Notable entries on the Wikipedia page “List of people from Huntsville, Alabama” include: “Gone Girl” star Kim Dickens, pro wrestling legend Bobby Eaton, “The Wire” actor Reg E. Cathey, NFL Hall of Famer John Stallworth, Hollywood legend Tallulah Bankhead and “Bed Intruder Song” internet personality Antoine Dodson. Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales, as many locals know, is a Huntsville native too.
In addition to well-known people from here, there are some interesting connections between the Huntsville area and celebrities who aren’t from here. Below are five such connections.
Dolly Parton
Country music legend Dolly Parton’s sister Cassie Ann Parton is a former Huntsville resident. In a 2018 interview with AL.com reporter Greg Garrison, Parton said, “I’ve always liked Alabama. My sister married a guy, Larry Seaver, that was on the police force in Huntsville, Alabama. So they lived there, and they had two children, and one of them was born there. My sister, they lived there for years before they moved back to Nashville. But we still go. We still go back and forth. My husband and I love it there.”
ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons
Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer Billy Gibbons is married to Madison native Gilligan Stillwater. In recent years, the ZZ Top guitarist/singer has been spotted at a few local Tex-Mex restaurants and the Huntsville location of a big-box music instrument retail chain.
The Olsen twins
“Full House” child actors and sisters Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, aka the Olsen twins, filmed a 1996 episode of their musical mystery video series “The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley” in Huntsville. The episode was titled “The Case of the U.S. Space Camp Mission.”
According to film/tv info website imdb.com, at the time of filming, the then 9-year-old Olsen twins had both lost their front teeth. “In order for the gaps not to show in the video, both girls had custom-made fake teeth, known as ‘flippers,’ done.” The Olsens wore flippers both on “Full House” and their video series. However, according to imdb.com, when leaving for their Huntsville shot, both Mary-Kate and Ashley forgot to bring their dentures. “They were forced to run around Huntsville in search of a dentist who could make them new, emergency flippers before they could begin filming.”
Fred ‘Rerun’ Berry
Fred Berry played the jovial, red-beret-sporting character “Rerun” on classic ‘70s sitcom “What’s Happening!”. Following struggles with substances, Berry found solace and strength in his faith. In the mid ‘90s, Berry made his way from Hollywood to the Huntsville area. In Alabama, Berry rebooted as a motivational speaker and according to his 2003 Los Angeles Times obituary, citing a 1996 People magazine interview, “an unpaid associate minister and evangelist at the Little Shiloh Church on the outskirts of Huntsville, Ala., where he had moved from Los Angeles a year and a half earlier.” The obit quotes Berry as telling the Los Angeles Sentinel, “I’d been going to churches for the past 12 years, to all kinds of services, but when I walked in here, I felt the power of God. I didn’t want to leave.” Berry later returned to Los Angeles, where he died in his sleep at age 52 following a recent stroke.
Kansas
Classic-rock band Kansas is known for prog-tinged ‘70s hits like “Dust In The Wind” and “Carry on Wayward Son.” The group shot proto music-videos for four songs off their 1979 album “Monolith” in Huntsville. Three of those videos were shot at the Von Braun Center, where the band was doing pre-tour rehearsals. For the track “Reason to Be” Kansas ventured to Three Caves, at the base of local mountain Monte Sano. In our 2017 interview, guitarist Richard Williams recalled, “We wanted to do something different for that one song, rather than just another up on the stage, and so we did it there. And what I remember most about it, was for some reason Phil [Ehart, Kansas drummer] decided, as we’re wandering through the caves pretending to be singing it, there’s so drums in it but Phil’s in the band and he’s just walking around with this stupid moose-hat on his head. What is he doing that for? It doesn’t make any sense.”
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