There is nothing a horse lover enjoys more than a film about horses & Secretariat hasn’t let us down. In celebration of the imminent DVD & Blu-Ray release here is an interesting article with a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film.
Part of A Legend
Having a movie made about your life—while you’re still alive to see it—must be frightening. Yet meeting with the person whose life you just made a movie about is probably even more frightening. Such was the case of Penny Chenery and Randall Wallace.
Chenery became a household name in 1973 when the thoroughbred she owned, Secretariat, took home the Triple Crown. Director Randall Wallace signed onto the project, not just wanting to make a movie about the horse, but about the woman behind the horse as well.
Creating The Magic
Wallace’s film is based both on former Sports Illustrated writer William Nack’s book Secretariat: The Making of a Champion and on his own research. When Wallace dug his heels into the subject, he realized he wanted to know more about Penny Chenery and how she handled the adversity she faced as the only woman competing in a man’s sport.
Fortunately for Wallace and screenwriter Mike Rich, Chenery is still alive. And fortunately for Chenery, Wallace and Rich considered her an integral resource while tweaking the script and shooting the movie. She even makes a cameo in one scene.
Life On The Silver Screen
Chenery and Wallace got together in late July to talk about her life and what it was like for her to see her life story told on the big screen. Chenery, now 87, lives in a retirement community in Boulder, not too far from Denver, where she raised her children, so like the good Southern gentleman that he is, Wallace flew to Boulder from his home in Los Angeles to visit with her.
Chenery had just seen the film for the first time, as had a number of lucky residents who live in her building and were invited to the screening. The community was all abuzz about their resident celebrity.
The Big Meeting
Chenery’s corner apartment was decorated with portraits of her family members, paintings of her horses and numerous trophies. She was getting her makeup done for her on-camera appearance when Wallace arrived.
“How are you?” asked Wallace.
“I’m great!” said Chenery.
“You’re not going to shoot me over the movie? I wasn’t sure,” he said.
“I loved the movie! Everybody loved the movie! I think it’s just a wonderful movie!” replied Chenery.
And so it began.
Chenery grew up in Virginia and Wallace was raised in Kentucky and Tennessee, so they had developed an obvious kinship early on, thanks to their Southern roots. The recording session was essentially a love fest since each of them respects the other so much.
Wallace: We have here today some clips from the movie and what we’d like to do is discuss with you what you were really going through. I’ll say right up front that to try to capture a life and events as heroic as the story of Secretariat—both your heroism and the horse’s and the heroism of the people around you, that you gathered together—well, we had to condense events and alter some of the facts. I trouble people by saying that I try not to let the facts get in the way of the truth, but I really wanted to tell the story that was the truth of Secretariat.
Chenery: I think you did capture it. I came away after watching the film and thinking, yes, it was lonely. I was torn this way, that way. I had a goal but I hadn’t really imagined myself as the wife and mother and community member, and I threw myself into this racetrack life. I had to deal with the people who worked on the track and then the whole power structure. They were pretty upper class, more than upper class, and they liked my father because he was a doer, but they didn’t know anything about me and they weren’t sure that they wanted to. They weren’t sure that they wanted to let me in.
I used to go to Saratoga because mother and dad had a house there, but I would be all alone. No dinner invitations, no “let’s have lunch together.”
That was hard, but it sort of steeled me. So I thought, “Okay, if that’s the way you’re going to play, you’re going to see how tough I can be.”
Until I saw the movie, I didn’t realize how lonely I was, but Diane [Lane] captures the dilemma of being there for the kids, of missing a school play, of the husband having to stay home and take care of the kids. I was just doing it at the time because that was my course, but until I saw the movie I didn’t realize how lonely I was. So you and Diane did a wonderful job of portraying me, the ways I was pulled in different directions, the people who helped me and the people who sort of hung me out to dry. I just think it’s a great movie.
Wallace: That’s the greatest review of all.
Win A Copy of The New Release!
The big release is tomorrow and then you can get your very own copy in a store (or on a website) near you. If you don’t want to spend the money, check back tomorrow when I’ll be giving away a copy of the DVD Blu-ray combo with all of the cool extras. Good luck!
What a fun background primer for the DVD release of Secretariat, Paige! How do you find this stuff (and get the rights to the pictures you use in your blog). Thanks so much for sharing and giving an insider’s perspective of the movie.