1981
Events January
* January 1
** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union.
** Palau becomes a self-governing territory.
* January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...
Elizabeth Huckaby
Elizabeth Paisley Huckaby (14 April 1905 in Hamburg, Arkansas – 18 March 1999 in Little Rock, Arkansas) was an educator.
As the Vice-Principal for Girls of Little Rock Central High School, Huckaby was given the responsibility for protecting t ...
.News Releases , 40th Anniversary web Site
William Link and Richard Levinson wrote the screenplay and were executive producers together with David Susskind of Time-Life Productions.John O'Connor TV: Little Rock, 1957: 'Crisis at Central High,' ''The New York Times'' (review), Feb. 4, 1981 The film starred
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress. A star since the Golden Age of Hollywood, Woodward made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a charact ...
as Huckaby and told the events from that character's point of view, although one obituary at the time of Huckaby's death cited her as saying the TV-movie enlarged her role.Linda S. Cailloue Central High crisis diarist dies ''
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The ''Arkansas Democrat-Gazette'' is the newspaper of record in the U.S. state of Arkansas, printed in Little Rock with a northwest edition published in Lowell. It is distributed for sale in all 75 of Arkansas' counties.
By virtue of one of ...
'', March 20, 1999 (retrieved November 3, 2006) Woodward was nominated for an
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of ...
docudrama
Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".
Docudramas typic ...
s, ''Crisis'' included some composite characters; at least one reviewer (O'Connor) criticizes the vague disclaimer to that effect, arguing that in a piece about such controversial events, alterations to the truth should be identified more specifically. In addition to the creative license already mentioned with regard to her role in the crisis, Huckaby was reported to have said the film showed some events are out of sequence and slightly altered others.
Filming
The movie was filmed on location in
Little Rock
( The "Little Rock")
, government_type = Council-manager
, leader_title = Mayor
, leader_name = Frank Scott Jr.
, leader_party = D
, leader_title2 = Council
, leader_name2 ...
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
.Craig, J. B Crisis at Central High, Book and Movie (Elizabeth Huckaby-5) Center for Arkansas History and Culture, December 19, 2017. Many local Dallas actors had featured roles in the film, including radio personality Suzie Humphreys, TV and theater actor
Jerry Haynes
Jerome Martin "Jerry" Haynes (January 31, 1927 – September 26, 2011) was an American actor from Dallas, Texas. He is most well known as Mr. Peppermint, a role he played for 30 years as the host of one of the longest-running local children's show ...
, teacher and actress Irma P. Hall, and Theater Three director Norma Young, as well as Taylor, a native Dallasite who was attending
Southern Methodist University
, mottoeng = " The truth will make you free"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = SACS
, academic_affiliations =
, religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church
, president = R. Gerald Turner
, p ...
at the time the film was being cast.
Critical reception
Reviewer John O'Connor of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' observed, "In the end, of course, the real heroes of this piece are the nine black students," whom O'Connor described as "played to quiet perfection." Actors highlighted for their portrayals included
Calvin Levels
Calvin Levels (born September 30, 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American film actor. In 1984, he won a Theatre World Award and was nominated for both the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for ...
senior
Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to:
* Senior (name), a surname ...
in the group) and
Regina Taylor
Regina Annette Taylor ''Film Reference''. (born August 22, 1960) is an American
as Minnijean Brown, launching that actress' professional career.Regina Taylor at Hollywood.com Other principal actors in the film included
Charles Durning
Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...
as the principal and
Henderson Forsythe
Henderson Forsythe (September 11, 1917 – April 17, 2006) was an American actor. Forsythe was known for his role as Dr. David Stewart #2 on the soap opera ''As the World Turns'', a role he played for 32 years, and for his work on the New York sta ...
as Huckaby's husband, Glenn.
See also
*
Civil rights movement in popular culture
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tact ...
*''
The Ernest Green Story
''The Ernest Green Story'' is a 1993 American made-for-television biographical film which follows the true story of Ernest Green (Morris Chestnut) and eight other African-American high-school students (dubbed the "Little Rock Nine") as they embar ...
''
References
Further reading
* Huckaby, Elizabeth. ''Crisis at Central High, Little Rock, 1957–58.'' Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.