April Luedy still remembers nearly everything from the day her scene in the greatest movie of all time was filmed downtown Mansfield.
“That’s where we sat under a tent,” she pointed from the intersection of Main and Fifth streets. “We waited there for hours.”
Luedy reached the height of her acting career that day, and ever since has changed the lives of hundreds of children as a third-grade teacher at Malabar Intermediate School in Mansfield.
“That was an exciting time,” she said. “It has taken me 30 years to talk about it.”
“Shawshank Redemption” was filmed over the summer of 1993, then released in 1994. The Internet Movie Database lists it as the best movie ever made.
The Shawshank Redemption 30th anniversary celebration will take place Aug. 9-11 at the movie’s 15 filming sites throughout North Central Ohio, known as the The Shawshank Trail.
‘So many wannabe movie stars’
Luedy grew up in Mansfield and spent most of her childhood entertaining audiences at both the Mansfield Playhouse and the Renaissance Theatre.
“I started when I was 8, actually,” she said. “I was the balloon girl in ‘Gypsy.’ That was my first role.”
She wanted to be an actress so badly growing up that she moved from Mansfield to California after high school.
“I became a nanny,” Luedy said. “I worked at a dinner theater, too.”
She met a couple people in the business, but realized most of the people around Hollywood are out of work and still trying to get noticed.
“There were so many wannabe movie stars,” Luedy said. “Everywhere I went, I met somebody from the Midwest.”
She decided to move back home and earn a degree from Ashland University.
“I was only out there one year, but I felt like it was 10 years with everything I experienced,” Luedy said. “I’m glad I did it.”
‘We didn’t know how big this was going to be’
By spring 1993, the displaced actress found herself bouncing around in offices throughout Richland County, always making good money but never really finding happiness.
She already was thinking about becoming a teacher, but then something caught her eye.
“There was an article that came out in the newspaper,” Luedy said. “They were looking for extras for this show.”
She realized that show actually was a movie based on Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.”
Best of all, it was going to be filmed in her hometown.
She and what felt like a million others lined up downtown Mansfield to audition.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Luedy said. “We didn’t know how big this was going to be.”
A few weeks later, she was invited to be an extra in the movie.
‘That was his last walk’
Luedy and a handful of others arrived on their assigned filming date to be dressed, dabbed with makeup, and shipped downtown Mansfield.
They sat for hours across the street from an actor they all recognized as James Whitmore. They eventually learned the Hollywood star was portraying Brooks Hatlen, a librarian who had been released from Shawshank State Prison.
Luedy’s role was to walk down the sidewalk along West Fifth Street, westward from Diamond Street to Main Street.
In the foreground of her scene, Whitmore was walking across West Fifth Street, supposedly on his way home from work at the market.
“That was his last walk,” Luedy said. “Then you find out what was going on, unfortunately. He couldn’t survive on the outside.”
During a break, she worked up the courage to approach Whitmore, but only for a moment. She welcomed him to Mansfield and he thanked her and that was about it.
“Nobody told me that we couldn’t go up and say anything to them,” Luedy said.
After about 13 hours, the extras were paid and sent home.
‘So happy for those that did get a part in the movie’
A year later, Luedy and the rest of the cast filed into the Renaissance Theatre to watch the movie’s screening.
She sat eagerly as she felt the time for her scene approach, but Whitmore’s character somehow made his way from the market to his apartment with no walk.
“It was that quick and then it moved on,” Luedy said. “It was a bummer. I was a little let down, of course.”
But dozens of other extras from throughout North Central Ohio saw their faces in a few of the movie’s scenes.
“You’d hear somebody cheering and clapping all throughout the show,” Luedy said. “You knew they saw themselves, or they saw somebody they knew. I was so happy for those that did get a part in the movie.”
Life worked out well for the almost actress. She and her husband started a family. A few years later, she began what has now become an extensive and rewarding career with Mansfield City Schools. Those are wonderful accomplishments she never could have obtained living a fast life in Hollywood.
This summer, though, during the movie’s 30th anniversary, she can’t help but look back and think about the time she nearly had her breakthrough.
“The whole experience was a time I will never forget,” Luedy said. “I and so many others were so proud of our city.”
ztuggle@gannett.com
419-564-3508
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.