MINGO JUNCTION — Hollywood. The place where beautiful, wealthy, talented people live, work and play. A city that seems light years away from Jefferson County.

Yet, there was a time when “Tinseltown” came to the Ohio Valley.

Some of today’s most famous actors walked — and even tap danced, along the streets of Mingo Junction.

And they won award after award for doing so.

It was the late 1970s. A film entitled “The Deer Hunter” was scripted and needed a location in which to shoot this movie about three best friends living in a steel-mill city and saying one last goodbye to their hometown before going to fight in Vietnam.

But the questions remained, where to film such a production? Who is it that decides where a movie should take place and just how do you get others to get on board with that decision?

Meet Jill Heberling. She served as the director of the Ohio Film Bureau, part of the state’s Department of Development.

“To find upcoming productions, we voraciously read ‘The Daily Reporter’ and ‘Variety’ to learn of new films to be produced,” Heberling explained. “We then determined how we could meet the production needs. We requested the script for ‘The Deer Hunter’ and did a script breakdown.

“Efforts were focused on the East Liverpool to Bridgeport areas, which cinematically really fit the bill,” she continued. “In general, at that time, it would cost a production company $800,000 just to get up in the morning — even if they didn’t shoot a foot of film. So, logistics were very important.”

The film’s director, Michael Cimino, was much less interested in time and money savings than in selecting just the right location, according to Heberling, who noted Cimino “honed this to a fine art in his box office disaster, Heaven’s Gate.”

Yes, searches for the perfect location included practical requirements including housing for the cast and crew, access to union workers because only 60 percent of on-location crews are brought along, noise pollution and the “yikes factor.”

“Mingo Junction rated well with the yikes factor,” Heberling said. “The yikes-o-meter measures the distance between the top of raised eyebrows to the bottom of a dropped jaw. It is always followed by the statement, ‘You want to do what?'”

She provided the examples of having filmed a Robert Redford movie inside an old prison which housed an operating Honeywell plant and how the movie “Attica” was made within the fully-functioning Lima State Prison for the criminally insane.

“Yay for Mingo Junction, which cinematically met all requirements for several locations,” she stated. She said the village was perfect to serve as the town of Clairton, Pa., and those in Mingo were welcoming to the film crew and didn’t consider the making of a movie to be an inconvenience. She noted this rarely happens and everyone was grateful to the village residents for being so accommodating.

Heberling explained Cimino would spend months on the road and was sometimes accompanied by Robert De Niro, who was going to star in the film. De Niro used an to gather background for his character. The director had developed definite ideas as to what the iconic American steel town should look like.

“He felt that locations provided a much deeper understanding of the characters and the social arena in which their lives were lived,” she added.

Enter Hollywood and its actors who starred in the film with De Niro, including Meryl Streep, John Savage, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, George Dzundza and Chuck Aspegren, who was an actual mill worker they used to play the part of Axel.

“And as they say, history was made and Christopher Walken got his chance to strap on his tap shoes and tap-danced down your streets,” Heberling remembered. “I am sure there are residents who remember how they were treated to a dance recital from Walken.”

Heberling explained how Walken was originally a dancer and found tap dancing to be a stress reliever during down-time between setups.

“Meryl and Robert were much more circumspect,” she recalled. “Although the film is often categorized as a Vietnam movie, that was not Cimino’s intent with this movie. He wanted to portray the friendship, camaraderie and loyalty of the average, working American who enjoyed being a part of his community and circle of friends. Vietnam was included as the stressor to the characters and their relationship to others. The emphasis in the movie was always meant to be on the individuals and their relationships to the other characters and to their environment.”

“John Cazale who portrayed Stanley, was terminally ill with cancer,” Heberling remembers. Film studios require all principal actors to get a physical prior to filming so that the studio can get insurance to protect their investment should the actor become incapacitated or die during filming. EMI informed Cimino that he must fire Cazale before filming started. Cimino refused and threatened to pull the project. EMI relented and Cimino made best efforts to get Cazale’s scenes filmed early on in the movie. Thus, that bar really needed to be constructed by the time the deer hunting sequence was completed in Washington.

“Cazale had worked with De Niro on ‘The Godfather,’ but did not have any scenes with him and really wanted to have that opportunity to do so,” she said. “John’s health was always a quiet concern on set.”

“At the time, Meryl Streep and John were a couple and she was at every scene Cazale filmed even though she was not on the call sheet. Sadly, John died about a month after the film was completed.”

Enter William Pyles.

Pyles grew up in Mingo, graduating in 1993.

“My father worked in the steel mill,” he recounted. “Second generation of working in the mill and dying with lung cancer. My father and grandfather were products of the environment: Working, drinking and smoking — which led to a short life span but they never complained about it.

In 1996, he graduated from nursing school and became a traveling nurse, working in 22 different hospitals and landing at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. He has worked there approximately 20 years.

The first interaction Pyles had with Heberling was to thank her for the treats she made for those working on the ICU floor. He expressed his appreciation and the two began engaging in conversation. He informed her he is originally from Ohio and she expressed she had worked there for many years as the director of the Ohio Film Bureau, connecting movies to filming locations. The two became friends.

“I was curious if she had any connection to the movie since she stated she worked for a film bureau and was quite blown away when this fine lady told me how she was such an integral part of the film that is such a hallmark of Mingo,” Pyles commented. “I was like, wow! There’s that connection. It was such a surreal feeling.” And then one day, Jill left the organization and moved with her husband to Florida. Pyles would miss her, as she was always so kind whenever he would see her. He had suddenly lost the connection with this kind woman who had made him treats and spoken to him of moments spent in his hometown.

Four years passed and Pyles returned to work one day just having come back from his 30-year reunion at Mingo High School.

Walking in to the ICU at the Mayo Clinic was a woman who looked familiar, but her hair was a different color than it had been. Still, he knew her in an instant. His friend, Jill, had returned. She hadn’t cared for Florida with its humidity and bugs. She had retired as director of the bureau, having a new job and volunteering at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix.

She explained why she left that life, saying her only option for advancement was to accept an offer from one of the large studios and move to Hollywood.

“At the time, drug use in the film industry was rampant” she reflected. “I could read the below-the-line budget and figure out where they hid the money earmarked for drugs. When I was in Ohio, I could go into the men’s bathroom, grab the producer who was coked out of his mind and drag him back to the hotel where I explained to him when he got straight call me and we would do a location search again. If I worked for that same producer in Hollywood, I would not have had the freedom to do that. I think that one of my assets as seen by the studios was that I could think on my feet and seamlessly cover for a crew member that was having trouble functioning due to drugs.”

“I enjoyed what I did since it always offered a challenge and was like making a dress without a pattern, she said. “However, I enjoyed working on my own terms and didn’t want to move to a position where logic and unrealistic demands were fueled by drug use. Fortunately, the film industry moved on to the healthy living style they enjoy today.”

And so she moved to Arizona in the 1990s, becoming a consultant in organizing events. In addition, she began volunteering with the Mayo Clinic in ICU during the evenings. Through this volunteering, she met Pyles and his wife, both nurses in the same department.

And so, in meeting up with Pyles once again, he reengaged her, telling her how he was sorry not to get more of the story from her. The interest from his perspective was for the Ohio Valley and he was curious as to why Mingo and its surroundings were chosen for the film. He wanted some back stories. And he got them.

He learned how tasks weren’t always easy and very time-consuming, including having to locate housing and transportation for actors, costume cleaning, union contracts, finding extras, location contracts with owners or local officials and working with local suppliers.

Pyles learned the role of Axel was played by a first time actor, Chuck Aspegren, a steelworker from Pittsburgh who had been showing Cimino and De Niro the steel mill town way of life.

“De Niro, Walken and Savage made it apparent that they liked steel mill towns and primarily the people,” Heberling recalled. One humorous moment that stands out in Heberling’s mind is a shoot during the church scene.

“Although we believed our conversations and correspondence with the congregation for the wedding scene was understood and they were to wear a costume appropriate for a wedding, as well as bring a box wrapped in wedding paper, we failed to realize that many of the congregation members did not speak or understand English,” Heberling laughed. “When filming was wrapped and they were striking the set, we realized that the carefully and beautifully-wrapped boxes were not empty. The congregation had brought actual gifts to the wedding reception. It took us a couple of weeks with the assistance of the church to return the mixers, dishes, wine glasses and whatever else to the appropriate gift givers.”

“Cinematically the movie was stunning,” Heberling stated. “Infinite care was taken during the filming to use different lighting, gels and film stock to get the warm interiors and the cold, gray exteriors even though they were shot in the summer. The acting was stellar. All the cast members of the ensemble were devoted to their craft. I believe that all the awards this film received were well deserved. The actors suffered some brutal conditions since they shot in the summer and the script called for them to be dressed in winter clothing.

“The trailer that served as De Niro’s home — its location selected for steel mill background, sometimes hit 100 degrees in the interior due to the lighting, so it was slow going. An air conditioner proved ineffective so they cut the trailer in half lengthwise, built breakaway walls, cut the roof off and suspended it from a crane so they could put the roof on and off when they needed air. Going to this length is not unusual for the film industry.”

“We pitched Ohio to Spielberg as the location for ‘Jaws 2’ since Lake Erie is fresh water which did not create the electrical problems with underwater camera housings and mechanical sharks as did the salty ocean water. Almost got that done,” she recalled.

Pyles said he first saw “The Deer Hunter” when he was in high school, as watching movies during the weekend was a past time for him and his neighbor, Mark Pietro. He said he still watches the film any time prior to coming back for a vacation.

He said what makes the movie so appealing is being able to see his hometown and those personal, life-long relationships.

“There is trauma, coming of age and history all mixed into one film and when I watch it, I feel a sense of connection and yet, sadness for the deep story and the loss of my hometown and what it used to be.”

Just like the movie and how the character’s friendships change over time, Pyles said it is the same for life itself and he is reminded of that whenever he watches the film.

He recalled a fellow student and friend, Mary Buchmelter, whose father was in many of the bar scenes, and a gentleman by the name of Tom Fitzgerald, who is currently working on a documentary about the film.

“A few times in my life, a situation has come up like this and I’d give my hometown the reference to the movie ‘The Deer Hunter’ to put it on a map for people where Mingo is,” Pyles said. “Growing up in the Ohio Valley, there was always that strong bond of friendships, the hard work being performed by those having blue-collar jobs, the steel mills and just a general, no-nonsense way of life.”

“The idea of a movie encapsulating your home town with a mill and its way of life — that it’s now gone is humbling,” he said. “And the movie is like looking back in time. It brings back memories, stories of your friends and family and maybe a little understanding on the reality behind some of the people and events that we experienced but did not have the insight to at the time.

“My father worked in the mill, along with friends and other family members. I believe the time I have spent just attempting to understand the situation has helped me become better and more understanding of others, especially those from the valley.

“This story started with Jill and I, but the bigger story is about the movie and its impact. The backstories leave more to explore.”

And in meeting Heberling and her connection to his hometown, Pyles simply stated, “I have always come back to the old saying, ‘It’s a small world. And it truly is.”

Even for Hollywood.

“The Deer Hunter” was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five. The American Film Institute added it to their list of the Greatest Movies of All Time and in 1996 it was selected to be added to the U.S. Film Registry in the Library of Congress. The awards received by the film include: Academy Award for best picture, Cimino; Academy Award for best directing, Cimino; Academy Award for best actor in a supporting role, Walken; Academy Award for best film editing; best sound mixing; Golden Globe Award for best director, Cimino; Japan Academy prize for outstanding foreign language film; BAFTA Award for best editing; BAFTA Award for best cinematography; Directors Guild of American Award for outstanding directing, Cimino; National Society of Film Critics Award for best supporting actress, Streep; New York Film Critics Circle Award for best film; and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for best director.