Hope – OCTOBER 9 UPDATE – The family of First Blood actor Brian Dennehy (Sheriff Teasle) was in Hope on Saturday October 8 for the unveiling of a carved statue in his honour. All part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of First Blood, the filming of the original Rambo movie in Hope. Master Carver Ryan Villiers, who already made a name for himself with the original Rambo carving in downtown Hope, unveiled his latest piece with the family.
Picture courtesy Katie Frecon:
Huge thanks to the Dennehy family for coming to Hope for the Rambo First Blood 40th Anniversary- Katie Frecon(in Rambo Cosplay)
The next surprise was the star Sylvester Stallone himself. While he could not be there in person, he did send a video for the showing of the original movie at the Hope Cinema:
August 31 Original Story – The celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the first Rambo movie, “First Blood” has family from one of the major stars now involved.
From Rambo: First Blood Tourism: We are honoured to have the family of the late Brian Dennehy here in Hope, B.C. visiting us for a very special presentation on Wallace street. Please join us next to District Hall for this wonderful tribute.
From Rambo 40th Organizer Brian McKinney courtesy of Hope BC Bulletin Board:
(Brian Dennehy played opposite Sylvester Stallone as the officer we loved to hate, Sheriff William “Will” Teasle. From Wikipedia – Dennehy died on April 15, 2020, of cardiac arrest due to sepsis, unrelated to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Haven, Connecticut.He was survived by Arnott and his five children)
First Blood 40th anniversary in Hope this October long weekend – We are so excited that members from Brian Dennehy’s family are joining us for a part of the First Blood weekend this October. A member of their group visiting, Brian’s grandson, is an award winning documentary film maker and is doing a project on the 40th anniversary and he would like to chat with some locals while they are in town. We all have stories about interactions with Brian Dennehy while the film crew was in town for those 6 – 8 weeks. We can all recall how classy of a man Brian was engaging with the locals while he wasn’t working on set. Perhaps you were a server at the Gateway Restaurant here at the time (Brian went there for coffee a lot) – Did you work at Freddie’s restaurant? (Brian dressed as Santa for a surprise Christmas luncheon for the seniors group there one day) Did you work or volunteer for the Tillicum workshop? (Brian did projects there with some of our local folks) Maybe you worked at the Kettle Valley Restaurant (the crew went there a lot when they weren’t filming) Did you see him on the street and talk with him? Maybe you were an extra on set and had interaction with him. Anything at all we’d like to hear from you! Tag someone here that might have these stories. PM me, DM me or send me an email at brian@hopebc.ca
