Taste of Tinseltown comes to Hayward
by The Tri-Valley Herald - 21st Dec. 2004
Ryder, Fiennes arrive to shoot part of latest film
Holiday Bowl turned into Hollywood Bowl last week when stars Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes arrived with a Tinseltown crew to shoot part of their latest film.
"The Darwin Awards," which is still a working name for the film, has nothing to do with bowling. Director Finn Taylor transformed the Hayward landmark's restaurant and bar into a Minnesota diner and Nevada watering hole for the film.
The Darwin Awards, in real life, are Internet honors bestowed upon "those who have accidentally killed themselves in really stupid ways," according to a Web site.
In the movie, Fiennes plays a forensic detective who teams up with Ryder, an insurance claims investigator, to profile a potential Darwin Award winner. The movie is expected to be released next year.
Holiday Bowl owner Jim Sommer said he was a little wary when an Oakland location manager called him last month about filming the movie in his family's 46-year-old facility.
But when industry people kept returning to scout out the place, Sommer said, he realized "it was the real deal." Evidently, Taylor had been to the bowling alley once and had a relative who was a bowler there, Sommer said.
Still, Sommer was shocked when he arrived at 9 a.m. two Sundays ago to find his large parking lot crowded with trailers.
"It was incredible how much equipment they brought," he said.
Sommer immediately was put to work helping to seal out light from the bar windows so it would look like night time, taking down neon signs of beer-makers not allowed in the film and making sure anything and everything that made noise was shut off. That included the air conditioning, ice-makers -- even the dart board machine.
Sommer, who was told he couldn't photograph the stars, also had to prep for his big acting role as a bartender at his establishment, which was transformed into a Western-themed bar.
"I'm a rocker, I'm not a cowboy," he said, adding that he had to purchase a flannel shirt for his part because he didn't have one. "I'll probably be in the scene for like five seconds."
Tom Williams, Sommer's former father-in-law, was one of a handful of Holiday Bowl regulars who got to be in the film as a customer at the restaurant counter.
"I went to wardrobe and everything," said Williams, a 45-year Hayward resident who was dressed with a scarf to look more like a Minnesota resident.
As for the stars, Sommer said they were very nice, adding that Ryder "looks even better in person." She had to smoke in the bar scene, which led to an in-between-takes conversation Ryder and Sommer had about smoking habits.
What was pitched as a morning shoot turned into an eight-hour day, said Sommer, who had to close the bar and restaurant to customers.
To counter that, however, he was paid $1,000 for use of the facility, and the bowling alley will be listed in the movie credits, he said.
Unbeknownst to other bowlers, Ryder and Fiennes ended the day with a game on lane 35.
"No one looked over to see if a movie star was playing next to them," Sommer said.
Sommer made a comment to Fiennes about his gutter ball. The British actor responded that bowling wasn't his game. Meanwhile, Ryder bowled by swinging the ball between her legs, Sommer said.
Holiday Bowl, located at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Industrial Parkway, opened in 1958 as the largest bowling center in Northern California.
Among its other brushes with fame, Holiday Bowl's banquet room was the site of a campaign fund-raiser for gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan, and former owner Ralph Sommer offered The Beatles $25,000 to play there in 1965.
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Pictures
all pics were taken at the 2005 Marc Jacobs Fashion Show
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