TV movie brings well-known faces to local restaurants

By SAVANNAH ROGERS
Staff Writer

A type of cosmic phenomenon is happening in Peachtree City.

Residents are seeing stars, but of the earthly kind an unexpected benefit of filming that began Tuesday in Coweta County.

Big name personalities like Cicely Tyson, Blair Underwood, Mario Van Peebles and Queen Latifah are filming a four-hour miniseries titled "Mama Flora's Family," expected to air on CBS in November.

A Van Peebles "sighting" was reported over the weekend, as he and his wife ate dinner at Agnes and Muriel's in Westpark Walk Sunday night before going next door to watch "Saving Private Ryan." Van Peebles has starred in "New Jack City," several action movies and directed "Posse."

"He promised he'd be back for our famous chocolate pie," said restaurant manager Maryel Tomter this week. Van Peebles made good on his promise right after the movie, then he and his wife came back the very next night with their two children. He was wearing an Agnes and Muriel's T-shirt.

"For Mario, it was love at first bite," Tomter said. "He's been back so many times."

Tomter won't divulge in what delicacies the actor indulged, saying she respects and protects his privacy.

The restaurant has also been fixing to-go lunches for the production crew, anywhere from 10 to 30 lunches each day. Tomter noted Underwood also had one of the lunch sandwiches she knows, because "we have to put their names on the boxes."

She said some restaurant patrons who recognized Van Peebles went up to him and told him how much they like his work, but were good to let him eat in peace with his family. "There were no autograph hounds," she said.

The original Agnes and Muriel's in Midtown Atlanta has celebrities come in once in a while, Tomter said, and the restaurant fixed a meal for Gloria Estefan before she went on stage during the Olympics. Tomter used to be a manager at Planet Hollywood, where celebrity sightings were an everyday, ho-hum occurrence.

"Now we [in Peachtree City] have to compete; keep up the image," she said. "This is the place to be seen in Peachtree City."

Some of the film crew have also enjoyed sushi at Ginza Seafood and Steak, in the Braelinn Shopping Center.

Production crew and actors are in Peachtree City almost every day, according to production staff at Riverwood Studios in Senoia, since there are not a lot of dining choices in Senoia and Haralson, where filming is taking place.

Actors and production crew members are staying in Peachtree City and other surrounding areas, but Riverwood Studios would not reveal at which hotels.

"Mama Flora's Family" is an epic story about a black family growing up in the South in the early 1900s. It is based on a novel Alex Haley Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Roots" and "Queen" wrote before he died.

The miniseries is being produced for CBS by Jon Avnet of Avnet Kerner Co., who directed "Fried Green Tomatoes" and "The War."

Local casting was handled by Cynthia Stillwell.