1. Under Southern Skies was the first movie filmed in Savannah. It was shot in 1915.
2. Ten Academy Awards have gone to movies filmed in Savannah.
3. Johnny Mercer was nominated for 19 Academy Awards and won four.
4. Five prop benches were made for the movie Forrest Gump.
5. The first movie with sound filmed in Savannah was The View from Pompey’s Head, in 1955.
6. Movie crews have made 86 films in Savannah.
7. Downtown Savannah is home to more than 135 movie locations; Chatham County boasts more than 420.
8. Tom Hanks is only the second actor to win back-to-back Academy Awards for Best Male Actor. He won honors for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. (Spencer Tracy was the first actor to achieve this feat.)
9. Skidaway Island State Park represented Africa in the highest-rated television miniseries, Roots.
10. Steven Spielberg was the original director for The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, starring Richard Pryor, James Earl Jones and Billy D. Williams, but he pulled out after Jaws went over its shooting schedule by 100 days. The comedic sports film was shot in Savannah.
11. The library in the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home is now named The Bruckheimer Library in honor of novelist Linda Bruckheimer and her megaproducer husband, Jerry Bruckheimer.
12. The history museum inside the Savannah Visitors Center houses one of Johnny Mercer’s Academy Awards and one of his Grammy Awards, plus one of the Forrest Gump benches.
13. Savannah’s own “Hollywood Ron” was with Cate Blanchett when she received a call from director Peter Jackson, offering her the role of the elven queen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
14. The movie Gone with the Wind takes place in Savannah, Atlanta and Charleston, but not one frame of film was shot in these Southern cities.
15. The Tybee lighthouse was used in Men in Black II. The lighthouse also appeared in the film The General’s Daughter, but filmmakers digitally moved it to The Crab Shack.
16. The No. 1 movie filmed in Savannah, Forrest Gump, earned $677,387,716 in worldwide box office revenue.
17. The Armstrong House, located at the top of Forsyth Park, has been featured in Cape Fear, Orphan Train and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
18. All of the storyboards for Spider-Man were drawn in Sam Raimi’s rented house on Monterey Square while he was directing The Gift.
19. Savannah’s tourism went from 3.5 million in 1994—the year the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and the movie Forrest Gump came out—to 5 million in 1995.
20. The Exorcist was the last film shown at the Lucas Theatre before it closed in 1976.
21. The “Bird Girl” statue was the second image that photographer Jack Leigh submitted to Random House for the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
22. In the Demi Moore film Now and Then, Savannah portrayed the Indiana town of Shelby.
23. Police stopped Bruce Willis for speeding on White Bluff Road, but the officer was reportedly too nervous to write the ticket, so he let the superstar go.
24. In the movie Glory, the 100 block of West Jones Street represented Boston’s Beacon Hill.
25. Julia Roberts’ overtime pay to shoot the bar scene at Six Pence Pub in Something to Talk About was $132,000.

See 70 movie locations on a tour through Savannah’s movie history with Hollywood Ron and Savannah Movie Tours. Call 912.234.3440 or visit www.savannahmovietours.net to book.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone that speaks more fluently—or frequently—on Savannah’s storied history than Bob Register. As a tour guide with Old Savannah Tours for the last 15 years, he leads over 750 tours annually and has shaped the experiences of literally thousands of visitors with his genteel manners, erudite delivery and homespun Hostess City charm.

The South recently jumped on the trolley with the 65-year-old, fourth-generation Savannhian for a chat about being an ambassador for the city and having more Georgia on his mind than Ray Charles.

The South magazine: Does this job come naturally to you?

Bob Register: I’ve always been a salesman. So what I’m doing now is I’m selling Savannah. I’m still a salesman. My product has just changed.

TSM: How long did it take you to develop your style and approach on the tours?

BR: Oh, about 65 years! And it’s still a work in progress. I work at this every day, and I mean that literally.

TSM: You’re quite a student of Savannah’s history, aren’t you?

BR: When I was young, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it because downtown was [just] a lot of old stuff. But as I got older, I developed a real insatiable thirst for knowledge about the city. That led ultimately into me becoming a tour guide.     > TSM: Savannah is a quirky place. Any strange experiences on your trolley to report?

BR: I had a lady ask me about three years ago—and this woman was in her mid-60s—she told me that she’d come to Savannah to go to Paula Deen’s restaurant. [She explained that] she’s a big fan, and she had a facelift before coming just in case she met Paula Deen.

TSM: What do you want to leave the tourists with?

BR: They’re not going to remember every last thing you’ve told them, but what they are going to remember is how they feel about their experience in Savannah and how they feel about the people. And I think the impression that I make upon these people and the way I present the city is going to determine their impression of the entire community. It gives me a great sense of pride and satisfaction to be part of these people’s lives O