Arkansas Star Rick Dial
Taken from Dr. Campbell’s soon to be released New Book “Bodyguard to the Stars”
Rick Dial has been in more Academy Awards Movies than anyone I have met. He was in the Academy Award Winning movies Sling Blade, The Apostle, and Crazy Heart. He has also been in Second Hand Lions, The General’s Daughter, The Badge, Come Early Morning, Beyond the Wall, Munford, and others. When I first met him some years ago, it was not on a movie set. My family had just moved to Malvern, Arkansas to take up my new Deputy Warden’s position.
My wife and I were looking for a church to attend. We went one Sunday morning to the First Baptist Church in Malvern, Arkansas. I noticed that the man on the platform singing looked very familiar. I asked someone about him and I told the person I thought I knew him. “Oh, he gets that all the time” was his reply. “He’s good friends with Billy Bob Thornton the movie star. They both grew up here in this town and he was in Billy Bob’s movie, Sling Blade.” After I had gotten to know him, I asked if I could interview him for an article and he agreed. Here is what he told me. I think you will find it interesting.
We met in my office. I told him I would escort him around the Prison after the interview. Prisons sometimes get visits from actors, politicians, sport figures, etc., for various reasons. Some like to get a feel for prison life as they may be working on a prison movie. Some come to give talks and encourage the inmates and still others come just to look around. Mr. Dial, for sometime, has been visiting our prison along with his very talented daughter. They are a part of the prison ministry of the church. He is a great singer as well as a talented actor. His daughter just recorded an album in Nashville. I found Mr. Dial to be a very humble man.
|
I begun the interview praising him on his film work and he just smiled and gave all the credit to others. I then asked him about his friendship with Billy Bob Thornton. “How did all that get started,” I ask. “Billy Bob and his family moved here to Malvern, Arkansas when we were both teenagers,” he stated. “I noticed he was not making any friends at school. I guess I always feel for the underdog. He was a little different for this small town. His mom was accused of being a witch. She actually just read palms. We were two different birds but I felt for him, so we became friends. We had two things in common, music and baseball. We stayed good friends until he moved away. I guess he remembered me because when he started shooting his soon to be Academy Award Movie Sling Blade he called and said ‘Man I got this little movie I’m shooting in Arkansas. I got this part for you, come be in it.’ I couldn’t believe he wanted me. I was not an actor. I was a furniture salesman. I tried to explain this to him but he would not take no for an answer so I went and did the movie.” “What was it like,” I ask? “At first, it was fun but, after a while, it was just a lot of sitting around waiting for them to get to you or waiting for the weather to change. We shot the movie and waited for it to come out. When it did, it started getting great reviews and, all of a sudden, it was a big hit. The big break for me,” he said, “was when a movie gets that popular and it’s in the running for an Oscar everyone at the Academy looks at it. That means some of the best Hollywood movers and shakers see you acting.
If it was just some little movie they would not waist there time previewing it. The movie roles started coming in. Robert Duvall had a small part in the movie Sling Blade. For some reason he took a liking to me and asked Billy Bob ‘Who is that fat gut in this movie and who is his agent.’ Billy Bob told him who I was and said ‘He ain’t got no agent. He’s just a furniture salesman in my old home town Malvern, Arkansas.’ Robert Duvall called me in about a week and asked me to be in his movie The Apostle. Then I get a call from Paramount Pictures to be in the movie The Generals Daughter, starring John Travolta. I really wanted to do the movie but I was out of vacation time at the store. So I went to my boss, Mr. Orr, and told him about it. He said, ‘What’s the name of the movie, and I said, ‘I’m not sure. I think it’s the Captain’s Daughter or the General’s Daughter.’ ‘The General Daughter,’ he said. ‘I just finished reading that book. Man this could be a great opportunity for you. Let me think about it.’ That evening I got a call from Robert Duvall. He said, ‘Ricky. I hear Paramount wants you to be in the General’s Daughter.’ ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘but I’m out of vacation time at work.’ ‘Hey man, you can’t turn this down. This is their big picture of the year. Give me your boss’s phone number.’ So you know when Robert Duvall calls your boss and speaks up for you. You know your boss will probably let you off. He did and it was great. I was off six weeks for that movie.” “What was it like working with Robert Duvall?” “He’s great. We have become good friends. I just talked to him last week about a new movie he wants me to be in. When we were filming the movie the Apostle, Robert found out I was having some medical issues. He had my wife come to the movie set and had a chair placed next to him and had my wife sit in it the entire time I was filming the movie. He told my wife, ‘If you see Ricky not looking like he should, let me know and we will stop shooting until he gets better.’ I can’t believe he would do that for me. I was certainly not the big star of the show but that’s how he is.” “How about Travolta,” I ask. “At first he was a little standoffish, but once he got to know me he was a hoot.”
|
“What about Billy Bob your old high school buddy?” Billy Bob has always been a different kind of guy. I guess that’s why he had a hard time making friends in school. We continue to be good friends. I spoke to him yesterday. He told me the other day that back during the filming of Sling Blade when I told him I didn’t think I could do it, be a actor, and he kept telling me I could, it worried him to death because he didn’t think I could do it either but he wanted to give me a chance. ‘That’s a friend,’ he said, ‘that’s a friend.’” I agreed with that but told Mr. Dial, “It may have taken more courage to be a friend of a strange looking kid whose mother might have been a witch and no one else liked her or him. You know,” I told him, “it pays to be nice to people.” “I guess it does,” he said. “On just the money I made on Sling Blade I paid for my son’s college. I just got another check yesterday for Sling Blade. That movie was made back in 1996.” With that, we toured the prison and met some of the inmates. Many knew him from his singing at the prison Chapel. Now they will know him for his Holly wood Oscar winning Movies.
|
|
