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GEORGE WOODARD A Vermont Original

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STORY: robert kiener

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The Making of: The Summer of Walter Hacks

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George Woodward on the porch of this Waterbury farmhouse. Opening spread: George gets a high-angle shot of Matthew Woodard (Clifford Hacks) driving into Rosina Wallace’s hay barn in Waterbury.

everal times a year a vanload of tourists pulls into George Woodard’s organic dairy farm on Waterbury’s Loomis Hill Road. The 200-acre hilltop farm boasts drop-dead views of the Green and Worcester mountain ranges, rolling green pastures dotted with 25 of Woodard’s mixed-breed cows, a lush sugar woods and, best of all, George himself.

The tourists, who come to Woodard’s farm in hopes of seeing a slice of “real Vermont,” invariably get more than they bargained for. Woodard, a lanky six-footer who is as at home on a milking stool as he is on a film set or a musical stage, knows a thing or two about playing to the audience.

“I take them in the barn and show them what a cow is,” says George, his brown eyes flashing.

“Then I take them on a picnic in the high pasture and tell them a few lies. Finally we go to the sugarhouse and I tell them a few more lies.”

Then Woodard sells them some maple syrup with his own label on it.

“I don’t exactly tell them I made it but I don’t exactly tell them I didn’t,” he admits with a broad grin. (He didn’t; he buys it from a neighbor.) “But they seem pleased.”

Several years ago, during the Take Back Vermont political brouhaha, one of the tourists jumped out of the van and asked Woodard, “I don’t see any signs here. What side of the fence are you on?”

“Why does that matter?” Woodard asked, realizing that no matter what he said he was likely to anger half of his paying visitors.

“I’d like to get to know the person we will be spending the next few hours with,” the tourist replied.

“Okay,” said Woodard, “How many tits on a cow?”

“I don’t know.”

“Four,” said Woodard. “And how many tits on a three-titter?”

The tourist paused and said, “Um, three?”

“No,” said Woodard, “There are four, it’s just that one doesn’t work.”

Mildly exasperated, the man asked, “But what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” said Woodard. “But now you know me a little better.”

From top: Henry Woodard (Walter Hacks) hops the back of the “runaway” tractor that Francesca Blanchard (Margaret) has accidentally set into motion in a scene from the film, The Summer of Walter Hacks. Ramona Godfrey (Mrs. Bailey) and Jennifer Blanchard (Ada) react to some surprising news they overhear at the local diner. Laura Raynor (Evelyn) plays the mysterious woman who returns to town. Henry sings Angelina Baker at the fiddle contest. Ramona Godfrey at her grain store.

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GLENN CALLAHAN

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nyone who knows George Woodard knows that while he is intimately familiar with the business end of a cow, he is also an accomplished actor, singer, musician, director, writer, raconteur and—most recently—movie maker. “George is one of those very rare people who can do many things well,” says Marilyn Skoglund, an associate justice of the state Supreme Court and longtime friend of Woodard. “If I had my way, he would be declared a national treasure.”

Woodard has appeared in and directed scores of local plays, from Carousel to Oliver to Pump Boys and Dinettes. He’s also earned big screen credits, and his Screen Actors Guild union card, by appearing in movies such as Ethan Frome, Out of Her Mind, and My Mother’s Early Lovers. “George is a natural born entertainer,” says Vermont actor Rusty Dewees. “He’s always been an inspiration and an influence for me.”

Dewees, another longtime friend, worked with Woodard in his heavy-on-the-corn comedy-musical creation, the Ground Hog Opry, where Skoglund and a few other friends join Woodard, cast as “Roland Uphill,” in the “almost annual” review that is centered on an old-time radio show. The music is first class, the singing not bad and the jokes are, well, at least enthusiastically told.

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Here’s a typical George Woodard offering, as he recalls teaching his first girlfriend to drive: “We’d been driving a while and a policeman pulled us over. He came up to the driver’s side, where Mary was sitting. He said, ‘Excuse me Miss; the way you are driving is dangerous. It is just as dangerous to drive slow as it is to drive fast.’

“She said, ‘But officer I was driving the speed limit. There’s the speed limit sign right there.’

“He said, ‘That’s not the speed limit sign, that’s the route sign; that’s Route 2.’

“Then the police officer looked over at me; my hand was frozen to the outside mirror, my eyeballs were big as teacup saucers and I was shaking and quivering. The police officer said, ‘Your passenger seems to be a little stressed. Is he okay?’

“Mary said, ‘Oh, he’s alright officer, we just got off Route 100.’ ” Here’s another from Woodard’s “one and a half-man show,” Off The Top of My Head: Old Music, Old Stories, an Old Cuss and a Dirty Boy. It co-starred his now 18year-old son Henry and was billed as “A Vermont Chamber of Commerce Top-Ten Winter event, they just don’t know it.”

“Back when I was growing up on the farm, I visited the outhouse and somehow dropped a nickel down the outhouse hole. My mother yelled at me and called my father. She told him, ‘Look at the hole’.” “ ‘Oh yeah there it is,’ he said. Then he took out a dollar bill from his wallet and threw it down the hole.”

“My mother said, ‘Are you crazy?’ ” “Dad answered her, ‘Well, I ain’t goin’ down there for a nickel!’ ” When a joke bombs, Woodard’s quick wit saves the day. Once, after a Waterbury crowd greeted one of his offerings with a collective raspberry, he shot back, “Hasn’t been that long a winter, huh?” The crowd loved it.

Woodard’s proudest creation is his fiddle-playing son Henry. Indeed, during their show, affection for his son was etched on his face as he stood to the side of the stage while Henry pulled out his fiddle, leaned into the microphone and began playing and singing The Big Rock Candy Mountain. The father beamed with pride as his son fiddled and sang, his voice breaking just a few times. Woodard tapped his foot in time to the fiddling as he watched Henry take command of the stage. It was a touching moment between father and son, performer and partner.

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eorge Woodard, 58, is the third generation to work the family dairy farm in Waterbury. He went to Harwood Union High School and, after repeating senior year (“I was a bit of a slow learner,” he admits), he studied agriculture at Vermont Technical College. However, sometime between learning about maximizing hay yields and Milking 101 he got bit by the acting bug. Hard.

One of his first roles was in Pajama Game with the community theater group, the Randolph Singers. “When I stepped onto the stage I

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thought, ‘I can do this’,” remembers Woodard. “For the first time in my life I felt I was somewhere I really belonged.” He honed his craft in more regional plays and after running the family’s diary farm he decided to try his luck in Hollywood in the mid 1980s.

He landed parts in several independent films (translation: “I worked for free,” says Woodard) and won roles in local plays. After a few years in Hollywood he returned to the farm. “I decided that if I was meant to be an actor it would happen wherever I was,” he says. Sure enough, local filmmakers and community theater types came calling and the dairy farmer/actor has been in fairly constant demand ever since.

Woodard, whose aw-shucks demeanor and syrupy accent masks a keen intellect and a razor-sharp wit, claims he is “a dairy farmer who does a little acting and singing on the side.” On his bookshelf a catalog for tractor parts sits alongside Making Movies by fabled director Sidney Lumet. He winces when asked if he’d give up his life on the farm for full-time acting. “Nope, like it here too much,” he answers as he squats on a one-legged milking stool and wipes iodine-based teat-dip off one of his 25 cows in his milking parlor. “Heck, I’ve got 200 acres and there’s not a bad view among them. Can’t ask for much more than this.” As he goes about his twice-daily milking ritual, his two cats, Louis B. Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn look on.

Giving cow Number 22 (“I’m too lazy to name them,” he says) a firm nudge, Woodard hooks up the constantly-whirring Westfalia milking machine to her teats and is quickly swatted across his head by the cow’s manure-covered tail. Without missing a beat, he says, “See what I mean; why would I ever want to give this up?” For Woodard there is no business like cow business.

This page: Henry Woodward (Walter Hacks) talks one evening with John at John’s mechanic shop.

Previous page, from top: An example of “using what you have on hand” to get the shot. Director George Woodard uses the bucket of the John Deere to create a crane shot while Matthew Woodard operates the tractor. Local actor Mark Roberts sits in the car, which is owned by Dr. Gene Napoliello (one of three cars he loaned for use in the film). Ian Bouchett (Eddie) gets into position for a scene shot at the grain store in N. Ferrisburgh. Producer Gerianne Smart drives the truck while George films an exciting action shot, also in Ferrisburgh.

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“With George, what you see is what you get,” says Marilyn Skoglund. “He’s a happy man because he’s doing exactly what he wants to do. That’s a rarity these days.” Another friend, Gerianne Smart, agrees, “People love George just as he is. In fact I gave him a T-shirt that says ‘As Is.’ That suits him.”

At first glance Woodard’s dairy-farm uniform seems pretty standard; Carhartt jeans, old plaid shirt, and rubber boots. But look a little closer. His belt buckle is emblazoned with the name “John.” Why? “I got that in a fair,” he explains.

Yes, but…

“Well, if your name was George you wouldn’t walk around with a big belt buckle with ‘George’ on it would you?”

Skoglund has a journal filled with humorous memories of rehearsing and working with Woodard and the other members of the Ground Hog Opry.

“Most of them are too risqué to repeat,” she admits.

“Every time I spend an hour or two with George and those guys I come home with aching chest muscles from laughing so much.” When Skoglund complained that her Opry character didn’t have a name, George immediately offered her “Rachel Slur.” After she decided that might be “a tad inappropriate” for a Supreme Court justice, he renamed her Anita Goodman.

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oodard’s latest venture is a true labor of love.

It is a full-length movie, The Summer of Walter Hacks, starring son Henry and filmed at the rock bottom price of less than $6,000. Post-production costs, including a specially-commissioned score, a recording session with members of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and rights to use old music and film clips, added another $30,000 to the budget.

“Of course Henry worked cheap,” explains George. “What I mean is I didn’t pay him.” Nor did Woodard pay any of the other actors, producers, technicians, artists, grips, and assorted helpers that donated their time to help him pull off this remarkable feat. He jokes, “I like working with novice actors; they will do what I tell them and won’t argue with me.” Says Skoglund, who has a part in the movie, “It’s a testament to George that all his friends want to help him make this film.”

Shot over more than a year throughout Vermont but mostly on his own farm, the black-and-white film had been percolating in Woodard’s head for several years. He co-wrote the film, he’s the director, cinematographer, lighting engineer, editor, and set builder. “It’s pretty much my baby,” he admits. “Why did George do almost everything on his movie?” asks Rusty Dewees. “Because he didn’t need any help. He can do it all!”

Woodard and Smart, who is also the film’s producer, wrote the screenplay, often brainstorming in the barn as Woodard milked his herd. They’d jot down ideas on the paper towels he uses to clean his cows’ teats and tack up the notes on the walls of his milking parlor.

Then Smart would take the bits of paper home and type them up.

“When I heard George was making a movie, I just smiled,” remembers Skoglund. “I knew if anyone could do it, George could. He’s still got that childlike spirit that lets him try something without worrying if it will work or fail. Most of us have lost that.”

The Summer of Walter Hacks premiered in Vermont’s Green Mountain Film Festival in March 2010 to sold-out audiences, and has been accepted by other independent film festivals throughout the Northeast. Like many independent filmmakers, Woodard and Smart are eyeing the big prize, hoping that a distributor might pick up the film for a wider distribution.

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Set in 1952, the film follows an 11-year old farm boy, Walter Hacks, through a tumultuous summer that changed his life. Audiences have fallen in love with the impressively produced, coming-of-age movie. As the Rutland Herald noted, “Despite its rural Vermont birthplace and locations, this is no hick production.” At a recent showing in Waterbury, Woodard’s home turf, he and Gerianne Smart received a standing ovation. “Way to go George!” shouted one enthusiastic audience member as the applause died down. “We knew you could do it!”

At the Vermont International Film Festival in October, the film won the Harold and Margaret Blank Award, given to a filmmaker who “shows extraordinary creativity in storytelling and filmmaking.”

Among all the accolades, applause, and fan letters that Woodard has received from moviegoers who have seen The Summer of Walter Hacks, one comment stands out. As he sits at his cluttered kitchen table sipping his “four o’clock, afternoon coffee,” he explains, “You know, I wanted this film to appeal to both adults and older children. But I worried that some kids might not be able to follow it.”

After a recent showing in Vergennes, the father of an 11-year-old boy, the same age as Walter Hacks, asked his son how he enjoyed the film. Says Woodard, with a wide grin on his face, “The little boy looked up at his dad and said, “That’s the best movie I ever saw!’ ” “You can’t get better than that,” says Woodard, as he takes a deep swig of coffee. “Nope. You can’t get better than that.” I

This page: John Kiedaisch, who plays John in the film, listens intently to Walter as they talk in John’s shop. Previous page, from top: Director George Woodard checks a shot prior to the action as Kiedaisch drives a truck equipped with a 600k light and a generator in the truck bed. Local actor John Dunn argues with Walter while he is on stage during the fiddle contest scene. Dunn plays the head judge.

Matthew Woodard (Clifford Hacks) and Henry Woodard (Walter Hacks) react to the visit of a mysterious woman to the farm.

Box Office: Wednesday, Dec. 1: As part of Stowe Mountain Film Festival, Akeley Memorial Building, Main Street, Stowe. 7 p.m. $5.

Thursday, Feb. 24: River Arts Center, Pleasant Street, Morrisville. 7 p.m.

Wednesday, March 9: Johnson State College Dibden Center for the Arts, Johnson. 8 p.m. ©Stowe Guide & Magazine, Winter / Spring 2010-2011

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