Christians in Cinema

Writer/Producer – Billy: The Early Years
Documentary filmmaker, author and national researcher, Bill McKay’s media and entertainment background span more than 30 years. He’s the founder and CEO of American Trademark Pictures, as well as former CEO of the American Research Corporation.

His most recent book Against All Odds: In Search of a Miracle was written in conjunction with the docudrama TV series of the same title, which he also created and produced.

Why did God invest so much in Billy?

His most recent film Billy: The Early Years, a movie about the beginning of Billy Graham’s career, is scheduled for national release on October 10. We talked about Bill’s passion for research, his determination to tell the Billy Graham story, and the elements of a good movie.

How did you become involved in the Billy Graham film project?

Bill:  I did a documentary on Dr. Graham’s life 7 or 8 years ago, and the director I used on the project stayed after me for a long time to produce a feature film on Dr. Graham’s life. To be really honest, I did not think there was much of a cinematic story that could be told for a theatrical release. I think my notion was that Billy’s story, though he has accomplished enormous things for the Kingdom of God, did not translate in terms of the standards of drama and entertainment, conflict and resolution, etc. I turned down the opportunity about 4 or 5 times for that reason and others.

I was coming back from Israel after one of our trips to shoot Against All Odds, and I was about an hour outside of LAX. As I was awakening from a long, exhausting film shoot, the words just literally sliced through my mind: Billy: The Early Years. Within the next hour as we were on approach to LAX, I wrote the entire story in my mind.

It was one of those moments when all the tumblers just fall into place and the story just flowed through me. I got off the plane and called my partner Larry Mortorff, who co-produced the picture with me, and I said, “Let me give you a 5-minute recital.”

He was blown away and said, “That’s the story. We’ve got to make it.”

For whatever reasons, all of the elements that are necessary for cinema and conflict and drama and all the rest came together in my mind. I realized we had a story that was not just good for film, but was necessary in the man’s legacy. He’s very close to going home to be with the Lord, so that’s important as well.

That was the genesis of it. I came to it reluctantly and with a certain prejudice. But at the end of the day, I think we have a story that is really going to speak to this generation.

What is about the early years that captivated you enough to do this project?

Bill:  Well, everybody has taken the panoramic view of this story, from the idyllic beginning in North Carolina all the way through the grand moments of being a friend to so many presidents.

I think what’s special about Billy: The Early Years is that first it’s an untold story. Essentially, no one knew the “back-story” on Billy. Everybody sort of knows who he is now and what he has achieved, but no one understands the evolution, if you will, of choice.

I think we have a story that is really going to speak to this generation.

One of the things that really intrigued me is that, like so many great men down through history, he was faced with several critical moments, maybe even a collection of them, when his choices could point him in one direction or another. The consequences of those choices would either enhance his calling or opportunity, etc., or diminish it accordingly.

It occurred to me when I was thinking about this, even after completing the filming and doing post-production, that in world history’s 6000 years of time, and more specifically the 2000 years of Christian history, in my humble opinion as a documentary filmmaker and historian and someone who thinks about these things, there are probably only three people in all of Christendom post-Jesus who had global impact.

One would be Paul the Apostle. Not to diminish the work of the disciples, because they all had enormous roles to play, but if you singled out one person who changed the course of Christianity, it would be Paul.

Then you would have to fast-forward 1500 years to Martin Luther when he shook the world with the Reformation. That literally gave birth to Western civilization.

Then fast-forward 500 years to Billy Graham. And it’s not to ignore the men and women who also made important contributions to the Kingdom. If you put together criteria that say these people had a single focus on the Gospel and they had a worldwide impact as a result, there are probably only three.

People can argue this, but I think I’m on safe ground when I say there are probably only three. So the question then for me as the writer of the script, and I’m coming out with a book on the same story (published by Thomas Nelson), why Billy? Why did God invest so much in Billy?

As I began to delve into that, it occurred to me that there were a series of crucibles that Billy had to deal with in order for God, I believe, to be fully comfortable that he could invest such an enormous amount of power in him. Sometimes you can sit back and look at all of these great people: Pope John Paul, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, and they all seem like they’re just floating up there like saints. The fact of the matter is they all went through enormous trials and tribulations and suffered. They had choices that could have literally twisted their lives in a different direction.

By God’s grace, Billy made the right choices. I realized that part of his back-story was Charles Templeton. No one really knew who he was or the impact he had on Billy’s life and the choices he finally made, or how close Billy came to losing his commitment to his calling. He could have gone back to his life as a dairy farmer and literally shrunk back from the great moment that tested his life.

As I was thinking about that and overlaying this point of 3 giants in 2000 years of Christian history, I was thinking how many thousands of others got right up to that same crucible and couldn’t make the same decision. How many couldn’t cross the rubicon?

For reasons that we all give into, our flesh, our pride, our selfishness, our whiny petty feelings about the devil picking on us or life being unfair, we shrink back and we say, “You know what, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth pressing on toward the mark. It’s not worth being like Jacob who said, ‘I will wrestle with God and I’ll not let go until he blesses me.’”

My sense is that when we get to eternity, we’ll see tens of thousands of men and women who will have been at that point and, for a whole collection of reasons, pulled back and said, “It’s not worth it. I’ll serve Jesus and be faithful to Jesus, but I’m not going to cross the rubicon. I’m not going to make this unashamed commitment and risk everything.”

So when I look at the dynamic and the conflict between Charles Templeton and Billy Graham, everyone from across Europe, the United States and Canada had predicted that Charles Templeton would become what Billy Graham has. That was the expectation. He was expected to inherit the mantle from Billy Sunday.

Chuck Templeton was speaking to crowds of 40,000. By today’s standards, that might not seem like much – that’s Joel Osteen’s weekend crowd. But this was in the 1940s. There was no electronic media or mass advertising systems. This guy had the skills, the oratory, the looks, and he had the power. He was a “rock star” in that era.

When he and Billy were teamed up, Billy was the junior partner that was being brought along with Charles as the lead on the ticket. When Youth for Christ was being formed, that was the pitch. In 1946, Tory Johnson sent these two boys to Europe. It was right after World War II. That was one of the bloodiest, most grotesque wars in the history of the world, and the number of lives lost, maimed and destroyed has no equal in anything else that has happened in the history of the world.

Billy had an encounter with God.

Billy and Charles saw it moments after the final bombs were dropped, and the impact on Charles was considerably different from Billy. He saw, felt, and heard the great questions of life. Who is God? Why would God allow this? How could a loving God allow this? And on down the list he went.

Charles started reading Jean Paul Sartre, along with some of the other neo-orthodox theologians popular in Europe at the time. They were questioning the existence of God, and early on, Charles rationalized that if he were going to reach this generation that had been so devastated by the war, he had to equip himself intellectually to “do combat” and “defend the faith.”

Eventually these doubts and questions seeped so deeply into the seat of his soul that he lost his faith, and Charles became the intellectual architect of atheism, went off to Princeton, and eventually betrayed Billy in almost a Shakespearean public moment. That caused Billy to go off into the forest of Los Angeles, up in the mountains. He had what we would describe as a “Peniel moment” with God, a Jacob experience. Billy went out there and wrestled with God, and because of his integrity, he was saying to God, “If you can’t give me the answers that Charles has thrust into my face, how can I go out and sell a Gospel I can’t prove?”

That was the essence of this great struggle. A lesser man, more of a charlatan, might say, “Well, I can’t answer these questions, but I can make a whale of a good living. I can travel first class, I can sell books, etc.” I think today we have a lot of those kinds of men and women on television that are really living kind of a spiritually schizophrenic lifestyle. They really don’t believe the Gospel 100%. They’ve got their doubts and questions, but the money, fame and power are so alluring that they subordinate those questions. Billy couldn’t do that; his integrity wouldn’t allow him.

So he faces this final crucible, the crescendo of the series we show in the film. Finally, he has this profound encounter with God, and he comes to the understanding, like Martin Luther, that the just shall live by faith. And it is by faith that we accept this book (the Bible). It wasn’t to obviate reason or set that aside; it was to allow reason and faith to collide in a special vortex that settled into Billy’s soul.

As he said in his own words, “When I came out of that experience, I spoke with a level of authority that I never had before.”

As I thought about those words, Billy’s own description of that event, it was awfully similar to the first disciples after Pentecost, because when these guys spoke, they spoke with authority. That’s what shook the ecclesiastical establishment of Jerusalem. These guys were essentially uneducated, as was Billy. He had a B.A. from Wheaton, but he didn’t go to Harvard. He didn’t have the theological equipment, if you will, to debate the “who’s who” of the world. But when he spoke, he spoke with a level of power, confidence and authority that was unequalled by most preachers of his time.

If I can say that there was one single thing that set Billy apart, it was this: it wasn’t that he was smarter, better looking, or more clever. It was the fact that he had an encounter with God.

Has his family seen the film, and what do they think of the way you’ve presented his story?

Bill:  The BGEA (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) never endorses any books or films. They’ve had a 60-year policy about that, and as you can imagine, they’ve been inundated over the decades. They knew they couldn’t favor one person over another without causing brouhaha, so they just don’t endorse.

We’ve respected that completely and thoroughly. However, Billy’s oldest daughter Gigi has seen the film three times and is now on tour for the film. She’s doing talk shows for us, talking to pastors, things like that, because she just loves the picture. There’s a very special series of moments in the film where we really tell the love story between Billy and Ruth, because this is a young man’s journey.

In my opinion, Ruth was probably as critical in the success of his ministry as any single thing outside of Jesus. And, had there been no Ruth, there probably would have been no Billy. We really open up that love story and let it flower on screen, as any love story could and should. Gigi has just fallen in love with it, and we’re very honored that she has said the kind things she has about it. It’s hard when you’re making a film and it’s about somebody’s daddy and somebody’s mother. I’ve tried to put myself in that position and ask myself, “How would I feel when some guy comes along and says, “Hey, I know what they are,” and transcribes it to screen.

The other day, she said, “When I look at the actress that plays Ruth Graham, I can see my mother, the same with young Billy. You found people that look like them and speak like them.” So it seems pretty exciting for her to feel that history a little bit.

How did you find the cast? I read that the distributors are very pleased with the cast selection.

Bill:  Christian Slater’s mother was our casting director. Mary Jo Slater has been around for many years, and so we hired her. Our objective was to hire talent, not Christians.

Most Christian films that I see, while sweet, have mediocre execution. We knew we had a powerful story, we were writing for a secular audience, believing Christians would respond to it, but if the talent didn’t measure up to the standards of Hollywood, then it’s all over for the message.

We set high [cast] standards…and God blessed us with [Christians] after the fact.

So we went to a professional casting agency and cast in LA, Chicago, New York, London, all over the place looking for talent. We did not settle until we found the people that could make this story believable. Once we did, we made our decisions based on the skill sets.

The surprise was that young Billy turned out to be a Christian. Young Ruth turned out to be a Christian. Young Templeton turned out to be a Christian. We hired a Broadway star to play Mordecai Ham, and he turned out to be a Christian. So we set a very high standard in terms of the selection process, and God just blessed us with them after the fact.

You mentioned that you’re reaching out to a secular audience. Why will a secular audience want to see a film about the early years of Billy Graham’s life?

Bill:  We submitted the script to Fox Faith to see if they’d be interested, along with other studios, for DVD sales. Four weeks went by and we heard nothing from Fox. Then one day in the middle of production, I received a phone call from the head of Twentieth Century Fox, and he said, “I want to come out to the set and meet you.”

So he flew out with his entourage and we sat down. He said, “First of all, I need to apologize that it took us so long to get back to you. You submitted a script at the bottom of our food chain, and it took four weeks for it to move through the department heads all the way up to my desk.

“I hope this doesn’t offend you,” he said, “But this script is not a ‘Christian film.’ You have a secular film with Christian content.”

I said, “well, that doesn’t offend me at all, because my interest was to communicate to a secular audience the story of Billy Graham.”

Do you remember the motion picture “Amadeus?” Remember the character Salieri? What I decided to do in writing this film was to create this character, Charles Templeton, on his deathbed. He essentially becomes Salieri, then he, the atheist, the once best friend of Billy, the betrayer of Christ, the betrayer of his friendship with Billy, becomes the storyteller.

So you have an atheist telling Billy Graham’s story. Even though it was great entertainment and a great love story, all the elements you want in making a movie, we’re dealing with the great questions of life. We allow the voice of the atheist to blossom in this film. We don’t cheat him and we don’t diminish his arguments. We put them out there and let the audience who has undoubtedly grappled with the same questions understand that there are two sides to the story, and you must choose. That’s why it will appeal to secular audiences.

How did you come to the decision to tell the story from that point of view? Was that part of the inspiration that happened on the airplane?

Bill:  Yes. I realized as the story was evolving in the creative process that the best way to do this would be to model it after the 1976 best-selling motion picture “A Star is Born” with Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand. You have an established star (Kristofferson), once at the peak of his art, now in decline. You have a second character that’s on the rise, which no one expects to become a star.

We borrowed that technique and the essence of the decision on how to approach this was to allow atheism and Christianity to collide in all of its force and power.

This is definitely not going to be your “Sunday School” version of Billy Graham.

What will surprise people who’ve grown up watching Billy Graham’s life unfold?

Bill:  There are several little surprises. When you look at him, you know the image. We’ve seen him on television and heard him on radio. We know he’s written more books than any single person in history and spoken to more people than anyone.

His presentation, at least in the last 20 – 30 years, has been one of consummate polish. He’s been as good a speaker as anybody could imagine. The fact of the matter is that he was not that good of a speaker when he started. He was a gangly farm boy. He did not have sea legs. He was not secure or sure of himself.

We argue in the film that, if it were up to Billy, he probably would have gone off to become a baseball player. Speaking was not one of his dreams. If it had been up to him, he probably would have married a girl named Emily at the Florida Bible Institute.

There’s a line old Templeton has where he says, “Somehow, something would step in and save Billy from himself.”

I think sometimes we look at these lives in an almost iconoclastic view and say, “wow! They were always that way. They were born stars.”

Well, this was the “making of.” God literally shook his life. He tested him, putting him through the grit and grist, and the choices Billy made eventually allowed God, I believe, to dispense the power that made him one of the three great giants in Christian history.

What influenced your decision to have Robby Benson direct?

Bill:  He was a child star in television and motion pictures, and then he went to Broadway. I think there were two reasons that influenced me on that decision. One is that he is an actors’ director. While we have some nice stars in the film, they’re not box-office leaders (like a Brad Pitt). So we believed the story should become the star. That was our philosophical approach to it.

By default, everybody thinks we should have the biggest name in the world on the DVD jacket or it’s not going to sell. We’re taking a different approach. We have good talent. Martin Landau is an Academy Award-winning star. We’ve got Jennifer O’Neill and Lindsay Wagner, along with Josh Turner. There are some good people in the film. We decided that acting and skill were the main objectives.

At the end of the day, we want to take that talent and make them believable to all these people who know who Billy Graham is. Between 6 and 10 minutes into the film, we want the audience to believe that’s Billy Graham. If that task is not accomplished, we fail.

We believed the story should be the star.

Robby has such a great skill set as a Broadway actor and director that he can pull that kind of performance out of talent. So that was the first reason. The second is that I wanted a very strong musical component to this, and Robby has a wealth of knowledge and experience in music.

I decided very early on, and told the music supervisor, that I wanted to bring country music into this. Country is first cousin to Gospel. Back in October, I said I would like Alan Jackson, Brooks and Dunn, Martina McBride, Sara Evans, etc. Of course we didn’t have the budget for that, not even close to hiring platinum talent for a film like this.

As of three weeks ago, we have all that talent and more. Sony/BMG signed a deal with us as the label for the film. Alan Jackson returned home from his European tour about three weeks ago, and our music supervisor called him at home that Sunday night to ask him if he’d be willing to do a song for the movie.

He said, “Let me think about it, and I’ll call you in the morning.” By the time he went to bed Sunday night, he had a decision that he wouldn’t be able to commit because of tight time constraints. Monday morning he woke up, went into the living room and saw a book on the life of Billy Graham on his coffee table. He sat down and started to thumb his way through.

He got to a section in the book where Ruth had written a piece of poetry as a prayer to God long before she met Billy. It so stirred Alan that he got up, went to the piano, and wrote the melody for those words. He called us up and said, “The song is yours. That’s my gift. I’m sorry I can’t do the song you want me to do, but this is my gift to you guys.”

24 hours later, he couldn’t get the Billy Graham film out of his mind, called us back and said he’d do the song. It’s now complete.

We’ve had maybe 20 or 30 situations like that but time prevents telling them all. We’ve had some of the “who’s who” of the American entertainment world getting involved to help us on this picture. We didn’t sell, we didn’t plead, we didn’t negotiate. It was just a sovereign thing.

What about future projects?

Bill:  I’m in pre-production on a film right now that will be kind of a sequel to Mel Gibson’s picture “The Passion of the Christ.” It’s called “Resurrection,” and picks up right where he left off. I was introduced to the picture by Sony, so that’s how I became involved in that one.

©2008 ChristianCinema.com