Calabro in character on the set of Boogie Nights.
The movie Johnny Gill was another Calabro appearance.
Calabro was an extra in the John Grisham movie, The Client.
wears many hats – running the camera, directing, writing, editing, acting, and even writing the music used in the film. The documentary took two years to finish and was released in 2006. The 45-minute film contains interviews from residents and shopkeepers, the history of the town, and even spoofs of scenes in the original movie. More information about the documentary may be found on its Web site, www.friedgreentomorrows.com. Calabro actually portrayed Frank Bennett, the movie’s villain in the documentary, and the film contains an interesting take on the movie scene hauling Bennett’s old pickup truck out of the river, utilizing a toy truck. While working on the project, the filmmaker became acquainted with Robert Williams, who owns most of Juliette. He rented a home from him in East Juliette before moving to Gray. The filmmaker is 49 and was born in Orlando, Fla. His parents were from New York, and he was raised in Lakeland, Fla. Calabro attended Toccoa Falls College and said he felt at home in Georgia. His parents are now deceased, and he has a sister and brother who still live in Florida. Calabro spent 10 years in Athens playing
in a band named Insanity in the 1980s, and then he decided he wanted to try acting. In 1994 he worked on the television movie Andersonville. He was a photo double and an extra and spent 60 days on a cold, muddy set. “It was a tough initiation into that world,” he said. Calabro later wrote an instruction manual of sorts for aspiring actors, and in that book, chronicled what he referred to as the ‘Grateful Extra Tour’. He said he and another actor were just beginning their careers in 1995 and they began traveling the East Coast, sometimes sleeping in their cars or networking to find sleeping arrangements. By working at other jobs along the way and without an agent manager, they made contacts that enabled them to advance beyond just being extras. The actors worked as stand-ins, photo doubles, and accomplished the requirements to join the Screen Actors Guild within four months. After seven months, they had participated in dozens of movies in nine states, and after 12 months, they moved to Los Angeles with three other friends. The two cars they drove on their journey logged over 350,000 miles.
“I was told L.A. will eat you up, and it sure did,” Calabro said. All told, Calabro has been on more than 500 television and movie sets. His movie credits include Austin Powers, Batman and Robin, The Murder in the China Basin, Santa Claus with Muscles, ATL, Wild Wild West, and The People vs. Larry Flynt. He has been on television in The People vs. Leo Frank, Seinfield, Third Rock from the Sun, Melrose Place, Diagnosis Murder, Andersonville, and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Even though he worked on numerous television shows, commercials, training films, and movies, Calabro never got that big break. “I didn’t know how much I loved Georgia until I lived in L.A.,” he said. “You get tired of that traffic helicopter constantly overhead, and it only took one time of walking out my front door to see a chalk outline on my front steps to decide it was time to go.” Calabro said, when he came back from L.A., he was disillusioned and decide to put himself in a movie. He made his first film in 1999. It was a science fiction comedy about the reincarnation of Rod Serling titled Cultvision. The film was about a society that propels actors into the flickering eternal
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