Everybody's All-American

Everybody's All-American (1988)

Their life story is a love story

Louisiana football star Gavin Grey had it all. He was an All-American champion who married his high-school sweetheart, homecoming queen Babs Rogers, and who was a hero to his hometown. Yet after a failed professional career, Gavin realizes that fame and success have passed him by and that he no longer is the hero everyone keeps reminding him he should still be. His dissatisfaction with his life leads to strains in his marriage, and Gavin begins to wonder who he is, if he's not a hero anymore.

Date of release
1988-11-04
TMDB
5.4 / 10 (49)
Runtime
2h 7m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
Taylor Hackford

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Everybody's All-American
  • Filmed in: Colorado

Everybody's All-American is a 1988 American sports drama film, released internationally as When I Fall in Love, directed by Taylor Hackford and based on the 1981 novel Everybody's All-American by longtime Sports Illustrated contributor Frank Deford.

Production

Filming was stopped for weeks when Dennis Quaid had his collarbone broken by former New England Patriots cornerback Tim Fox during filming. Footage of Quaid rolling in pain on the sidelines of the snow game appears in the finished film. A key scene featuring a candlelight parade involving large numbers of extras was filmed, on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol, when snow started falling.

The game scenes were shot in Louisiana State University's Tiger Stadium during the halftimes of actual LSU games in 1987. The goalposts were altered to resemble the vintage "H" posts as needed during filming. Vertical posts were moved in place for the bottom portion of the H, and a multi-colored fabric covering was used to conceal the "modern" center support post.

Michael Apted was all set to direct Thomas Rickman's script in 1982 until Warner Bros. Pictures balked at the $16 million price tag, leading man Tommy Lee Jones and the fact that American football movies never do any business overseas. During its six years in development hell, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, and Robert De Niro all circled the project.

Despite the fact that the novel by Frank Deford was written about the University of North Carolina (which refused to allow filming because they suspected the story defamed campus legend Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice), when it was filmed at LSU, rumors started that Gavin Grey (Dennis Quaid) was based on the former LSU All-American Billy Cannon.

The film contains a much more hopeful and upbeat ending than the book, where Gavin takes his own life after trying to kill his wife Babs Rogers Grey as well.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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