Hollywood Memories
Hanover, Ind., author Taylor
pens book about 1958 movie
Book explores time when Madison
was made famous in film
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Dave Taylor |
(January 2019) – A sleepy Midwestern town comes alive with excitement when a major Hollywood studio arrives to film a blockbuster motion picture. Stars fell from the celluloid celestial realms to blend with small river town humanity. Cameras rolled all night for a week turning everyday life upside down in the downtown commercial district. Reputed antics of the headliner attracted the focus of the national media spotlight on the little town, and thousands come running to view the spectacle.
It is 1958. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer and Vincente Minnelli have come down to earth and Madison, Ind., will never be the same.
Now after 60 years, Lexington-Haus Publications announces the release of local author Dave Taylor’s book “Hollywood Came Running,” the story of Madison’s second brush with the film world. The city was featured in a 1943 movie short, “The Town,” depicting Madison as the “typical American town” produced by the United States War Department’s Office of War Information and shown to military personnel around the world.
A location scout on that picture remembered Madison 15 years later when film giant Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer wanted to use a “typical Midwestern town” for the location backdrop for their new movie about a soldier returning from World War II, starring Sinatra.
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Photos provided Hanover, Ind., resident Dave Taylor has two recently published books out – Hollywood Came Running and Ripples Over the Dike. |
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Madison and the scenic environs of the Ohio River Valley was selected from among 60 cities for location footage for “Some Came Running” in August 1958. Opening and closing sequences for the movie were filmed in Milton, Ky., and several actors were housed in Carrollton motels during the filming. “Hollywood Came Running” is filled with photos and remembrances of not only the actors and film personnel but also locals who participated.
Taylor, a retired journalist, is a full-time author, historian and part-time pastor. He has spent the better part of 50 years singing with a weekend gospel music ensemble, The Infinite Realm, while making a living in construction, broadcast and newspaper journalism, motorsports announcing and public relations. He served as Kentucky Editor of the Madison Courier from 1983-89, a staff writer for The News-Democrat in Carrollton, and Managing Editor of The Trimble Banner before retiring at the end of 2017.
Taylor’s college career spanned three institutions: Troy State University in Alabama, Purdue University and Indiana Vocational Technical College.
In addition to penning “Ripples Over the Dike,” he has written and published three editions of “Happy Rhythm: A Biography of Hovie Lister & the Statesmen Quartet,” a journey through the history of southern gospel music as seen through the career of this sensational vocal group. Taylor is the author of “With Bowie Knives & Pistols,” about Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s cavalry raid in Indiana during the Civil War. “Murder in the House of God” is a true story from rural Indiana in 1877-78, and “Ripples Over the Dike” has 12 chapters of incidents in local history.
“Hollywood Came Run-ning” is available at the Lanier-Madison Visitors Center, 601 First St., Madison, and the Jefferson County History Museum, 615 W. First St. in Madison. It is also available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon.com. A signed personalized copy may be obtained by sending $15 plus $3 postage to the author at LexingtonHaus Publications, 10630 W. State Rd. 256, Lexington, IN 47138.