Juliette, Georgia

Window at the Whistle Stop Café in Juliette

Juliette is an unincorporated community in Monroe County, Georgia, United States. Named for Juliette McCracken, daughter of a railroad engineer, the town formed with the merging of Brownsville and Iceberg. The film Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed there, and the town has been the focal point of two popular Southern humor books. After the filming of Fried Green Tomatoes, the sets used for the town's main street were renovated into a tourist district, complete with a fully operational "Whistle Stop Cafe".


The Whistle Stop Cafe

Other movie productions set in Juliette were A Killing Affair, starring Peter Weller (1986); the documentary Fried Green Tomorrows: Juliette, Ga Lives starring Danny Vinson, and The Cockfighter which was released in 1976 and starred Warren Oates. The community is part of the Macon Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Trivia

Less than 10 miles outside of Juliette is the Jarrell Plantation, a US Historical Museum and Park.

Jarrell Plantation

The Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site is a cotton plantation and state park in Juliette, Georgia. Located in the red clay hills of the Georgia piedmont, the site stands as one of the best preserved examples of a “middle class" Southern plantation. The Jarrell Plantation's buildings and artifacts all came from one source, the Jarrell family, who farmed the land for over 140 years.

History

Before the Civil War, the Jarrell’s farm was one of the half-million cotton farms in the South that collectively produced two-thirds the world's cotton. Like many small planters, the Jarrell family benefited from the development of the cotton gin in 1793by Eli Whitney, which made it practical to cultivate heavily seeded, short-staple cotton even in hilly, inland areas of Georgia.



John Fitz Jarrell built the first permanent structure on the site in 1847. Typical of antebellum cotton plantations, John Jarrell ran the farm with his family and slave labor. By 1860 John Jarrell operated the 660-acre (2.7 km2) farm with the labor of 39 slaves. Although primarily a cotton plantation, the farm also provided food crops and grazing for livestock. During the turbulent decade of the 1860’s, the farm survived a typhoid fever outbreak, General Sherman, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. After the Civil War, John Jarrell continued to farm with the help of former slaves and he increased the farm to nearly 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) . The former-slave labors began leaving the farm in John Jarrell’s final years.

After John’s death in 1884 one of John’s sons, Benjamin Richard “Dick” Jarrell, gave up a teaching career to return home and build his family home in 1895. Although the farm had been processing sugarcane since 1864, Dick Jarrell expanded the industrialization of the farm by adding a mill complex that eventually included a steam-driven sawmill, cotton gin, gristmill, shingle mill, and planer. In 1920, with the labor of his five sons and two nephews, Dick Jarrell completed a second home, fit for his large family. The Jarrell 1920 House is a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2), 1850’s-style home built of heart pine.

In 1974, Dick Jarrell’s nine surviving adult children donated the plantation site to the State of Georgia for the preservation of the farm and the education of future generations about their heritage. The State of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources operates the now 8-acre (32,000 m2) historic site and opens it to the public Tuesday through Sunday. The site's buildings and structures include the farmhouse, a sawmill, cotton gin, gristmill, shingle mill, planer, sugar cane press, syrup evaporator, workshop, barn and outbuildings.

On February 14th of each year, the town of Juliette offers a special dual postmark with the city of Romeo, Michigan.

Links:

Jarrell Plantation Historic Site

The Jarrell House

The Whistle Stop Cafe

Source: Internet

Fannie Flagg

First edition cover

Patricia Neal (born September 21, 1944), known professionally as Fannie Flagg, is an American actress, comedienne and author. She is perhaps best-known for the 1988 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, which was adapted into the 1991 movie Fried Green Tomatoes; Flagg was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay adaptation.


Theatrical release poster

Biography

Early Life

Flagg, born in Birmingham, Alabama, is the daughter of Marion Leona (née LeGore) and William Hurbert Neal, Jr., who was a small-business owner and projectionist.



As her acting career began, Flagg could not professionally use her birthname, as there was already a well-known Oscar-winning actress named Patricia Neal.



A quaint town with all the memories of the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, the Whistle Stop Cafe, the train station with a real train that runs through, the church, cemetery with two graves marked with the names of Buddy Threadgood and Ruth Jamison, a grave by the hickory pit that bears the reading of: Here lies Frank Bennet of Valdosta "The secret was in the sauce" and here!

Writing Career

During the 1960's, Flagg co-hosted the locally produced "Morning Show" on WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama. Following this, she was hired as a staff writer for Allen Funt's Candid Camera, and she later became Funt's co-host on the syndicated 1970s weekly version of the show. After a lull in her writing career, she returned her focus to writing in the 1980's. Among her novels are Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (originally titled Coming Attractions), Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (1998) and perhaps her best known book, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. She subsequently wrote the screenplay based on that book which became the film Fried Green Tomatoes. The 1991 movie garnered her a nomination for an Academy Award. Fried Green Tomatoes starred Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary Louise Parker, and Cicely Tyson.

She has also written "Coming Attractions" (1983) (Later re-released in 1992 as "Daisy Fay And The Miracle Man"), "Welcome To The World, Baby Girl!" (1998), Standing in the Rainbow (2002), A Redbird Christmas, (2004), and Can't Wait to Get to Heaven (2006). Her most recent book, I Still Dream About You: A Novel was published on November 9, 2010 by Random House.

Acting Career

During the 1970's, Flagg was a fixture on game show panels. She is best known for her appearances on the game show Match Game (normally occupying the lower right-hand seat next to regular panelist Richard Dawson). Her acting credits include the Broadway production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the films Some of My Best Friends Are..., Five Easy Pieces, Stay Hungry, Grease and Crazy in Alabama, as well as minor roles in various television shows. In 1975 she appeared as the Amazon Doctor in the pilot for The New Adventures of Wonder Woman. She is also known for being a regular on The New Dick Van Dyke Show, where for two seasons she played Mike Preston, sister to Van Dyke's character Dick Preston, and for her role as Cassie Bowman in all 30 episodes of the 1980-81 sitcom version of Harper Valley PTA, starring Barbara Eden.

During the 1960's and '70's, Flagg recorded two comedy albums with various skits that included many parodies of Lady Bird Johnson and Martha Mitchell. Also during the 1960's Fannie Flagg hosted a morning show on WBRC-TV in Birmingham, and occasionally reported the weather in the 1970's on the same station.

Personal Life

Flagg has spoken publicly about being dyslexic. Flagg has said she was enormously challenged as a writer because she "was severely dyslexic and couldn't spell, still can't spell. So I was discouraged from writing and embarrassed". Her burgeoning writing career was put on hold for much of the 1970's, but Flagg overcame her fear and completed several novels and screenplays.

Flagg was at one time the partner of author Rita Mae Brown.

Flagg divides her time between homes in California and Alabama.

Source: Internet