Rep. Francis Thompson of Delhi is in his 45th year as a member of the Louisiana Legislature. He reminisced recently about one of the memorable moments of his long tenure in state government.
As the Natchitoches-based movie Steel Magnolias was showing in theaters across the nation in 1989, superstar actor Paul Newman was playing the lead role in another film being shot in Louisiana.
Ron Shelton, who wrote and directed the hit movie Bull Durham a decade earlier, had done the script for a picture on former governor Earl Long’s fling with a stripper and wanted Newman to star in it.
Called Blaze, the film was based on a book by exotic dancer Blaze Starr. She had appeared in Bourbon Street clubs for years and was still performing in her late fifties when the movie was being made.
Newman was 64 at the time and legendary in the motion picture business, auto racing and philanthropy related to his Newman’s Own line of food products. He frequently turned down offers for movies roles but was intrigued by the thought of playing Earl Long.
A biography on Newman noted, though, that the star was reluctant to do love scenes with an actress who was younger than his daughters. While Newman was deciding whether to do the film, there was talk that the role might go to Gene Hackman.
But a little known Canadian actress named Lolita Davidovich who tried out for and got the Blaze Starr part put Newman at ease and won his friendship, and he accepted the role of the unconventional ex-governor.
As it turned out, nobody could have been happier about that arrangement than Francis Thompson.
He was among the batch of legislators who hammered out tax incentives for the entertainment industry that resulted in numerous movies and television shows being filmed in the state.
Francis and his wife Marilyn had visited Natchitoches when Steel Magnolias was being filmed here and mixed and mingled with the movie star cast members.
One of the most colorful and effective lawmakers in Louisiana history, Thompson got word while Newman was filming Blaze in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other parts of the state that the actor might want a Catahoula Cur dog.
It was really Newman’s wife and celebrated actress Joanne Woodward who expressed an interest in the dogs that are named after Catahoula Parish in northeast Louisiana just a stone’s throw from Thompson’s home in Delhi.
Earl Long had a Catahoula Cur in real life, and there was one sharing the screen with Newman in the filming. Woodward said Newman’s sky blue eyes helped make him a major star so it would be appropriate for him to have a blue-eyed Catahoula Cur.
Thompson had worked with the state’s society of Catahoula Cur owners and breeders 10 years earlier to help push a bill through the legislature making the Catahoula Cur the official state dog.
That organization found a beautiful, speckled, blue-eyed pup for Newman, and Thompson officially presented it to him on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Thompson said last week that getting to know Newman was one of the highlights of his decades in public office. “He was friendly and down to earth, and you never got the feeling you were in the presence of a celebrity,” Thompson remembered.
“You knew when you talked to him that he had a special place in his heart for Louisiana,” said Thompson. Newman met his future wife Joanne Woodward, who had attended LSU, when they were filming “Long, Hot Summer” in the state in the 1950s.
Thompson stayed in touch with Newman after the actor returned home to Connecticut. Newman sent him a picture of the Catahoula Cur sitting in his lap and told Thompson that he had changed the dog’s name from Uncle Earl to Grits.
That photo and the one of him presenting the dog to Newman are among Thompson’s favorite keepsakes in his extensive collection of memorabilia reflecting a long career and countless special occasions in state government.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES