Mobile, Alabama in popular culture
Mobile, Alabama features prominently in baseball lore, with more players in Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame than any city except New York and Chicago. The list includes Hank Aaron, baseball's all-time home run king until 2007. Singer Jimmy Buffett is another famous Mobilian. Mobile is occasionally featured in movies and in literature, such as the film Driving Miss Daisy and the novel Forrest Gump. Mobile is also the setting for one of the most famous lines of the American Civil War. During the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, Admiral David Farragut is said to have uttered: "[...] the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
Film
Many scenes in director Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind were filmed in Mobile -- in the Bankhead Tunnel, in a large hangar at Mobile Downtown Airport (alien mothership arrival) and some exterior shots near the hangar, and in a West Mobile suburb (exteriors at the Neary residence). Nearby Bay Minette stood in for Moorcroft, Wyoming in the rail-station evacuation scene.
Most of the Steven Segal movie Under Siege (co-staring Tommy Lee Jones) was filmed on the USS Alabama, which is docked on Mobile Bay at Battleship Memorial Park and open to the public.
In the movie Driving Miss Daisy, Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) has her driver Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) drive her to her brother's birthday party in Mobile. The film was nominated for numerous Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs.
Much of the feature films Love Liza (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Hometown Legend (starring Terry O'Quinn), and the TV movie Sacrifice (starring Michael Madsen and Diane Farr) were shot in Mobile.
Brian Bosworth's movie Stone Cold also featured scenes shot in Mobile.
In the Coen Brothers comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Soggy Bottom Boys are told their song Man of Constant Sorrow is a hit with the explanation that it's played "all the way down in Mobile."
In the movie Maverick Mrs Annabelle Bransford (played by Jodie Foster) claims that she is from Mobile and has tried very hard to forget the place.
Literature
- Early portions of the novel "Red Sky at Morning" by Richard Bradford are set in Mobile.
- In the Forrest Gump novel, Forrest's home town is Mobile, as opposed to Butler, Alabama in the film.
Music
Mobile is mentioned in the following songs:
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Sports
Five baseball players from Mobile have entered baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York: Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Willie McCovey, Satchel Paige, and Ozzie Smith). In tribute to the city's baseball history, the stadium for the Minor League Mobile BayBears is named for Hank Aaron. San Diego Padres starting pitcher Jake Peavy is also from Mobile and Jon Leber of the Philadelphia Phillies lives in a suburb of Mobile and attended the University of South Alabama with Luis Gonzales.
Notable Football Players from Mobile are the first pick in the 2007 NFL draft, JaMarcus Russell, four time Pro Bowl tackle Willie Anderson, three time Pro Bowl tackle Chris Samuels, NFL Quarterback Scott Hunter, and former Dallas Cowboys running back Sherman Williams. Ken "The Snake" Stabler, is from nearby Foley, Al, so is th number 1 prospect in high school football Julio Jones . Legendary Georgia football coach Vince Dooley is also from Mobile.
Current WWE wrestler "Hardcore" Bob Holly is also from Mobile.
Other Notables
The local pop band, The Ugli Stick, performs a song written by lead singer Eric Erdmann, called "The D.I.P. Song" which references his blue collar neighborhood in Mobile ("DIP" is Dauphin Island Parkway).
Several people migrated from Mobile to an area in Arizona which was then named "Mobile". It was founded in the early 1900s as an area for African-Americans to live and some of its early residents were sharecroppers from Mobile, Alabama.
Mobile gained some Internet notoriety for a leprechaun video that circulated around St. Patrick's Day 2006.
Red imported fire ants and several tropical spider spicies infesting the southern United States first arrived in Mobile from Brazil.
See also
- History of Mobile, Alabama
References
- Levin, Kevin M., "Mobile Bay", Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.