THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 49 TheCoastalBend.com Since the age of film production dawned in the 1900’s, Corpus Christi and the Coastal Bend have been chosen as a location for more than 120 movie and television productions. Not all are memorable to many, but a few have served as a reflection of real life in South Texas, and others have launched the careers of some of Hollywood’s big- gest stars. Heart of the Sunset was one in a series of smash silent film hits by writer Rex Beach, whose 1918 Western was staged in the town of San Antonio, in the desert near Eagle Pass, and on the sandy coastline of Corpus Christi. Before The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love, Brooke Shields played a teen- age pinball wizard who runs away to Corpus Christi with an aspiring rock singer played by Krull star Ken Mar- shall. Climactic scenes in Tilt (1979) were filmed on the bay front T-Heads, and in a bar on North Beach, where Tilt takes on“The Whale,”played by Charles Durning. Eventual Falcon Crest heart throb Lorenzo Lamas had a small role. Coming off her Oscar-winning por- trayal of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Sissy Spacek starred as a divorced single mother living in Gregory, Texas, in the 1981 film, Rag- gedy Man. Spacek’s character falls in love with a sailor on leave during World War II, and ends up the target of assault by two bitter local men. Sam Sheperd played Spacek’s estranged husband in a passing role; Eric Roberts portrayed the handsome sailor, and E.T.-to-be star, Henry Thomas, played Spacek’s young son. North Beach was transformed back into 1944, although a gaff in the film was the appearance of the Harbor Bridge in the background, which was not constructed until 1959. One of two major Hollywood films that were set and staged almost entirely in Corpus Christi was 1985’s The Legend of Billie Jean, starring Helen Slater and her brother, Christian, in his debut movie role. Flour Bluff siblings, Billie Jean and Binx Davy, get into a feud with a local surf shop owner and his son over damage to Binx’s Honda scooter, after a confrontation at the local drive-in (the old Sonic in Flour Bluff). Hostili- ties escalate and the Davy’s end up on the run from the cops, supported by thousands of local kids under the rallying cry,“Fair is fair!”Iconic scenes in the film took place at Sunrise Mall, the yellow mansion on the corner of Ocean Dr. and Doddridge, Magic Isles amusement park (now Funtrackers), and Dockside Surf Shop in Flour Bluff. Eighties rocker Pat Benatar recorded the hit, Invincible, for the movie, and Lisa Simpson-to-be, Yeardley Smith, debuted in her role as a rambunctious teenager. Helen Slater will appear at Corpus Christi Comic Con in June, and the inside story behind The Legend of Billy Jean will be featured in our May/ June edition. Coastal Bend Community A brief sketch of the Coastal Bend’s history in feature Hollywood films