Macon Magazine

As a youngster, Tony Long Jr. was enthralled with airplanes. He wanted to be a pilot and would often call the tower at the Macon Airport to talk about planes.  When he was 10, the exciting blockbuster disaster movie “Airport 1975″ hit the big screen. 

Long, 45, still remembers a lot of the publicity before the movie came out. He couldn’t wait to see it.

“I’d only been in a plane once. Earlier that year for my 10th birthday, my father and I had flown from Atlanta to Macon on a Delta Airlines DC-9 so I could experience a flight,” said Long. “Any airport disaster movie was intriguing to me at that age. The 747 was a new plane at that time. It seated 400. I was intrigued and amazed by it.”

Filmed at the height of the disaster movie craze of the 1970s, the plot of “Airport 1975″ revolves around helpless people trapped in a crippled 747 airliner - the pilot paralyzed, the co-pilot dead, the peaks of the Rockies dead ahead. The head stewardess, played by Karen Black, must take over the controls.

The all-star cast also included Charlton Heston, George Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Helen Reddy, Gloria Swanson, Myrna Loy, Linda Blair and Sid Caesar.

Long thinks he must have seen the movie nearly a dozen times and each time the movie theater was sold out. After “Airport 1975,” Long followed Black’s career through the years. He estimates he’s seen at least 30 of her more than 170 films. “I was fascinated with her ability to both act and sing. And, I always felt she was the person she was portraying on the screen,” said Long.

Her first hush puppies

Casually dressed in black cotton pants and a charcoal-colored cotton shirt with sleeves partly rolled up over a blue plaid blouse, Karen Black removed her thong sandals and curled her bare feet under her on the small sofa in Maryann Bates’ photography studio in the Washington Block building on Mulberry Street in downtown Macon. She swept her dark hair back with her left hand that bore a simple, narrow gold wedding band and focused her attention on Long as he talked about “Airport 1975.”

Joining in the reminiscing, Black, who has two Golden Globes, a New York Film Critics Circle Award, an Oscar nomination and a Grammy Award nomination to her credit, said she saw the movie for the first time with a small group of people.

“They didn’t react much. I thought, ‘oh my god the movie is a disaster,’ ” said Black. “You need a large audience to get the drama. When I saw it in at the Cinerama Dome theater in Los Angeles, people were screaming. There was that group mentality.”

Long still shakes his head in disbelief that he has developed a friendship today with the legendary actress and that she not only headlined the fourth annual Macon Georgia Film & Video Festival last February, but also spent a week in April in Macon to shoot scenes for an upcoming movie.

About a year and a half ago, Long and his father were discussing how to take the festival to the next level. Long’s father helped found the festival and serves as its chairman. The festival is anchored at the historic Cox Capitol Theatre.

“I thought some top talent should be brought in,” said Long. “I suggested the film festival contact Karen Black. My father said, ‘Do it.’ “