After the 'Storm,' a Tempest of T-Shirts Blockbuster sea epic brings a wave of tourism to Gloucester, Mass., and its now-famous fishermen's bar, the Crow's Nest.

By JOHN CLARK, Special to The Times
August 2, 2000 - LA Times

GLOUCESTER, Mass.--The sight itself is innocent enough. A fishing boat taking on ice from Cape Pond Ice, an ice house on the waterfront here. The ice flows in a torrent into the hold. A crew member is packing cans of soda in it. Presumably he'll soon be packing fish. Gazing down at the boat, Scott Memhard, the owner of Cape Pond Ice, remarks, "It's very rare to have an ice machine on a boat. Ice machines are notoriously difficult to maintain."

The exception is sword-fishing boats, which have ice machines because they go out so far for so long. The Andrea Gail had one. As recounted in Sebastian Junger's bestselling book "The Perfect Storm," and now in the blockbuster movie of the same name, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, the Andrea Gail's ice machine broke, putting its crew in the position of either saving the fish they'd caught by heading home into the teeth of a storm or losing them by waiting it out. They chose to go home.

The Andrea Gail was never found, but its memory lives on in Gloucester nearly 10 years later. It lives on in the people who knew the crew and in the merchandising that inevitably accompanies a hit movie. But this is not an occasion for a McDonald's or Burger King tie-in. There is no Andrea Gail Swordfish Sandwich. There are no Billy Tyne, Bobby Shatford, Mike Moran, Dale Murphy, David Sullivan or Alfred Pierre--the Gail's crew--action figures.

At Cape Pond Ice, for example, they're selling T-shirts that read "Cape Pond Ice--the Coolest Guys Around." These are in demand because audiences saw "Bugsy" Moran, played by John Hawkes, wearing one in the movie. Memhard says he now has more money in T-shirt inventory than in ice.

In addition to the T-shirts, he's got hooded sweatshirts, tank tops, baseball caps. He's even considering boxer shorts. A hundred of them are being sold at theater concession stands in Germany. One woman, confused by advertising associating Cape Pond Ice with the movie, asked for an ice sculpture "as seen in 'The Perfect Storm.' " Memhard obliged her by having the ship carved in ice.

The epicenter of media and public interest in "The Perfect Storm" is not Cape Pond Ice but the Crow's Nest, a watering hole once patronized by the boat's crew members. In the movie, it's at the foot of the dock where the Andrea Gail is berthed. In reality, it's about a half-mile away. Inside it's as described in Junger's book and as seen in the movie (though the interior was shot on a sound stage in L.A.): a rectangular bar, a pool table, TVs, lots of "atmosphere."

One thing that's changed since last fall, when the production spent three weeks here shooting, is the walls. Previously they were adorned with a few photos of local fishermen, including the boys who died. Now, in addition to those, there are pictures of cast members. There's also a photo of Junger wielding a chain saw (he was formerly a tree trimmer).

"That's what people want to see," says Gregg Sousa, who has owned the bar since 1984 and seems a little apologetic about the new pictures. "It gives them something to look at, and it takes pressure off the bartender. You want to talk to people, and if it's busy you don't have time, so they look at the pictures and you can explain them. If it's not too busy, you give them what we call the 10-cent tour."

That and Crow's Nest T-shirts are about as far as Sousa is willing to go to cash in on the movie. Certainly business has picked up, though it's nowhere near as insane as it was when the movie was shooting and groupies were hanging off Wahlberg's cue stick. A casual visit one Monday afternoon in July reveals a smattering of tourists wearing visors and shorts, sitting mostly at the tables, and at the bar fishermen and other locals drinking Budweisers and either ignoring the out-of-towners or surveying them with a kind of bemusement.

Asked if he minds being a tourist attraction, Mark Ring, who crewed on the Hannah Boden, which is featured in the book and movie, and now has a boat of his own that was used in the production, says, "Everything is public relations these days. Why look like a jerk? You meet a lot of nice people from all over."

'Very Respectful of What Happened'

Perhaps the person most directly affected by the hype and hustle surrounding the movie is Mary Anne Shatford, Bobby's sister and Sousa's wife. Her mother, Ethel, was a bartender at the Crow's Nest for years and served as unofficial den mother to many of the fishermen around here. Ethel was played in the movie by Janet Wright, who looked and acted so much like her that one day on the set Shatford could have sworn it was her. People from all over have addressed letters and e-mails of condolence to Ethel for what happened to her son, not knowing she has joined him. Ethel died in October of cancer.

"I think that people are being very respectful of what happened," Shatford says of Gloucester's merchants. "I think that if their business has picked up, it's good. We don't have any strong industries anymore, obviously, with the fishing industry the way it is. Realistically, there's nothing we can do to bring them back.

"I don't want to turn around and see 'Perfect Storm' all over the place. Cape Pond Ice is selling a lot of T-shirts, we're selling a lot of T-shirts. The foundation is selling T-shirts, but that money is going to scholarships. My nephew Bobby--my brother Bobby's son--got a substantial scholarship from the foundation."

Shatford is referring to the Perfect Storm Foundation, established by Junger to help the children of fishermen explore avenues other than fishing for a living. It sells T-shirts, baseball caps, etc., out of the Tourist Trap, a store next to the Crow's Nest, and also from a Web site, http://www.perfectstorm.org. Though the foundation got a boost from the movie, the only film-crew member who actually contributed to it was actor Hawkes. He sent $500 months before shooting even began.

In fact, of the principals in the film--Clooney (Tyne), Wahlberg (Shatford), John C. Reilly (Murphy), William Fichtner (Sullivan)--Hawkes was clearly the favorite of many people here, both for his onscreen depiction of Bugsy, whom he in no way resembles physically, and for his offscreen behavior. In addition to the foundation contribution, Mary Anne Shatford says he helped wallpaper Ethel's bedroom while she was in the hospital.

Locals Pleased With Performances

According to locals, Hollywood by and large did right by Gloucester. Nobody in town was under the illusion that the characters would resemble their real-life counterparts, but with the exception of crew member "Sully" Sullivan, who was not nearly as belligerent as depicted on screen, the filmmakers were not far off.

Shatford says her brother Bobby was more reserved than the way Wahlberg played him. Richard Haworth, who skippered the Andrea Gail for eight years and served as a technical consultant on the film, says that Tyne was a tougher captain than Clooney's character, more autocratic. He wouldn't have called for a vote on whether they should head home, as Clooney does in the movie.

Of course, the movie's characterizations and inspirations were drawn from many sources. Mark Ring says he recognized some of Haworth in one of the film's few joyous moments. There's a scene in which the crew fishes and rocks to the music of ZZ Top. Haworth, who is known around Gloucester as "Lupa," Italian shorthand for sea wolf, because he would go to sea in all kinds of weather any time of year, would crank up the Marshall Tucker Band and dance on deck wearing nothing but a hula skirt, with his rear end hanging out.

"After reading the book, my biggest fear [was] that they were going to be portrayed as rowdy drunks," Shatford says. "But I think they got it right. I think they were very caring in their portrayal. They showed the tough side of them, but they showed the goodness in them as well. My other fear [was] that there would be these long, horrendous drownings."

Some people have told Shatford that they objected to how the deaths were handled, showing Bobby being left all alone, but she doesn't have a problem with it.

"We all have our own images of what happened, and they're probably not very pleasant," she says. "It was much better for me to see it that way than to see him actually drown. And he didn't seem terrified. I liked that they were sort of at peace with what was coming. It can put everyone's mind at ease a little bit."

Shatford's only misgiving is that the Andrea Gail has been singled out by the book and movie when so many other ships before and since have met the same fate. But in a sense, the boat and its crew stand in for everyone who has gone to sea. And because of that, she is willing to see it live on, at the Crow's Nest, on the Net, in the book, in the movie, in documentaries, on T-shirts and baseball caps, maybe even in ice sculptures.

"A lot of people want to just let it go, to be over with," she says. "But I like to keep the memories alive. Holding on to my brother and my mother. It's a great tribute to them in the movie and to have everybody, not just in the country but all over the world, know who Bobby Shatford and Ethel Shatford are--and [about] Gloucester, Mass."

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