Interview Subject: Jamie Lee Jacobs

Not many people remember the movies before the 1950’s. To find people that do is a rare treat in itself. My family and I have found one such person. My movie interview subject is Jamie Lee Jacobs. She is one of the ladies that goes to my church, Goodman Air Force Base Church, back in Knoxville, Kentucky. She is a good friend of my grandmother, Carol Wright, and they all go to the same bible study together. Jacobs is seventy-eight years old and has an interesting story to her. One could say that she had a positive movie experience growing up. Her parents were divorced and she spent half a year with each one and her grandparents. Jacobs took dance lessons while she lived with her grandparents at the age of three. When she lived with her father in the mountains of North Carolina, Jacobs traveled to all of Civilian Conservation Corps camps. She lived during the New Deal and World War Two. She was even ten years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Later, Jacobs studied dance locally in Frankfort, Kentucky. She went all the way to New York to dance lessons. She even danced professionally while there for a short time. As an only child, Jacobs had to return home to care for her mother when she became ill. While she was at home, she met her husband, Billy Jacobs. He was a baseball player at the time. As the good old story goes, they fell in love and got married. Jacobs left her dance career for her sweetheart. When her husband became drafted into the Air Force, she began her life as an Air Force wife. She and her husband traveled and had five children, including fraternal twins. They had four boys and a girl.

Jacobs’ favorite movie is Gone with the Wind (1939). She said when Rhett Butler would leave at the end of the movie, her grandmother would tell her to, “Come on.” Jacobs would always say, “No, I’m gonna wait until he comes back.” She remembered that movie for that little reason. Jacobs also liked anything with Van Johnson in it. He was a Hollywood star during the 1940s and 1950s. The only time Jacobs got to go see the movies was when she was living half of the year in Raleigh with her grandparents. She went to the movies at least two or three times during the summers of her youth.

Jacobs loved musical movies. She saw cartoons and newsreels quite often in the theater. Jacobs remembers newsreels because one time, she and a female friend of hers went to the movies during the war and saw a newsreel with the friend’s father in it. Jacobs met John Payne in person at the theater. She studied under dancer and choreographer, Agnes de Mille, while she lived in New York. (She was born in New York, New York on September 128, 1905 and died in New York on October, 7 1993.) Jacobs also studied dance under Jack Stanley and Vera Ellen. (Vera Ellen was born February 16, 1921 in Ohio and died on August 30, 1981 in Los Angeles, California.) She also met the young Billy Graham. Jacobs found him pretty attractive at the time. The war movies were always sad around that time period. Jacobs’ worst memory at the pictures was when Rhett Butler would leave at the end of Gone with the Wind.

Today, Jacobs only goes to the movies once or twice a year. She now likes light comedies and movies the whole family can enjoy. It is safe to say that she likes to watch movies at home when she can. Jacobs prefers the movies of the past over the modern films of today. She thinks too many of today’s movies have too much violence in them. As it is seen in this whole interview, Mrs. Jacobs has led an interesting life with a positive movie experience. I suddenly learned so much about her from the e-mail my family sent me. I never knew that she had a brief career in dance. It makes me appreciate the treasures of the past even more.