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COATESVILLE, Pa.
— Not long ago, a couple in rural
Chester County, Pa.
, —
Sue Rathbone
and
Ed Fitts
— finished making a movie about their pet.
OK, maybe
that's a bit of an understatement.
Let's
start with "the pet": a horse named Odd Job
Bob of the rare Gypsy Vanner breed, marbled in black and
white, with a flowing mane and unusual feathered hooves
that give a sense of flight as he gallops among the
couple's 200 acres near
Coatesville, Pa.
Then
there's "the movie": Fitts and Rathbone spent
from
$8 million to $10 million
on a feature film starring
Brooke Shields
,
Aidan Quinn
, and
Kris Kristofferson
, with a 14-year-old pixie named
Sammi Hanratty
in the title role of "The Greening of
Whitney Brown
."
The
project was the ultimate impulse satisfaction for a
couple who have indulged a few whims since meeting 10
years ago — thanks to the fortune that Fitts piled up
manufacturing paper packaging for fast-food restaurants.
"We
just thought it would be cool to do," said Fitts,
an industrial engineer who owns El Brio Vanner farm in
Chester County
, where he and his partner breed and sell Gypsy Vanners.
For a
couple who once vacationed in
California's
Napa Valley
and decided — like that! — to start a winery there,
it's almost as though making a big-time film about their
favorite horse was no biggie.
So, can
anyone with a pile of cash get into the movie business
these days?
"An
extraordinary amount of people talk about making
films," said
Justin Moore-Lewy
, a
Southern California
producer who worked on the project. "The difference
between Ed and most people, he does what he says he's
going to do."
The movie
was shot over six weeks in the fall in
Georgia
, with Fitts and Rathbone spending 14- to 16-hour days
on the set, wrangling horses, and watching in awe as
everyone went through the paces.
"Most
of these people don't work together, but they know their
jobs so well. It's amazing to watch," Rathbone
said.
As for
their stars, "
Brooke Shields
was very, very nice to work with. ...
Kris Kristofferson
as the grandfather is amazing."
But the
human actors were really the supporting cast.
"Bob
is going to get a best-actor award," she joked.
For Fitts
and Rathbone, it's all about the horse.
It's
always been that way for the couple, especially Rathbone,
who said she was a "horse-crazed little girl"
in
New Jersey
and would grow up to train race horses.
In 1995,
a chain of coincidences that sound like they could
happen only to an on-screen
Julia Roberts
connected Rathbone with Fitts. On a visit to a resort in
Sedona, Ariz.
, famed for its supposedly mystical vortexes, Rathbone
went for a private ride on a memorable horse, a Peruvian
Paso palomino stallion.
Five
years later, she visited again with her son and asked to
ride the same horse, only to learn he'd been sold to a
man from
Pennsylvania
.
It was
Ed Fitts
, who had ridden the horse the month before, his first
time in the saddle. He was so smitten with the Pasos
that he bought a half-dozen of them.
The woman
who sold Fitts the horses told Rathbone about him and
suggested they get in touch. One thing led to another
and Fitts invited Rathbone to his
Coatesville
property, and, as she now says, "I never
left."
Soon,
Fitts and Rathbone had a new equine love, the Gypsy
Vanner, a powerful and compact wagon horse that is a
smaller version of Budweiser's famous Clydesdales.
"We were looking for a horse that was different,
kind of unique, a little on the rare-breed side, and we
kept going back to this breed," Rathbone recalled.
"They were absolutely beautiful."
The
couple bought their first Gypsy Vanners, two babies, in
2000. But they were eager to begin riding, which is how
they ended up buying Odd Job Bob, a 6-year-old, the next
year.
The
couple became American evangelists for the breed, not
only taking Bob to horse shows but also launching a
breeding operation at El Brio in conjunction with the
University of Pennsylvania
veterinary school. The horses sell for
$8,000 to $45,000
.
But the
couple had a bigger ambition for Odd Job Bob: the silver
screen.
The idea
started three years ago when a screenwriter who also
loved Gypsy Vanners showed them a script he had written
in which a horse helps nurse an auto-accident victim
back to health. Fitts and Rathbone liked the idea but
thought it was a little too serious.
So they
hired producers Moore-Lewy and
Charlie Mason
as consultants, and a new screenwriter,
Gail Gilchriest
of "My Dog Skip" fame. The story was set in
Philadelphia
and built around a family who loses everything in the
recession but learns what's really important when, after
moving to the country, the daughter befriends a horse.
"We
did an outline of what we thought this movie should be
like, gave her the bullet points," Fitts said.
Among those points: the story had to have a happy
ending, it had to teach a life lesson, and, most
important, the horse could not die.
They
lined up a director, who happens to live in
Bryn Mawr, Pa.
, and was a friend of one of the producers.
Peter Odiorne
, 38, had been behind the camera for hundreds of
commercials but had never guided a feature film before.
Odiorne
said he was just about giving up on his 20-year dream of
making a feature "when Ed and Sue, who are
angels," called.
It was
quite a learning experience for the novice director.
"All those names you see at the end of the movie
— now I know what everyone does," he said.
Another
eye-opener was working with his four-legged cast.
"They don't understand English," he joked.
Because
of that, Bob spent nearly a year with a trainer learning
tricks, such as bowing down, pushing a swing with his
nose, and lying down and pretending to be hurt.
"He
had to be totally bomb-proof," Rathbone said.
"He was in downtown
Atlanta
with cameras and people all around."
Like any
star, Bob had two stunt doubles. Good thing, because
when it was time to film a scene in which Bob had to run
alongside a moving train, he refused.
"Not
in his contract; get the stunt doubles," Rathbone
said and laughed. "He was afraid of it."
Now comes
one final hurdle, lining up a distribution deal. Fitts
and Rathbone are talking to major studios and exploring
the options with the goal of a release by early next
year.
In the
meantime, they have converted one more apostle to the
beauty and grace of the Gypsy Vanner. The young actress,
Hanratty, received one as a surprise after filming was
completed.
Rathbone
now hopes a national audience will agree with the couple
that this rare breed of horse is, in her word,
"magical."
"It's
the look, the appeal of all the hair, to be around them,
they're a little different than most horses," she
said. "It's a quiet breed, not one to jump all over
you or do anything unexpected."
Except,
maybe, star in a major motion picture.
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