a very persistent rumor about Chuck Norris, but I’ve never found proof of that.)
So take that, Entertainment Weekly! I can write about celebrities, too! In an upcoming column, I’ll do “Jerry Church and John Moorhead: Who Wore It Better?” In the meantime, where do I pick up my check?
