The Buddy Holly Story
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The Buddy Holly Story is a 1978 biographical film which tells the life story of rock musician Buddy Holly. It stars Gary Busey, Don Stroud, Charles Martin Smith, Conrad Janis, William Jordan and Maria Richwine, who played Maria Elena Holly.
The movie was adapted by Alan Swyer from the biography of Holly by John Goldrosen. It was directed by Steve Rash.
It won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Busey) and Best Sound.
Many consider the film to be a highly fictionalized portrayal of Holly's life. As with many biopictures, the Buddy Holly Story tends to let historical accuracy take a back seat to dramatic effect, folklore and legend. For example, the scene in the garage in which the members of the band hear a cricket on a recorded tape is pure embellishment (while this event did indeed occur, in the Norman Petty Studio in Clovis, NM, it did not inspire the Crickets to choose the name; this event happened after they were already the Crickets. You can actually hear the cricket chirping at the end of the song: " I'm gonna love you too" ). Also, the poignant scene in which Buddy's former mates in the Crickets appear unannounced at Maria's door in New York is also a fabrication; a full reunion with the Crickets had been discussed with Buddy prior to the Winter Party Dance Tour in 1959, and was scheduled to occur after the tour. And the scene showing Lubbock with mountains in the background of the bus station caused gales of laughter when the film was premiered in Lubbock - which is located on the flat West Texas plain!
The actors did their own singing and played their own instruments live during the filming. Busey, in particular, was admired for recording the music for the film live, and losing a considerable amount of weight in order to portray the skinny Holly. His accurate portrayal of Holly was helped by knowledge gained during filming of a previous attempt at telling part of the Holly life story in an ill-fated film entitled Three-Sided Coin, in which he played the part of Crickets drummer Jerry Allison (the film was cancelled by 20th Century Fox under pressure from Fred Bauer and his company who had made deals with the Holly Estate). The screenplay of Three-Sided Coin (by Allison and Tom Drake) revealed much personal detail on Holly and Busey picked up more during off-set conversations with Allison.
The Crickets were angry at being portrayed in the Buddy Holly Story (with changed names to avoid legal action) as racists - and this prompted their then singer Sonny Curtis to pen a critical song about the film, The Real Buddy Holly Story. In turn this became the title of a documentary made by Paul McCartney and his MPL Productions company in association with the BBC.
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