Recollections of the Filming of
On Golden Pond
By Keenie Hildreth
August 1980
A movie being made next door with Katherine Hepburn, Jane Fonda and Henry Fonda! After thirty-seven happily melted together summers spent at the lake with only an occasional event or special guest to evoke any memory of difference in the lazy patterns established over the years, this summer was going to be different. Arriving for my month's vacation, I cheerfully anticipated the usual pattern of family activities: expeditions on the lake, mountain climbs, card games by the fire, meals with cousins and friends' and more deeply, the continuation of traditional family relationships and roots as witnessed by this house since 1909.
The unexpected introduction of an eleven million dollar Hollywood movie being filmed at what you consider to be your lake, next door to your house, immediately conjures up a variety of new expectations (fantasies) for the summer: getting to know the actresses and actors. witnessing Hollywood at work, and of course, the all American dream of being discovered, which couldn't help but make its way into the back of ones mind. One month later back at home I reflect and have to inwardly chuckle at the memories of my summer on golden pond.
My first impression this summer as I drove down the road to the "camp" was the feeling, besides the excitement and novelty, of an underlying current within me of a sense of intrusion into this special space of mine. I had to wonder if the seventy-five crew members, imported here for the summer from California, would really appreciate where they were. I didn't think so, though conversely did feel that Katherine Hepburn. Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda would. Why the difference in my acceptance of these equal strangers? Is it the stars' familiarity to us through their movies that allows us to relate to them, and in doing so, lets us think that they must relate to us as well? Of course we were curious to meet them, though we soon sensed that, while fascinated and curious about this happening and these three very wonderful stars. having spent a year looking forward to our usual summer we really didn't have, or want to spend, the time in pursuit of becoming an "insider". In defense of tradition, we hesitated to give this out-of-ordinary occurrence more importance than what was already so vital to us.
Actually, we felt that we were sharing our lake and hoped that it would be as unique a summer experience for Katherine Hepburn and the Fondas' as it had always been for us. While we never did become "insiders", the gossip, jokes and subtle changes in the lake's activity all surely added to a wealth of stories passed down through the generations-along with the tales of feeding the camp during the war, summoning Mr. MacGregor to shoot the porcupines out of the trees or the discovery of the Indian ceremonial burial canoe at lake's bottom. Somehow, these past legends and the nostalgia we held for them became an equal rival for the movie business at hand. Time builds legends, and I imagine that "On Golden Pond" will fit in with the best of them. The fact that the story itself so closely parallels much of the story of my family's history and attachment to the lake assures its place in a family's memory.
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The information started to pour in. We could see the set anytime, but filming would begin next week and we'd be more restricted. We were told about the plot, the stars, the director and the mechanics of feeding, housing and transporting all of these people in a town of 750. The Mead farm was the base. Roads were put in, fields cleared to park the huge semi trucks, and a large tent erected in which everyone was to be fed. The family that we called the "tootsie roll people" did not want to give up their usual months camp rental, even for Henry Fonda. Eventually, another of the lake's nicest homes was acceptable to them and Henry Fonda was now a neighbor. Traffic to and from the set would be by water on a large motorized raft from the farm nrather than on our one lane, dead-end road. Well, not all of it. My Aunt Cyane and Uncle Dick counted 50 cars between 7 and 8 A.M. on the driveway to the set, directly in front of their house.
Initially, we especially enjoyed walking around the set at night. We noted with a bit of jealousy the old camp's facelift-an added level upstairs with a balcony, newly painted trim, stripped floors and a new railing. To our amazement, the next evening the new trim was crazed and peeling. The new kitchen linoleum was dirtied around the edges and there were holes in the screens. It appeared to us that the set designers recreated what had been there originally. The furniture and props arrived, looking rather familiar to those of us who lived the real thing. There was much to look at, and we freely offered our comments and criticism to the night guard. We disapproved of the mounted fish on the walls, knowing that our best bass catches were always outlined on brown paper or, at best, on birch bark. How influential we felt when our next evening's survey of set changes noted traced fish recorded on brown paper!
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Items taken for granted by us suddenly seemed remarkable. Past relics from the lake's bottom, summer games and antique auction finds-collectibles that hardly change position during the two months a year when the family moves in, enjoys the familiarity, and goes home. Mammuv furnished our camp from auctions around the countryside. I'll always remember taking her to an auction at age 84 and having the very popular Mr. Worthington, an institution among auctioneers in New England, notice her in the crowd, although many years had lapsed in her attendance. He greeted her warmly, telling the audience that Mrs. McGuire had been coming to his auctions since 1943. People came from miles just to enjoy the commentary of this gifted orator. I think the California set designer, from her research, obtained the look, but I realized how lucky we were to have experienced its spirit.
The local night watchmen were our inside contacts, filling us in on daily activities. When the cast and crew were fed a steak and lobster dinner by the gourmet catering company, relocated from California for the summer, Mr. Herbert, the local watchman, will long remember Mr. Fonda driving down to the set alone to inquire if Mr. Herbert would like something from the feast. Mr. Herbert, who always brought a dinner pail, replied humbly that he had already eaten. Mr. Fonda chatted and left, and shortly thereafter 4 lobsters and a steak were delivered, which Mr. Herbert proudly boasted to have eaten all of. Our limited contact with these famous people repeatedly proved them to be genuinely nice, friendly and interested in others.
Indeed, I'll long remember entering the local grocery store parking lot and seeing abandoned carts left helter skelter while ladies of all ages surrounded Henry Fonda as he cheerfully autographed their grocery store receipts. My husband found himself nex1 to Katherine Hepburn at the cheese counter in the store. She knew he recognized her and gratefully accepted, with a glance, his silence in respect of her privacy. In time, I think the locals became accustomed to the excitement, and our new neighbors could then enjoy the relaxed New England summer days.
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We saw Jane Fonda and her children at a tourist water slide. Actually, she fit in with the crowd so well that many didn't know she was there, and those that did, didn't bother her. Wearing a "Jane Fonda workout t-shirt" with jogging shorts and clogs, made me tltink she did not mind being noticed. She looked athletic and natural.
She was taking diving lessons at Mr. Switzer's pool where her son and mine were taking swimming lessons together so that she could do the difficult back flip called for in the movie script. A stunt person probably could have performed the flip, but perhaps Jane, doing a movie with her father for the first time, wanted to do it herself. Father-daughter relationships, whether in a movie or real life, whether the people are famous or not, are complicated, and we couldn't help but feel that this story had several layers of meaning for Jane and her father. It was fun to sit around a pool with the usual group of mothers at a swimming lesson and with Jane Fonda, talking of local happenings, restaurants, kids, etc. She was very observant of people around her. Pointing out my son, she commented, "Oh, the athlete, the child with skin stretched over muscle." About my 11 year old she remarked, "I have never seen hair that was the color of golden flax." There were many children at the pool and I imagine she had noticed each one in some special way. Jane might not have been mobbed at the water slide, but I wonder if, during other summers, quite as many mothers brought cameras, guests, and husbands to their children's swimming lessons!
She was interested in the fact that my 37 summers at the lake was the counterpart to her role in the movie. The set designer, whom I met later, commented that she must have studied me carefully. I was more interested in how excited Jane was in the story and its different levels of meaning. Loons, prevalent on our lake, are featured in the story and Jane and her family had become interested in the history of this prehistoric bird and the ongoing struggle in its protection in the area. She was particularly intrigued with the metaphorical aspect of the story as it related the lifelong mating patterns of the loons and their annual return to the same nesting location to Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda's portrayal of the Thayers and their yearly return to the lake. The compassion becomes a poignant vehicle to deal with the usual human struggle with the questions of relationships, love, and growing old. Jane Fonda's own production company, Marble Arch, is producing the movie, and Jane, her own production boss, chose the leads. This is the first time that Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn have ever done a film together, as well as Jane and her father.
I never met Henry Fonda, though I heard him filming out on the lake with Katherine Hepburn. Those voices are so unmistakable, coming across the water. Watching the filming of a short segment, it seemed that it must be very wearing and perhaps dull, shooting always out of sequence, a line or two at a time, over and over again. How difficult to maintain the spirit of a line repeatedly. Yet, both Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda were, each time, as spontaneous and natural as the time before. They would practice for an hour or more and then finally do a take-once or twice to be certain it came out right. It struck me that filmmaking is indeed a visionary art, where a director must take a story, some actors and a set, and create a spirit tJiat in my own life had taken generations of time to evolve. This story, "On Golden Pond", seemed to hold a special feeling for Jane Fonda and it was evident that the area itself lent a touch of magic to this filmmaking enterprise. Despite the film strike in progress 3000 miles away, this film was allowed to continue-being one of only 20 U.S. films in production worldwide with special dispensations to continue production because the summertime setting was so vital to the story. Our children, though, informed us it was because Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda were quite old, and we soon began to realized that it was the children who knew the most. In a day or two's time they knew who drove which car, who was chauffeured, which actor/star lived in which neighboring camp, and all the details that children seem to gather from their mysterious sources. They could unselfconsciously canoe along the shore and watch the filming, while the rest of us waited for the official invitation. Katherine Hepburn would always disappear inside the A-frame guest house on the water's edge, used as a make up house, when they would approach. Having heard that Jane Fonda's children were not allowed on the set by Katherine, they decided that she didn't like children. I explained to them the probable reasons for this. A canoeing segment of the movie was of interest to them as the actor in the canoe didn't hold the paddle correctly. They learned that the canoe was to be connected to chains underwater and towed, so holding the paddle correctly was of no practical value. They liked impressing the crew with their canoeing finesse by streaking along like Indians and being told how good they were.
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Driving by the set on the way to town one day, we saw a young man bent over, staring at the leaves in the woods by the entrance to the set. The kids seemed to know what he was doing-looking for spiders for the set. Since they were usually correct, I didn't say much. Returning from town an hour later and seeing the young man in the same pose, I had to stop and inquire. "Looking for gold", was his reply. It probably was spiders, but I'll never know. We had seen others in tlie woods with large plastic trash bags. If they were collecting pine needles to scatter on the roof of the house and about the yard, our friend could have just as well been sent in search of spiders. He was a union man, hired for one purpose-to drive the huge generator truck from California and to guard it out by the road. He was more friendly than the others. We were told that union workers are a strange breed. They could only perform the job for which they were hired. They were required to be driven to and from the set, and if caught driving themselves they would be heavily fined. I doubt if looking for spiders would have fit this young man's job description.
A New York reporter appeared one day, to interview neighbors about the impact that the filming was having on our vacations. He had heard that some of the neighbors weren't too happy. We knew who he was referring to, but related that most of us didn't mind it at all. It was fun, though there was certainly an increase of activity on the lake. We showed the young man a stream of boats, slowly cruising through our narrows in front of the set. We laughed, remembering our normal complaint about the boats traveling too fast through the channel. This summer everyone crept through, hoping for a glimpse of something. We loved the various guises, in particular, the fishermen with binoculars, out at uncharacteristic times of the day and locations for fishing. People don't seem to want to be caught rubbernecking. Of course, this particular passage between island and mainland is not nonnally used as a through route, except by those living on either side. We found ourselves not using the channel, but rather, going completely around the island. I guess subconsciously we did not want to be categorized with the other sightseers-not that anyone was keeping count or even noticing.
Patrol boats were stationed at either end of the channel so that when filming was in progress and a clear background was needed, the sightseers could be politely asked to stop and wait for 5 minutes. Of course, most were delighted to be a part of the happening in any small way.
Francie, blueberrying on the island, was hailed by the patrol boat and asked not 'to continue up the shore, due to the filming. When I saw her across the way, standing up in her canoe, paddling with resolution toward the patrol boat, I didn't need to hear the dialogue. We had quieted the childrens' noise on our beach on request, stopped the chain saw, and quit water skiing, but not picking blueberries on the island was infringing on near sacred grounds. Francie was hailed by plectron radio in the patrol boat by the P.R. manager from shore. Little did she know, that at this same time her father had blown sky high when he was asked the way to our beach to request 5 minutes of silence of our children. My uncle didn't know that this had happened before and really was no inconvenience. While Francie was speaking to the P.R. manager in her usual capacity of go-between, Katherine Hepburn appeared and, having been introduced, showed great concern for my aunt and uncle. She said she called them the "people in the corner house". Ms. Hepburn had grown up going to a similar type location and realized that the movie must have been an interference to their summer solitude. She asked what she could do, mentioning a visit, and it was arranged. She went the next day, stayed for an hour and everyone had a lovely time. (I never did hear if my aunt asked Katherine Hepburn if she was the person to start the tradition of running and jumping nude into the pond after graduation at Bryn Mawr College.) Katherine Hepburn must have known that there had been some conflict, and hearing that my aunt and uncle hadn't seen any filming, she graciously invited them to come at any time. I don't think my uncle ever did go.
In fact, I guess my Uncle Dick had to win the prize for generating the most controversy, conversation and emotion amongst us in relation to the movie. As the local hardware store owner commented about him, "Everyone in the whole vicinity would have given their eye teeth to have lived where he does and he hates it." It wasn't his fault, really. He was never informed of what was taking place at the old camp next door to his own house-a quiet place he had built for retirement solitude in the woods away from the noise of our old camp where he and his two brothers and all of their families had gathered summer after summer with my grandmother. Uncle Dick eventually learned from a workman of a Hollywood movie being filmed next door from June to October. I have a feeling that those in the know might have foreseen conflict there and let it become a fait accompli. A week before the filming was to begin, a diplomatic letter arrived to all the neighbors, prophesying the boon to the local economy, assuring the lake's anonymity and high quality of the story and operation, and offering cooperation in any way to anyone being inconvenienced. The planning commission had reviewed the venture, in light of the fact that it was a commercial enterprise taking place on property zoned non-commercial. My uncle had been on the committee the previous year and in a town so small, ordinarily would have heard of the current concerns. My uncle felt it had been purposefully put over on him, and I think he was right. For all the P.R. attempts, we could certainly have helped out in their diplomacy department and saved everyone some problems. The New England character isn't known for complacency. How easy it would have been to have included Uncle Dick. By the time polite invitations to visit the set were received, they were only burrs, and subsequently, insult upon insult became too much. When the bright blue and yellow San-o-lets appeared at the end of the drive, in full view from my uncle's living room, who could blame his irritability. Was it his fault as he snapped a picture to give to his attorney, that someone happened to come out of one San-o-let, threatening to kill him if he took their picture? It comes to mind that a star wouldn't be too thrilled with such a picture appearing in People magazine. In due respect, a plywood screen was erected promptly.
Now don't think that the rest of us didn't thoroughly enjoy the whole scene, because we did. We loved to laugh over the many unrealistic money-making schemes that our creative minds conjured; erecting a tower on the beach and charging passing boatloads of sightseers admission to climb up and look over the swamp at the filming, or renting our camp at an outlandish price to vacation at the ocean. The best vision was that of our camp being used for the film. It was built in the same year, had many of the features that they added to the other and really could have used a face-lift in the bargain.
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I heard they were hiring extras. They needed a water skier and I meant to apply, but after all, the blueberries were in and there really wasn't time. My brother Will sent in a resume and in fact, got a letter asking him to come interview to be a stand in for Henry Fonda. Oh the thrill! It turned out not to fit into his scheduled summer stock theater commitment, a long time association with one of New England's oldest theaters, "The Barnstormers", so established that when Jane Fonda's manager called for tickets to that week's production, he was told that they were sold out and would not be able to get anyone to give up their tickets for the Fondas. It was hard to believe that they wouldn't have gone out of their way to find some tickets, but after all, they were sold out every week and the New England character isn't known for being easily impressed. The director himself is the grandson of Grover Cleveland. The play "On Golden Pond" had been offered to a selected number of summer stock theaters that year. The "Barnstonners" had turned it down. It was its 50th anniversary summer and they were doing a sample of their past favorite shows. No one seemed concerned at quite a lost chance. Well, my brother's name was put in the pool of stand-ins and the thoughts conjured up were worth their weight in gold. He did have other friends who were used. One was Jane Fonda's understudy and another was in setting. They were paid $50 a day. Excitement would flare and then be absorbed into the daily summering that went on as usual.
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The movie wound up early in October. We heard they finally filmed the boat crash scene on Kimbell island. We had hoped to see it, though we all cringed at the picture of a handsome 1950's vintage varnished wood Chris Craft boat, a relic of tile past, being heartlessly demolished for the movie. The boat's bottom would be perforated with chains attached underneath and as the boat approached the rocks, the bottom would be pulled out and the boat would sink suddenly. At any rate, the tales go on and on. I gather it got a bit cool down in the woods and the Californians shivered in those unheated camps along the shore. My aunt and uncle attended the wrap-up party, along with our two Meredith Center laundry ladies. They had been asked to be in the film, but decided against it because they had to work at the laundry. Myrtle and Margaret did go to the party, dressed to kill, and had the thrill of their lives telling Katherine Hepburn how they'd done our laundry for 40 years. Extra time will have to be allotted for "picking up the sheets" (going to tile laundry) in the future to hear their story of the party alongside of their fond remembrances of my grandmother. The road was to be repaired, some of the changes in the house would be undone, and others left. The new gazebo goes to the farm, the fleet of old boats will be sold back the Marina and next summer "On Golden Pond" will once again be Squam Lake.
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It was a different summer. Things changed, but didn't. Feelings were stimulated, relationships tried. We will all have different memories of our summer on Golden Pond. I will long remember sitting on a rock on an island, watching the filming and listening to the familiar voices of Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda being recorded for a movie that I will stand in line for and see, as I have for many others. Yet, for this one, I will have been there, at my lake, on a summer's afternoon.