Ojai Valley News Blog

Peter Graves

Graves among luminaries to be honored at Nov. 5-8 Film Festival

By Linda Harmon
Peter Graves, the silver-haired 6-foot-2 pilot from the classic comedy, “Airplane,” will be among the luminaries the Ojai-Ventura Film Festival will bring to town the first week of November. Celebrities and film lovers flock to Ojai for the 10-year-old festival which this year will honor Graves for his work in more than 50 films and hundreds of television roles with the screening of “Airplane.”

Graves took a chance when he starred in the 1980 film along with other Hollywood icons, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges.

“I was scared during the whole production,” said Graves, who had never attempted comedy before. “I didn’t know if I could do it. I talked to my wife and the producers, David and Jerry Zucker. They were these two young guys and after I met with them I saw what they were looking for. They were getting together a marvelous cast. I still wasn’t sure, but I said yes.”

According to Graves, the film was shot in so many pieces he had no idea what to expect. “None of us knew it was going to be that funny.”

Graves still wasn’t sure about his performance until the movie premiered at the Director’s Guild Theater in Hollywood.

“There’s no more professional audience than that — and suddenly they were laughing,” said Graves. “They were laughing and hooting and hollering, and clutching their sides and slapping their knees! And I said, ‘My god, I’m funny!’”

The veteran actor, funny and a delight to talk to, describes himself as a “law-abiding, all-American fella.” His leap into comedy may have been a gamble, but proved to be a popular and critical success.

During his 60-year career Graves has avoided many of the myriad pitfalls of Hollywood. To illustrate, one need only note the survivor of Hollywood’s famous short attention span will soon be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in front of the famed Musso and Frank’s restaurant. This occurs in the same year he will celebrate his 59th year of marriage to the love of his life, Joan. Their marital longevity is deserving of another kind of star, even if he weren’t a respected player in Tinseltown.

The Minnesota-born Graves, blessed with the rugged good looks that Hollywood is famous for, made his film debut in the 1951 film, “Rogue River,” after only a year in Hollywood.

He went on to co-star in many westerns and the iconic World War II favorite, “Stalag 17.”

“What a good film. It was a thrill working with Billy Wilder and Bill Holden,” said Graves, remembering the filming. “What a pack of great actors and what a luscious part. It did cause me a little trouble after it first came out though; we’d run into guys in restaurants and coming out of bars calling me a rotten Nazi. But we lived through it.”

Many recognize him as the impervious Jim Phelps of the 1960s-era television show “Mission Impossible,” the calm anchor of A&E’s “Biography,” or his recent deadpan delivery in the Geico Insurance ads, but far fewer know him as the single father in the earlier “Fury” or that he made his directorial debut with an episode of “Gunsmoke,” in which his brother, James Arness, starred.

“Good family fare,” remarked Graves after I mentioned I was a “Fury” fan in my childhood. “They still show it all over the world. It was playing in Germany when I was there, seven o’clock, five days a week.”

Then I added I’d heard that “Mission Impossible” is also about to be released to a whole new generation of video watchers.

“Yes, they’ve packaged the whole series in DVD,” said Graves, noting the timing is fortuitous, coming out right before the Film Festival.

Just like his career.

“Well, it worked out,” said Graves, a master of understatement, commenting on his 60-year-long career in show business, a statement the Film Festival and many of his admirers are sure to agree with.

Graves will be on hand to answer questions after the noon to 2 p.m. screening of “Airplane” at Matilija Auditorium, 703 El Paseo Road, on Nov. 7. Early bird tickets are still available at ojaifilmfestival.com. Additional information is available at 640-1947.