Audio: A Christmas Story Secret
Peter Billingsley joined Dan Patrick on his movie podcast to talk about The Christmas Story but one story from Peter has really stuck out…
Peter joined That Scene With Dan Patrick podcast to discuss the movie, and shared that in one of the movie’s most recognizable scenes, he was given real chewing tobacco.
“Well, they totally screwed up, Dan,” Billingsley said. “The scene says he’s dressed as a sheriff. So you put the costume on. And a line in the script says he’s chewing tobacco. So, sure enough, the prop man, who’s responsible for that — anything the actor touches is the prop man’s department — he comes up to me and he’s got this pouch and it says Red Man on it, and he flips it open — I swear to God, I don’t know the difference — I said, ‘What do I do with this?’ He says, ‘Here, jam it down in here.’ He says, ‘Don’t swallow, just spit.’
“So, I do it, we get ready to go, and about 15 minutes in, the world starts tilting,” he tells Patrick. “I start sweating. My stomach starts hurting, and I start throwing up.”
According to Billingsley, director Bob Clark then said, ” ‘Cut cut. What the hell is going on?’ ”
Billingsley added, “And the prop man says, ‘Oh, I gave him Red Man, you know.’ Bob says, ‘What are you doing? He’s 12 years old!’ ”
“Can you imagine?” he said. “It was a very different time then. He just gave me straight-up, whole-cut leaf Red Man.”
