The Father Whose Life Story Inspired the Son Who Wrote "Braveheart"

On this episode of Our American Stories, Randall Wallace is the writer/director of films such as "Braveheart", "We Were Soldiers", "The Man in the Iron Mask", "Heaven is For Real", "Pearl Harbor", and "Secretariat"—movies rooted in courage, sacrifice, and faith. These traits which embody Randall’s very heart were exemplified throughout his life through his father. Here’s Randall to tell the story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habiv and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
Randall Wallace is the writer director of films such as Braveheart,
We Were Soldiers, Heaven Is for Real, and a family favorite, Secretariat.
Movies rooted encourage, sacrifice, and faith. These traits which embodied

(00:31):
Randall's heart, were exemplified throughout his life. Here's Randall to
tell the story of his father.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
My father was the greatest man I ever knew, and
he had a remarkable childhood. His father died of typhoid
fever eight months before my father was born. So I
suspect my grandmother didn't know she was pregnant when she

(01:01):
became a widow. But my father was not without a
father figure. His mother had a lot of sorrow and
brokenness in her life. She started a one room schoolhouse
in Lizard Lick, Tennessee. That was where they were from.

(01:23):
So I love to share. The men in my father's
family are Alton Elton, Dalton, Lyman, Gleam and Hermann Thurman
and Clyde Thurman's my father and his grandpa. The father
of all those guys was Jake Rhodes and my father
told me that once his grandfather leaned down to him

(01:45):
face to face and said, I want you to understand something, Thurman.
I'm not a wealthy man, but you can walk into
town and buy anything there by telling him you're my grandson,
because they know I'll keep my word. And those stories
were just profound for me. My father had no help

(02:07):
with his mother really had her hands full when he
was in school, and of course they had corporal punishment
in Lizard Lick, Tennessee and the depression, and when my
grandmother was going to discipline a student, meaning spank, she
would spank my father first so no one could say

(02:28):
that she was playing favorites. So he got spanked most
every day he was in school. He was incredibly charismatic,
and all of his relatives said he always had this
glow and he could sell anything. He went to work
full time when he was fourteen, and the fascinating thing

(02:49):
about that he sold candy through all of my life.
What really amazed me about my dad is you hear
the stories of the traveling salesman, and you have the
CODs of manipulating people to sell them things. My father
loved people, and when he met anyone. He always found

(03:13):
something about them that he found delightful. He knew the
name of the guy that swept the floor in the warehouse,
as well as the name of the president of the company.
He didn't really want me to be a writer. He
knew that I loved doing it, but he felt that

(03:35):
if you work hard at being a lawyer or a
doctor or certain professions, then you will find some success.
But he thought it was too much of a crapshoot
to be in a profession in which you might you
might be gifted, you might work really hard, but you
couldn't guarantee that you'd have a career. He had a
long talk with me, advising me to man up and

(03:59):
become realistic. He had always wanted me to go to
law school. I realized, well, I can't borrow money from him,
but I don't know how to stop, and I've got
to keep going. And about that time, I wrote Braveheart,
and there was nobody more proud of me than my dad.
I was directing We were Soldiers, and it was the
first film that I was shooting on a studio lot,

(04:23):
and I thought that would be a great experience for
my dad. So I invited him out for the last
three days of filming, and he came. He was the
happiest and most care free time of his life. He
went around the set, spoke with everybody, and then he
went back home and he had a heart attack, and
the doctors called, wanting permission from my sister and me

(04:45):
to turn off the machines that were keeping him alive.
As hard as that call was, our father had made
that decision easier because he had always said, don't ever
keep me alive by artificial means. We made the call
to turn off the machines, and I drove right to
the airport and gone on a plane. Flew all night long,

(05:07):
and then I was flying from Atlanta to Lynchburg when
the pilot came on and announced that all air traffic
in the country had been ordered to land immediately. It
was nine to eleven, and I ran right to the
car rental counter, got a car, and I was on
the road when he died, so I didn't make it
to his bedside. We had his funeral and I got

(05:30):
back to work as exactly as he would want me to.
And that first day back, we were doing post production
background voices, so we had the Vietnamese guys there doing
enemy calls and radio transmissions things like that, And on

(05:52):
a break, one of the Vietnamese guys who had played
an enemy soldier, came up and said, mister Randall, I'm
so sorry about your father. And I said thanks, let's
get back to work, because I didn't want to get emotional.
I was trying not to be raw. He said, I
really am so sorry, and I said thanks, let's get
back to work, and he said, no, please listen to me.

(06:14):
I stopped and said what and he said, last day
on the set, I met your father and your father
said to me, where's your father? And I said, my
father died in Vietnam and your father said to me,
then I'll be your father. The fact that that was

(06:35):
this fatherless boy who grew up to be a man
who would say that in absolute sincerity to a total stranger,
reminded me that my father would always be with me,

(06:55):
and I am certain I'm going to meet him in heaven.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Randall Wallace, who,
by the way, has a terrific and inspiring one Man's
show called the braveheart of creativity. You can go to
Wallace Entertainment dot com to learn more. The story of
Randall Wallace's father, the story of so many good fathers

(07:20):
across this great country doing the most heroic work there is,
raising kids. Here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib,
host of Our American Stories, the show where America is
the star and the American people, and we do it
all from the heart of the South Oxford, Mississippi. But
we truly can't do this show without you. Our shows

(07:42):
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