My experience with the filming of Raggedy Man

I actually was an extra in this film but I doubt I have even a split second of time in it.

I was part of the scene where Teddy (Eric Roberts) takes the boys for an outting to Corpus Christi (Remember them watching the planes roar above as they made sand castles?).

The scene was filmed on Corpus Christi's North Beach section about the summer of 1980. I saw an ad in the "Caller-Times" looking for movie extras. The only requirement for men was short hair since the film was set in the 1940s. I was fresh out of high school and living in Portland, Texas at the time so I decided to go to the Holliday Inn and apply. I went up to the suite, filled out an application card and recived a call a few days later telling me where and when to show up.

I was outfitted in a WWII era white U.S. Navy sailor's uniform and paired up with two other guys (drama students from W.B. Ray High school). We strolled up and down the sidewalk all day while the crew did a crane shot and we walked the beach for several other shots. The whole thing took all day and took up maybe less than a minute of movie time. For a split second you see a shot of a guy applying a tattoo to a customer. The artist lived in my neighborhood and drove a truck which advertised him as "The Tattoo King."

North Beach is where the USS Lexington is located and is fairly touristy now, but in those days is was a run-down section of old 1920s era buildings that sported arcades, second-hand shops and saloons. I used to hang out down at a used bookshop in the area and drink beer and shoot pool at a little bar there that was festooned with sports memorabillia. They really cleaned the place up for the movie, painting the sad buildings and fixing them up to look new even painting the names of non-existing businesses on the white facades in bright red. I never saw the place look better.

Sadly, Hurricane Allen hit the area about three or four months later (August of 1980) and many of the old joints didn't survive.