Published: November 19, 2009 12:47 pm      

Local men get chance to shine as extras in Disney movie

Next year about this time, two Laurel County natives will appear on the big screen in a Walt Disney movie.

David Black and Roger D. Smith, both graduates of Laurel County High School, spent a week at Keeneland in Lexington and a week at Churchill Downs in Louisville last September filming “Secretariat.” The movie is about Penny Chenery and her horse, which won the Triple Crown in the early 1970s. The Triple Crown includes the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.

Black heard that the movie needed extras from a friend at East Bernstadt Post Office where he works.

“You ought to go do that,” his friend told him. “You’ve got the personality to do that.”

Since Black was already planning to be in Lexington Sept. 12 — the day of the registrations at the Griffin Gate Marriott Resort — he decided he would try his luck at the hotel.

“When I first got there, there were thousands of people dressed in all kinds of outfits all around the building, and here I was in my T-shirt, blue jeans and cap,” he said with a big boyish grin. “I thought I wouldn’t have a chance. It would be good to just say, ‘I did it.’”

After he made his way inside the hotel, he filled out a profile sheet asking for his acting experience, hobbies and occupation, and he attached a picture to it.

“I listened to what they had to say and talked to a few people,” Black recalled. “They said they were going to start shooting in a couple of weeks. I thought I didn’t have a chance with these thousands of people. It would just be fun to do it.”

“About a week later I get a phone call from one of the representatives from “Secretariat” asking me if I wanted to be in the movie,” Black said. “At first I thought it was a joke. Then, I thought I would probably be just someone sitting up in the stands. She said she wanted me to be a state police officer. ‘You’re going to be right up front where the cameras are.’ I told her I would really love to do it.”

Black was fitted with a state trooper outfit at Churchill Downs. He was at the stalls where they walk the horses out and he was on the track, patrolling all around. He did not have any lines to say, but he was in several scenes. He worked around the actors, including the star, Diane Lane, about 12 hours a day.

“I was a fan the first week at Keeneland, cheering on the horses with a newspaper or a cup,” Black said. “I was right on the rail. I don’t know how much they will cut out. I had a lot of scenes. I hate to think they would only showed three seconds.”

“It was a really good experience,” he added. “I got to meet a lot of different new people from all over the world and the directors. We got paid, but most of the extras who just sat in the stands didn’t.”

Smith, who lives in Richmond and teaches Spanish at Lincoln County High School and Eastern Kentucky University, also went to the Marriott to register to be an extra.

“I wrote down my acting experience from Sue Bennett College and that I studied theater in Spain on my profile,” Smith said.

Smith was in about 14 scenes, he said.

“I was a fan four or five times, I had to wave a flag right next to the horse, and I was in a Belmont scene, in the men’s club scene at Spindletop (in Lexington) where she (Chenery) actually lived at that time, and a food scene with Diane Lane,” Smith said. “I was also a maintenance man at a golf course and a photographer at Churchill Downs. I had some short lines.”

Black and Smith worked together in the film, but they had not seen each other in a long time and did not know the other one was an extra in the movie.

“I hadn’t seen him forever,” said Black. “We just ran into each other at Keeneland on the set. We just looked at each other and I said, ‘Is that you, Roger?’”

Smith knew Black for a long time.

“I went to school with his sister, Suzanne Black,” he said. “I’ve known David forever. We went to school together, too.”

Since the two men have been back to real life, they have been called back to do other parts in the movie.

“They’re in Louisiana right now filming the rest of it, but with our work schedules it was highly impossible for us to go back,” Black said. “We’ve had agents we met down there contact us to see if we we’re interested in doing that sort of work.”

The two men plan on going out to Los Angeles next summer for a month to see if they can be in another Disney movie.

“We’re working on which agent would be best before we go out there,” Smith said.

The men are not planning on quitting their regular jobs any time soon.

The production has moved from Keeneland and Churchill to Louisiana to reproduce the Triple Crown infields at Evangeline Downs.

Secretariat will open in the fall 2010.

Staff writer Carol Mills can be reached at cmills@sentinel-echo.com.