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By Sanjay Talwani
Independent Record
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HELENA, Mont. — Arnold
Richardson was not the best-known Montanan to appear in a Hollywood movie, but
his solitary bit part — as the elderly Norman Maclean in "A River Runs
Through It" — remains one of the most iconic cinematic images of the state,
partly responsible, for better or worse, for the explosion in the popularity of
fly fishing in the 1990s.
For Richardson, who
retired to Townsend and died Dec. 6 at 96, the response to a casting call in a
Livingston newspaper led to an enjoyable brush with fame and a well-paying job
one autumn. It was also a fitting highlight in a lifetime of love for Montana's
fish and streams and wild places.
"He could spend
literally days on a river," his stepson, Norman Spencer, said by telephone
from his home in Florida. "The whole concept was almost transcendent. ...
It's almost like he was transformed when he got on a river."
"Hours would go
by," Spencer said. "I'd be ready to go home. He'd still be there
fishing and have no concept of what time it was. He would just really get lost
in it."
It's been said,
Spencer noted, that trout don't live in ugly places.
"They live in
some of the most beautiful, serene areas, the mountains, in cold clean
water," he said. "It's always very picturesque types of locations,
where the water is always pristine. Because the fish need to have ice cold
water to live."
Richardson was born in
Maine in 1914 and worked with his father in construction endeavors. After he
finished high school, they moved to Washington state, where the elder
Richardson created a company making wooden blinds.
Arnold became a
bricklayer and spent much of World War II as a civilian on government projects
throughout Alaska, before moving back to Maine.
But the life of a
bricklayer involved lots of travel, and some of that brought him to Montana,
where he learned to fly fish in the late 1940s, Spencer said.
A big moment in his
fishing life came around 1948 outside Mack's Inn, on the Henry's Fork of the
Snake River in Idaho, where he caught so many fish, in such spectacular
fashion, that it earned him a free T-bone steak.
"The chef told me
his customers seated at the window went wild over my fishing," Richardson
told the Independent Record in 2005. "He said that any time I wanted to
come and fish outside the restaurant, he'd give me a free meal."
He also got work as a
fishing guide, which paid more than bricklaying. He kept on guiding, and his
reputation grew, into the 1950s, Spencer said.
A construction
accident — an electrocution — sent him back to Maine, where he met and married
Frances, Spencer's mother, in the mid-1960s. Construction work kept the family
traveling, and finally they settled in Livingston in the mid-1970s, by
Spencer's estimation.
There, they ran the
Sherwood Inn, a senior living center, for about 15 years.
In 1991, Robert
Redford and crew arrived in Montana, and Spencer persuaded his father to
respond to a small ad, seeking men in their 70s. "Must be excellent fly
casters," the notice read.
"I was the one
that kind of pushed him into it," Spencer said.
According to an
account by John Dietsch, in charge of what he called the "casting casting
call," for the role of the elderly Maclean in the film's final scene, he
narrowed the field down to two men with beautiful casting ability: a younger
one, who tied his knot in his line smoothly and with finesse, and an older man,
who struggled and shook, mentioned that his eye's weren't so good, and spent a
good five minutes trying to tie his knot — a Turle knot.
Dietsch recounts the
episode in his and Gary Hubbell's book, "Shadow Casting: An Introduction
to the Art of Fly Fishing." Dietsch reported back to Redford that the
younger old man might be the best choice, but that the older old man's hands
shook, and he might take on awful long time trying to tie a knot on cameras.
Redford asked to meet
the older man — Richardson — and eventually hired him.
"The shaking
hands struggling to tie a knot at the end of the film are a trademark of the
movie, and tell a story in themselves," Dietsch wrote. "Looking back
at it, in my haste to 'succeed,' I had lost my sense of compassion while
working on the film, and in doing I had missed the magic that unfolded right in
front of my eyes. I missed the message on the backs of the old man's veined,
transparent, and leathered hands — the yearning that any man his age, feeling
this passage of time, would have for his younger days — the gentle acceptance
that indeed those days were gone forever."
Richardson enjoyed
working on the film, although like any, it involved a lot of standing around
waiting. He worked with Redford and with Brad Pitt and was paid well, Spencer
said.
He had never read the
novel — which elevated fly fishing to near-religious status — until he got the
part.
In time, the couple
retired, and chose Townsend because of the fishing in Canyon Ferry Lake, said
Spencer. Richardson switched from wading directly in streams to fishing from
boats, of which he owned a few at different times.
Beth Ihle and her
husband, Kevin McDonnell, who lived next door to the Richardsons for several
years in Townsend, bought Arnold Richardson's last boat. And they inherited the
couple's cat.
"He was well into
his 80s," Ihle said. "Frances was worried about him because he would
stay out all day."
The boat included a
1970s-era outboard motor, Ihle said.
"He showed us how
to run it, since it wasn't that apparent," she said.
One time, backing down
a ramp, Arnold hooked part of his trailer on the dock, ripping a light off. It
was a comic moment, but time to get Arnold off the lake, Ihle said.
"They were just
great people as neighbors," said McDonnell. Frances in particular had a
great relationship with Ihle's and McDonnell's four children, they said.
"She knew more about what was going on in our house than I did,"
McDonnell said of Frances.
The couple loved
seafood, including lobster and shrimp, which they would buy in large quantities
— a legacy of their Maine heritage.
In the tradition of
Maine fishermen, Arnold didn't brag about his movie stardom, although he did
have a promotional poster of the movie signed by Redford.
"I didn't put two
and two together," Ihle said. "He said, 'Yeah, I was in the
movie.'"
Arnold Richardson
shared some of his casting ability, along with his prestige from the movie,
with local students. John O'Dell, teaches "A River Runs Through It,"
each year to his 10th grade English class at Broadwater High School. One year,
Richardson came and spoke about the movie and demonstrated fly casting to the
students.
"He talked about
Montana, how important it was to him, and fishing," he said. "He kind
of lit up. ... You could definitely see the youth and vitality come out when he
was speaking."
Speaking just before
Christmas break, O'Dell said the students had just finished studying the book
and had viewed the movie, including the famous final scene.
"I was thinking
today, how skilled he was," he said. "His rhythm was beautiful."
The love of fishing
was passed to Norman Spencer, who said he's fished just about every stream in
the state, from the Kootenai River to the Bighorn and everywhere in between.
"He often said,
jokingly, that he was one of the main reasons that fly fishing became as
popular as it did, and maybe in a way he was right," Spencer said.
"The movie generated — I won't say a storm — but it created a keen
interest in the sport."
That's meant more and
more pressure on the blue-ribbon streams, with a nearly continuous flow of
boats and rafts on some rivers during peak season. On the other hand, more and
more people enjoy it, and it's created an economic bounty in the state from fly
shops to guides to motels and more.
"He often said,
maybe he created too much of a monster," Spencer said.
The Richardsons moved
into Broadwater Health Center about five years ago after some ups and downs
with health, say neighbors, and over the last few years Spencer made several
visits from Florida, where he recently retired from a career in the shipping industry.
Frances stayed relatively sharp, but Arnold's mental faculties declined the
last few years.
Frances died Nov. 23;
Arnold followed Dec. 6.
The last thing he said
was, he was looking for Frances.
