Farm House Kids in the Movie Rain Man... They're Mine

The Rain Man Story

My friend Phyllis Mashaney called me at 5:45 in the evening to say a casting director for a movie had been in town auditioning the kids at school all day. She said they were looking for kids and pickups that were needed to drive by a house… they were going to film in Hinton. She told me they had taken videos of her girls Carrie and Megan and then laughed and said it was too bad my home schoolers hadn’t been able to audition… auditions closed at six. Never a slacker, I sprang into action… it is an eight minute drive to town and I was determined to make it!

I had been getting dinner so I turned everything off, hastily grabbed baby Lize, and rushed outside yelling to the kids to get to the car… hurry, hurry, hurry! Everyone piled in, some without shoes, some who had been in the sand pile had dirt on their faces and no one was clean. The tone of my voice had caused instant mood elevation, so they were bobbing up and down all over the station wagon as Michael sped to town.

When we got to the school auditorium, the production crew packing up equipment. Oh no…auditions were over. Never mind… I hustled the kids inside the auditorium and asked the lady at the desk if it was too late to sign up for anything. She glanced at the casting director, precious Marie Rowe, and Marie nodded we could sign up so I began to fill out paperwork while my kids went nuts, running around ‘testing’ anything that was not tied down. Marshall was carrying baby Andrew at a dead run so I had to stop several times to try and save the baby. I tried to wipe the dirt off Peter’s face as he ran by and wished I’d had time to find their shoes and wash their hands. Please don’t climb on that I‘d had to caution, don’t run with that pencil, leave that electrical cord alone! I felt we made a dubious impression. Marie visited with me and the children, took pictures since the video equipment had been packed, I signed up our old truck, and we left.

Several weeks later I got a call from her that they had chosen my children to be the ‘farm house kids’ in the movie. The script had called for two brunettes, but they had rewritten the script to use all six of our sons; she had issued a press release. I was stunned… I just sat there in disbelief. I called my Dad and Michael’s parents. Daddy was happy, but Michael’s Dad didn’t believe me so I decided to call the Daily Oklahoman newspaper to see it they knew anything. They told me ‘front page tomorrow’. And then the phone began to ring… tv stations, radio stations, newspaper interviews. Marshall, who was 12, called a friend and said he was going to be in a movie ‘with Tom Cruise and some old guy‘… my children had never even been to a movie and seldom watched television so their references were hazy.

Marie had interviewed thousands of kids, most had parents with high hopes for their budding careers, but they were looking for farm kids, which is exactly what we had. Their naiveté was probably the key to my kids being chosen.

Beth Grant, the mother in the scene, came over to meet the children before filming and told them she was their mother in the movie. John, who had just turned 8, whispered to me ‘Is she really my Mother‘ so confusion reigned that day. The next day, amid a flurry of calls from people wanting interviews, a huge black limo picked us up and took us to the house where we would spend three days filming.

*Filming is another story.