00:00I had a good fortune recently to meet and play tennis with a beautiful and talented young actress,
00:07the star of the new NBC movie called Skyward.
00:11She's only 14 years old, so I figured Susie Gilstrap could use a few pointers about the game of tennis.
00:16I figured wrong.
00:18It turns out that Susie is something of a tennis champ and has won a number of awards.
00:22Some she's won while she was able-bodied, and some she has won in the last three years while in a wheelchair.
00:28A victim of a freak accident, her spinal cord was crushed by a falling tree branch, and her legs are useless.
00:35But believe me, her spirit and sense of humor are very much alive.
00:39Hey, I have an idea to improve your game.
00:42Use both brackets.
00:43Uh-huh, you like to rub salt in my lungs, right?
00:45Sure.
00:46I'll tell you what, since I lost, loser buys the sodas, okay?
00:49Okay.
00:50You got it?
00:50Great.
00:50In contrast to Susie's eternal good nature and optimism, she portrayed a young woman with quite a different attitude.
00:59The character's restricted environment and overprotective parents created a sense of inadequacy and then bitterness.
01:05In the movie, Susie played a girl named Julie Ward.
01:11Lisa, those are my best!
01:12Oh, Julie, what are you doing here?
01:16I want to help!
01:17Oh, no, Donna, but listen, it's all right.
01:20Uh, why don't you watch some television?
01:24Come on.
01:25In real life, Susie's true parents, Chuck and Dana Gilstrap, realized that Susie needed to be given as much freedom and responsibility as possible
01:33so she could begin again to take control of her own life.
01:36I was determined that her life was going to be just as normal as possible.
01:42And, uh, the only time that it dawns on us that Susie is in a wheelchair is, uh, when we come up against, um, steps.
01:51It is amazing.
01:52Life is so normal for a handicapped person.
01:55I was totally different from the character I played because I'm very open and close to my parents.
02:00I feel like I can talk to them about anything.
02:03I still get angry sometimes when I think about it.
02:06Because it isn't fair.
02:07I hear she was, uh, feeding ducks at a, at a park and just out of the blue, she's injured.
02:17But it could have been so much worse.
02:18We could have lost her.
02:19But she was so terrific and still is terrific.
02:22That helped.
02:23Dana, who got the first call about the movie?
02:25We thought it was kind of a hoax.
02:27I mean, you know, right out of the blue, this phone call from Paramount.
02:30Did you think it was one of Susie's friends just playing a joke or something?
02:33Uh, or a crank call.
02:36The casting director.
02:36Well, it turned out to be the real thing, as Anson Williams, the producer of the film, explains.
02:41The secretary of our casting director's friend of a friend heard about Susie in a tennis game.
02:47And she was the last girl we saw.
02:49And she came in and, uh, we had her read.
02:52And the basic thing that impressed us, aside from her personality and just being such a doll, was, uh, her ability to take direction.
03:00And she was a natural actress.
03:01Susie's performance in Skyward was remarkable by any standard.
03:05And even more so when you consider she was shooting for six grueling weeks in the Texas heat of last summer's drought.
03:11Susie's performance in Skyward.
03:12Sorry.
03:13What are you doing?
03:15Her first time out, she worked with and won the respect of the best, as seen here with Betty Davis.
03:19How could have done it?
03:19You know it.
03:20No, you couldn't have.
03:21You're not experienced enough to land in that kind of a crosswind.
03:25And if you don't think making a movie is hard work, let us show you the amount of time and energy it took to get one 30-second shot while the film's director, Ron Howard, tells us about Susie's talent and attitude.
03:36She seems to be so positive about the things that she wants and what she's capable of doing that I don't think she feels she has any real serious limitations.
03:47Uh, my God, she has, she has an incredible energy, a great attitude, terrific mind.
03:52And, you know, she's a tremendous student, and, and I just think she's a winner.
03:57Typical of the movie process, this scene had to be repeated a dozen times in the two hours that it took to shoot.
04:02It's going to be dangerous in that thing.
04:04What are you doing?
04:05I'm kind of in a hurry.
04:07Well, let me give you a ride.
04:09Susie, how close was the character you played to your real-life situation?
04:13Um, I had a few instances, you know, where it played a little bit close, but mostly the times where Julie got very stubborn.
04:21about wanting to do something, you know, she's supposed to be the little girl that can't do anything in the wheelchair.
04:29And that's when I get the most, I think, most frustrated, because I'm trying to say, hey, I'm, I'm Susie, I'm a person like everybody else.
04:39People have, you know, the tendency to be afraid of the chair.
04:43What we're trying to do with this movie is to try to, to teach people not to be afraid.
04:48We had a scene, it was a school dance, and Ben Marley, who played Scott, my boyfriend, took, took me to the dance.
04:55And my character was very afraid, because she wasn't, you know, sure how he would handle this.
05:00So he took her out to the dance floor, and, you know, kind of said, you know, we could, we could do this, where should I sit?
05:07And she said, sit on my armrest.
05:09So he sat there and put his arm around her, and, and moved, you know, moved along in the crowd.
05:14It was, it was really neat.
05:16The crew in the set that you worked on was really a crazy place.
05:41There was a lot of nuttiness going on there.
05:43Did you expect that?
05:44Um, no, I didn't.
05:46I have to be honest, I, I expect it to be real, all, all work, no play, but it was a lot of play.
05:53We could see that Susie's good nature was infectious on the set, and she made a lot of new friends.
05:57We understand she was also the victim of one of this crew's more peculiar traditions.
06:02And if you look over the camera operator's shoulder, you'll see she soon became a full-fledged co-conspirator.
06:07You know, it, it strikes me.
06:09You know, it strikes me.
06:09And because I was just a visitor on the set and minding my own business, I figured I'd be safe from Susie and her friends.
06:24Well, the good feelings between Susie and these people and the good job they are all doing will benefit everyone's understanding that handicapped people are just like you and me.
06:43And that no one can be held down or kept back if their spirit, like Susie's, wants to soar.
06:48I think a lot more people are becoming aware of the needs of people in chairs as them understanding what we can do instead of what we can't.
07:00My biggest goal is just to be myself and live life to the fullest.
Comments