SWEET DREAMS movie - Patsy Cline airplane crash

In real life, the plane did not crash into the side of a mountain, but rather straight into the ground in a heavily wooded area known as "Fatty Bottom" near Camden, Tennessee.. only 90 miles from home. Randy was not an instrument-trained pilot and didn't know where/how he was flying the small aircraft in the storm. Jim Reeves, who also died while flying his small plane in a storm, was trained by the same pilot that trained Randy Hughes.

If you would like more details, please pick up the book "Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline" by Ellis Nassour.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• patsy cline
• death
• airplane
• crash
• plane crash
• nashville
• tennessee
• country music
• queen
• 1963
• 1960s

[RogerInPDX]

I think part of the reason they made an inaccurate version of the crash was the simple fact that nobody would be able to see anything if they had done it accurately.  It was dark and foggy, and it's very difficult to film a movie under those conditions.

[seonfox]

@RogerInPDX They could have filmed a plane taking a nose drive straight into dense trees and making a 6 foot deep crater in the earth. It would have been a lot more dramatic to film it the way it happened, than crashing into a mountain and exploding.

[smarleneh]

You know, even tho the movie showed the plane crash in a totally wrong manner...when it happened, it still wiped me out as I sat there looking at what was represented as my Daddy's death. I sat in the theater sobbing for a long time. I guess it was the first time I actually "accepted" that my Daddy was actually on that plane. I was disappointed in the actor they chose to play him...looked nothing like him. That day changed my life! Raised Country/Singin` Gospel..Susan Marlene Hawkins Gilliam

[sweetalker79]

Seriously? "You can't work and raise two babies, I'll take the kids"? So not only did those children lose their mother, but their father and their home all in one tragedy. Wish people had thought more about what was best for children back then, rather than what was more convenient for the adults.

[RollingOrmond]

Ed harris did powerful work.

[mrceebees14]

@seonfox I heard that of course there were arrests about the ebay thing, I could do nothing about that. But I was real ticked off about the chinatown people. When I asked if the money was going to the victims families they just ignored me and went about their business. Another person who did speak Chinese started to ask them and they ignored him. Finally it was a mass of people and the cops came in and I remember him telling me "they aren't breaking the law, but we totally understand."

[seonfox]

@mrceebees14 So sad. My mom taught me better than to behave like a damn neanderthal. I can't even imagine doing that kind of thing!!

[mrceebees14]

@seonfox That is pretty sick, but that is human beings for you. I live in New York and when they took what was left of the World Trade Center towers to Staten Island, people broke into it and started to steal the metal itself and were selling it on ebay.

Two days after 9/11 I got as far as Duane street only to see chinatown people selling inflated prices of anything that had a picture of the World Trade Center on it. No one could do anything and the cops protected them in disgust.

[seonfox]

@mrceebees14 A lot of information can be found in Ellis Nassour's biography about Patsy, especially the very first edition from the 80s. I don't want to be too specific. Patsy's son told me some messed up stuff about how people came "picking" through the wreckage, even a woman with an infant on her hip. Someone took a cowboy boot that still had a human foot in it. The money bag and Patsy's white chiffon dress she wore at the benefit were never recovered. Maybe that dress will turn up someday..

[mrceebees14]

@smarleneh Wow.

[mrceebees14]

@seonfox Can you point me in the direction to get more information on what you mean?

[seonfox]

@sb57fury1 it was mostly about Patsy's relationship with Charlie, which really short-changed Patsy. Actually Patsy wasn't supposed to be in Loretta's movie at all

[seonfox]

@mrceebees14 it was a lot more disturbing the way it really happened. i feel bad for the people who witnessed the aftermath