A few months ago, I went to the first film-based networking event in Vancouver I witnessed in a long time. There hasn’t been a booze and schmooze in who knows how long. Even the crowd at this network was so fresh and young filled with film students who didn’t even know what a booze and schmooze was. But I was lucky to come across a few people including a man named Richard who does very minor roles in Verticals (not as minor as mine) and Cliff Hokanson who Shawn interviewed a while back. The new crowd was unfamiliar with me and even judged my methods and the fact I was a journalist. But there was one man who stood out amongst all of them, Andrew Kelly. Why? Because he had a story I think more people need to hear: The fact that he’s a cousin of the late great Norman Maclean, and he knows more about the family than anyone else who has seen A River Runs Through It. Surely a lot of people have heard of this movie though. With big names like Brad Pitt, Craig Shaffer, and Brenda Blethyn playing his great great grandfather’s third cousins, and even his cousin Jean Maclean Snyder helped consult the film. Interesting, isn’t it?
I thought so, and went to meet Andrew in person since I don’t do that enough with these interviews. He just so happened to be wearing a hoodie for the comapny that made the tackle box and alighned the fishing lures used in A River Runs Through It. He went on telling me a lot of fun facts like how the fish in the film were too clean to be in those kinds of rivers, being hatchery fish. Films aren’t always accurate, and this one’s a good example for many good reasons. Let’s fish for some answers together.
HNMAG: So let’s talk about A River Runs Through It and your connection with the family portrayed. What inspired you to find out all this information?
Andrew Kelly: Well, I never knew who my biological grandfather was, up until about 15 years ago or so. It was mentioned by a family member that we we were related to the family in the movie. It kind of intrigued me, this movie with big stars like Brad Pitt, Craig Shaffer, my family are into farming, they weren’t too interseted in family history. We got a book about the district of Manitou in Manitoba, it was called In Rhythm with our Roots. Inside there was a mention of Maclean for ‘A River Runs Through It’ we’re the only Maclean family in that area even to today. We’re actually one of the first ones to have settled there. The reverend’s wife in the movie was played by Brenda Blethyn, who actually knew my grandfather and my grandfather knew the Davidson family. The preacher wasn’t going to big places to work, he was living in our area. The more I got into it, the more I discovered “Hey, these two are similar” and it was actually from my great great grandfather that his first mentor was Reverend Maclean. You can tell my grandfather way back when had a lot to do with the movie.
HNMAG: How did you feel about your relatives and ancestors being portrayed? Did you feel it was accurate?
Andrew Kelly: Well, in some ways. There were some things that were missing out of the movie, for example they weren’t discussing the Reverend Maclean or the Canadians from Manitoba. They never discussed the part that Brad Pitt and Craig Schaefer’s characters went to Manitoba. We know that they’ve been there a couple times. That’s never been mentioned in the movie, it was all about fishing in Montana, 1900s. There were some elements missing that Clara Davidson was Canadian, and the kids are Canadian having dual citizenship.
HNMAG: Given the inaacuracies of the movie not being shot in Canada, did you feel it should’ve been?
Andrew Kelly: It should’ve mentioned something about Canadians, at least that they are Canadians. Also the movie was not shot in the right parts of Montana. The opposite places in Wyoming, I’ve been to the real places where my cousin Paul actually went fishing. Norman said he was trying to get Paul into a new life in Chicago where he got killed. There was a lot of speculation that came out of it. One of them was gambling debts because just like the movie says, his right hand was broken. There was a speculation that one of the people from Montana followed Paul to Chicago, found him and killed him. Another speculation that came out was he was always in people’s faces as a journalist. He was going against the mob, and certain things in his writings. Suspected gambling debts or mafia were sending a message as he walked on many toes in his newspaper career. Norman made it look like he was killed in Montana having much grief. We assume that Paul’s mind was still in Montana when his physical being was in Chicago. Norman had many deep thoughts and sad moments crying for Paul when he wrote the book thinking of Paul.
HNMAG: Was there anything remotely Canadian about the film?
Andrew Kelly: The only part I can think is and they really should’ve explained on that part when Tom Skirret says he understands why Paul wanted to change the spelling of the last name to Mclean. That was 1 thing, but even with we look at the American articles it basically says they came from Nova Scotia and they forgot Manitoba, Canada, and there’s a lot of American states. There was so much misinformation that the geneologists had about my cousins, so the Americans, I think their problem is they don’t understand our system to get information. Whereas I understand the system going through the archives, and this is where I got the information to correct my cousins.
HNMAG: And the incident about being gunned down, would it have been better if that hadn’t been in the movie at all?
Andrew Kelly: It was kind of funny, because in Norman’s book he mentions being gunned down. Now, his son and my cousin Jean Maclean Snyder, never made a mention about Paul being gunned down, but he did mention the death in Chicago, seen by a couple witnesses who also heard some sounds. They claimed he was drunk stumbling but there was so many things that came out of it, back in the day where CSI didn’t even exist so they couldn’t really pinpoint who killed Paul, but a Presbyterian minister came out and said “Hey, I know who killed Paul Maclean with one of the confessions I’ve heard” But I do know something that happened after Paul was killed. Norman moved him to Montana where his mother’s grave was. His mother and father were buried at the same cemetery.
Andrew went on explaining one particular scene about a woman who was at Paul’s funeral and the reason Norman put it in the book was because he was trying to release a lot of guilt for bringing Paul to Chicago, as he had a lot of empathy and sorrow. Andrew showed me some pictures of his ancestors and even pictures of Norman and his gravestone and how it was designed, making it look almost like his wife was married twice.
HNMAG: With all the research you figured out, was there anything that really disturbed you in particular?
Andrew Kelly: Well, it’s disturbing that we really couldn’t figure out who killed Paul Maclean and would’ve been like a good closure, but unfortunately we had a lot copycats coming around saying “Hey! I killed him” and now you got all these people saying they killed him but unfortunately there’s no evidence that says this is done by so-and-so, as it was done in 1938.
HNMAG: Why do you think the reverend moved on to other reserves?
Andrew Kelly: When Reverend Maclean went to Manitoba and then onto Saskatchewan and taught at Indian Reserves before going to Manitou, Manitoba on the circuit with the Presbyterian church in the spring/summer months of 1889-1893. He stopped at my great great grandfather’s house enroute to Saskatchewan in 1888. . When I went to meet my cousin out there for the first time, she said ‘Inbreed’ as we look alike and I didn’t know what she meant at the time until I saw a picture of the reverend.
HNMAG: How much digging did you have to do to figure out the connection?
Andrew Kelly: I was looking at their genealogy and I was looking at what I had for my genealogy. I wasn’t making any connections, and figuring out so many loose ends. All of a sudden, I was about to give up with so many Macleans and I finally gave it one last shot when I found a book on Amazon called 600 years in Hebberlies. It talked about all the Macleans and Hebberlies. The cousin talked about where our grandfather came from and we’re just across the water from Rob. I found out later that Macleans settled on the Isle of Rom being protestants of course, kicking all the Catholics off. They had lots of luxuries and advantages.
Andrew then went on showing me his family tree and so many interesting connections he came across. He believes the inbreeding was common for his family due to them coming from Scotland where it was common, but he also discovered that the family also has a connection to the first king of Scotland, which really fascinated me. The Macleans married the king’s daughter Margaret.
HNMAG: Related to royalty, how does THAT feel?
Andrew Kelly: I don’t get anything out of it, unfortunately but I can say because of my family’s lineage I am related to the son of Russia’s Tsars. They’re related to me so I got a lot of interesting roots to go through in history.
HNMAG: What are reactions from people when you explains you’re Norm Maclean’s cousin? Do they always believe you? What kind of questions do they ask?
Andrew Kelly: When I was doing the research, it was funny that I reached out and saw the website for A River Runs Through It and I had a lot of people from Sweden, Norway, Germany, England, North America who were intrigued. They never ask what happened to Norman, it’s always what happened to Paul. They like the underdog because he was always getting into trouble, his parents liked him because he brought a lot of action. He was a good fisherman, he was well loved where Norman was more the intellectual. But unfortunately, they just had more love for Paul because he was a better fisherman than Norman.
HNMAG: The film had some pretty big names in it, but do you think it would’ve been better to have some Canadian actors involved?
Andrew Kelly: Actually if they had some cousins involved. But unfortunately, it is what it is. It’s Hollywood, so you can’t make the choice. According to my cousin, Robert Redford came to Norman at University of Chicago back in 1980’s, and said “I have 3 different scripts for you and I want to make a movie” Norman said “No, I do NOT want any of my books made into a movie” in fact, the book was never going to be written if it weren’t for my cousins pushing Norman to write about this. He finally gave in and wrote stories about his youth. Robert picked up the book and Norman had a whole bunch of other offers from other companies like Universal. Robert offered three different scripts. Norman didn’t like the first 2, and Norman finally read over the third script. He made a couple changes but said “Okay, you know what? you won. Let’s do this” Unfortunately Norman died before the movie came out in 92.
HNMAG: The production got some things right though, and they of course got permission from family. But was there anything they didn’t approve of?
Andrew Kelly: Yes, actually. There was a couple things they didn’t approve of. One was the area they were filming. They preferred actual areas. The other thing that they didn’t like was the fact that there was some changes in the movie compared to real life like for example where the scene involving the waterfall, that did not exist. It was actually made for Hollywood Entertainment purposes.
HNMAG: Would you ever like someone to do a documentary on the matter instead so more information can be brought to light?
Andrew Kelly: Darn right I would. I would supply lots of info. Through the amounts of research I’ve done, it really opened up doors for the American side of the family because they didn’t have a clue what was going on in the Canadian side. I got a little blip in the paper about our connection but I had to fight for it because Americans and Canadians have some struggles between each other.
HNMAG: If there could be another movie about you and your family’s involvement with Norm Maclean, what would the subject matter focus on?
Andrew Kelly: I would hope it only focus on mentioning we were Canadians. There’s more family I would like them to focus on.
Speaking of family, Andrew showed me even more articles and shared stories how they all connected and what he found out. I have to say it was an informative discussion we had together which lasted a long amazing time. There was a lot going on, that I think this would be better as a documentary series instead of a single standalone project. Any documentary filmmakers want to take this on? Great concept that ought to be funded. Come to think of it, funding for Canadian productions needs to be more prominent. But that’s another article for another time from another author.