From the Heartland to the Hoopla : ShoWest Turns On the Glitter for Mom-and-Pop Exhibitors

NATO/ShoWest is a place where Hollywood really turns it on for the theater owners from America’s heartland. And, boy, do they love it.

The first thing Jerry Hancock and his wife, Pinkie, did when they got here from Livingston, Mont., was borrow an automatic camera from a relative. They had forgotten to bring theirs and didn’t want to miss out on taking snapshots of their favorite movie stars.

After all, this is the one shot a year that this couple, who typify many ma-and-pa theater owners who come to this annual convention, gets to be so close to the glitter and glamour of Hollywood.

“I love it here. I love and admire the stars and it’s interesting to be close to these people you see on the big screen,” says Hancock, a former coal miner who became an exhibitor three years ago, at age 50, when he and Pinkie bought a 1938 twin theater in Livingston that had fallen into disrepair. They spent $50,000 updating the theater, which revived its sluggish business into a profitable operation. The Hancocks drove 12 hours to get here last week from their hometown, where they live in an apartment right above their Empire Twin Theater.

“We work seven days a week, sometimes 16 hours a day, and this is our only getaway,” says Hancock. These are folks who aren’t too proud to pop their own corn, tear tickets, run the concession stand, operate the projector, clean restrooms, or drive 30 miles to pick up film cans at the nearest airport. Pinkie Hancock, who quit her job as a payroll clerk at a construction company after her brother Tim Warner, general chairman of NATO/ShoWest, convinced her and her husband to buy a theater, is excitedly pacing the aisles of the convention’s trade show here at Bally’s Hotel and Casino.

“I always come and take all kinds of stuff,” she says, showing off a bagful of freebies she’s collected from the vendors hawking their latest concession goodies and every other imaginable theater-related item from carpet cleaners to popcorn bags.

Pinkie Hancock reaches into her bag like a child who just scored big on Halloween, proudly holding up a box of Amazing Fruit Gummy Bears, Magic Malts and Swedish fish soft candy. “Look at these big pretzels. I’d like to sell them too . . . and, oh, I’m very excited about this (bottled) water.”

Meanwhile, her brother, Warner, the convention’s headmaster, the scenes to make sure everything will go off like clockwork, iplanned by major studios, complete with stars. In a Wednesday mo186898186517181866111113940340stage so he can get the best pictures.

“Last year I had my picture taken with Brad Pitt, but I buried it because I looked like the Bride of Dracula,” he says.

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The camera lens is the closest any of these exhibitors will get to the ShoWest stars, who are kept under tight wraps from the moment they step from the jets that bring them here to the moment they leave Vegas. Even the press is barred from the Bally’s ballroom “green room,” the holding tank where the stars wait until the lunch starts.

Later that night, in preparation for their big dinner event, Paramount would sequester its stars, who included ShoWest “star of the century” Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy, Joe Pesci, Melanie Griffith, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and George Lucas, in the hotel penthouse suite before sneaking them in to the green room.

“I was so happy to get to see Warren Beatty and Michael Douglas and Jodie Foster and Demi Moore,” says Pinkie Hancock, who like her husband was also wowed by the clips of upcoming movies from Warners and Paramount that they hope to book this year.

“We like the family-oriented movies because they play best in our market,” says Hancock, citing the favorites he saw here, which included “Black Beauty,” “Richie Rich,” “Lassie,” “Maverick,” “Wyatt Earp,” the next installment of “Star Trek,” “Naked Gun 33 1/3” and the new Tom Hanks film, “Forrest Gump.”

The Hancocks say they play some more upscale adult pictures like “The Piano,” “Shadowlands” and “The Remains of the Day,” but he limits the number of R-rated movies “because they just don’t do as well in our small town.” Even Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” “didn’t do as well as we had hoped,” Hancock says.

But generally, “whatever’s doing well at the box office is what we try to play,” he says. His most-popular films in the last year included “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Grumpy Old Men,” “A River Runs Through It” (which was filmed in Livingston) and, of course, “Jurassic Park.” They are currently showing “My Girl 2” and “The Getaway,” neither doing particularly well.

The Empire theater is the only movie house in Livingston (population 6,000), and is, its owners say, profitable. They offer two shows a night (7 and 9:15), kiddie matinees on Saturday and regular matinees on Sunday. “Did Jerry tell you about all the stars that live in our area and who are regulars?” asks Pinkie Hancock, ticking off the names of Michael Keaton, Jeff Bridges, Peter Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan--before the reporter has a chance to say he already had.