Channel 19 Anchors In New Feature Film

When Channel 19's Sheila Gray and Rob Williams responded to a movie casting director's phone call more than 18 months ago, they never dreamed they would be seen in a movie at the Sundance Film Festival.

Gray and Williams have a cameo in "The Great Buck Howard," a film starring John Malkovich, Colin Hanks and his father, Tom Hanks.

They'll show the clip Monday on WXIX-TV's "Fox 19 Morning News" (in the 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. hours). It also will be broadcast during the 10 p.m. news Monday.

Much of the film is about an over-the-hill magician (Malkovich) making a comeback by performing a spectacular illusion on stage in Cincinnati – although virtually nothing was shot here, according to Fox movie critic Steve Oldfield, a Bellevue resident and native who attended the Sundance Film Festival premiere Jan. 20.

"They just used stock footage," says Oldfield, who has been Fox's movie critic for 13 years. He also works part-time at Channel 19, and teaches at Villa Madonna Academy in Villa Hills and the University of Cincinnati.

Colin Hanks plays a law school drop-out who ignores his father (real-life dad Tom Hanks) to become an apprentice and manager for the washed up magician/mentalist. They try to revive Howard's career by staging a big stunt. When it backfires, Howard makes national and local TV headlines.

"He ends up in the hospital after collapsing on stage in Cincinnati, and Rob and I are news anchors reading the story about his hospitalization," Gray says.

They filmed their parts in October 2006 on the Fox 19 morning news set under the direction of David Ashbrock, a station director at the time. Dan Carroll did a cameo as a TV newsman, but he didn’t make the movie.

"We were told it would be released in 2007. Now I hear it's coming out in July. We're dying to see it," Gray says.