Alumni remember making the world their campus.
Meeting a Buddy in France
Christopher J. King, ’93, Scottsdale, Ariz.
Gregory Peck. Jane Fonda. Peter O’Toole. Buddy Hackett. Buddy Hackett?
I’m at the Cannes Film Festival, watching movie stars walk up the red carpet of the famed Claude Debussy Theatre for the world premiere of Old Gringo. Thousands of people are pressed up against the velvet ropes that separate the stars from the rabble. Cameras clicking. Beautiful people posing. Small flash explosions illuminating the night. I muscle my way forward for a closer look.
I was in Europe as a BYU film student on a study-abroad experience for artists. While the art majors looked forward to the Uffizi, the Louvre, and the d’Orsay, I’d come just for this overnight side trip to Cannes.
Someday those cheers will be for me, I think. Someday I too will pose on this carpet.
Three sparkling gray-haired ladies walking up the red carpet turn toward the massive crowd and point at me. Cameras. Posing. Flash! One reaches out and places something in my T-shirt pocket. They smile again and continue up the red carpet.
Inside my pocket, I find a ticket I cannot read–it’s in French. A Frenchman points to words I can understand. Première, Old Gringo, Billet. In my hand I hold a ticket to the premiere of Old Gringo! The man pushes me toward the street, where the stars are emerging from their long black limousines. A man at the entrance examines my ticket carefully. He speaks into a radio while he looks me up and down disapprovingly. He reaches behind a small curtain and pulls out a dark-blue dinner jacket to cover my BYU volleyball camp T-shirt.
I take a few steps up the red carpet toward the theater. Cameras. Posing. I stop. I wave at the crowd. They roar with approval. Flash!
Taking my time, I am one of the last to enter the theater. My sparkling ladies are nowhere to be seen. I find an open seat near the front. As I wait for the film to begin, a dark figure next to me reaches his hand out.
“Hey there. I’m Buddy Hackett.”
Broadly Studying France
Jennie Long Dilworth, ’85, Statesboro, Ga.
I’ll always remember my 1984 study-abroad trip to France as the summer of crypts, flying buttresses, and pan au chocolat. As students of Madame Josette B. Ashford, ’67, we embarked on our own tour de France, making a circle around the interior of the country, departing from Nimes and landing in Dijon (the city, not the mustard).
Most of our time in France was spent in trains and buses with short layovers in each town. Adjusting to French cuisine was particularly difficult, and we often found ourselves hunting for anything vaguely resembling an American hamburger. Of course, the french fries were no problem, as frites were a staple at most of the French restaurants we could afford. Steaks were also readily available, although waiters would wrinkle their noses when we asked for the meat to be cooked “très, très bien-cuit–presque brulée” (very, very well-done–almost burnt).
While becoming steeped in French culture, we became equally imbedded in relationships with our fellow students. At the end of the tour, we were more like siblings than classmates. At times, Madame Ashford must have felt more like our mother than our professor! The tour made for great memories to last a lifetime.
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