Film, Books Put Atlanta Olympic Events in Spotlight

(ATR) Two new books and the Hollywood film they inspired are putting the Centennial Olympics host city in the literary and silver screen spotlight.

All three works center on an unintended icon of the 1996 Atlanta Games -- Richard Jewell, the part-time security guard who found a pipe bomb in the urban park created as a fan gathering spot. Before the device detonated, Jewell helped move hundreds of spectators and saved countless lives.

Initially hailed as a hero, Jewell’s ascending celebrity turned dark as the hometown newspaper Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported he was the key subject of the bombing investigation. The world’s media followed that lead, and Jewell endured nearly three months of upended living in an intense global spotlight before authorities finally cleared him.

Jewell’s life before, during and after the Games takes center stage in "The Suspect" (Abrams Books, $28), a new and thoroughly researched narrative nonfiction volume by Kevin Alexander and Kevin Salwen, both of Atlanta. The book started generating hometown sales and national reviews starting with its Nov. 12 release.

The second nonfiction Jewell tale arrived Dec. 10 via a collection of essays by longtime Vanity Fair contributor Marie Brenner. Published with the title "Richard Jewell and Other Tales of Heroes, Scoundrels, and Renegades" (Simon & Schuster, $17), the book centers on a 22-page 1997 article under the headline "American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell", the result of Brenner’s reporting while embedded with the Atlanta-based legal team for the accused.

Both texts were optioned by Warner Bros. as source material for the film "Richard Jewell," which arrives at theaters worldwide on Dec. 13. Directed by Clint Eastwood from a screenplay by Billy Ray, the film earned a 30-second ovation at its world premiere screening in Hollywood’s famed TCL Chinese Theatre on Nov. 20.

While Brenner’s book is not yet available for review, "The Suspect" proves to be a thoroughly researched page-turner centered on a triumvirate of characters.

Alexander and Salwen, a federal agent and attorney and Wall Street Journal regional editor, respectively, focus on not only Jewell, but also shine a spotlight on two of his Atlanta Games-time contemporaries whose work irrevocably affected Jewell’s life: FBI investigator Don Johnson and AJC crime reporter Kathy Scruggs.

A fourth player also getting attention in "The Suspect" is, of course, Eric Rudolph. The actual Centennial Olympic Park bomber was finally captured years later, but only after he detonated three more devices that injured, maimed or killed other victims.

Historians may marvel at the feat of research, journalism and writing poured into "The Suspect." During five years of work, they conducted 187 interviews, viewed hundreds of video clips, more than 1,200 news articles and thousands more photos, 10,000+ legal documents, and more than 170,000 pages of the ACOG archive. On their editor’s suggestion they opted to include several pages of "narrative source notes" in place of 2,139 footnotes they compiled.

In early chapters, the authors are generous with contextual and historic details provided by Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) leaders, starting with Ambassador Andrew Young and Atlanta Olympic bid chairman-turned ACOG CEO Billy Payne. Olympic Family members will remember highlights from the 1987 to 1990 bid, Games prep, Payne’s inspiration for Centennial Olympic Park and everything else through the Closing Ceremony held Aug. 4, 1996.

A handful of champion athletes contributed, including Michael Johnson, whom they interviewed,while Janet Evans — not contacted for the book — earned the most Olympian mentions in the text.

Middle and later chapters delve into the timelines of federal investigators and media maneuvers under intense pressure to deliver results. Bert Roughton, one of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution editors who oversaw the newspaper’s breaking news report about Jewell, told audiences at a book-signing event it was not an easy decision to run with the story.

"There are a lot of good questions around what we did at the time … there are good journalistic questions about that," said Roughton. "I think in the world we live in, they’re more important now than they may even have been then."

Other reader takeaways include several surprise or barely-reported elements of the FBI investigation. Jewell's work to restore his name, and the results of several lawsuits in his favor, also resonate as new information. Readers ultimately learn about Jewell's later years, when he achieved his dream job as a small town police officer, a role that lead to meeting his wife. In 2007, at age 44, Jewell died of a heart attack, according family members interviewed for "The Suspect."

When the film "Richard Jewell" opens Dec. 13, audiences will be treated to a mostly accurate portrayal of the man brought to life by actor Paul Walter Hauser. Some may recognize him from his recent role as Olympian Nancy Kerrigan’s attack plotter in the film "I, Tonya."

Early scenes of "Richard Jewell" take place in an office where Jewell earned the nickname "Radar" for his quirky attention to detail and ability to anticipate coworkers’ needs, and where he met one of the members of his eventual legal team. Sam Rockwell is cast as an on-screen attorney named Watson Bryant, the actual name of one of Jewell’s lawyers, although screenwriter Ray infused several real-life attorneys’ personalities into one character.

"No one wants to see a movie about so many lawyers," said one contributor to the film during the AFI Fest premiere party.

Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde and Kathy Bates round out the cast as an FBI agent, reporter Scruggs and Bobi Jewell (mother of Richard), respectively. Bates and Hauser took home the film’s first performance honors announced Dec. 3 by the National Board of Review, which also ranked "Richard Jewell" among the Top 10 films of 2019.

"Richard Jewell" unfolds at a pace similar to other recent Eastwood-directed works, with slow-burn drama that crescendos through scenes of and flashbacks to the bomb’s detonation. Dry humor, mostly through the lawyer’s banter with his Russian-born executive assistant or his client, provide crowd-pleasing breaks during the arc of the two-hour-nine-minute story.

Eastwood and Ray are taking fire in entertainment media and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for their portrayal of Scruggs, whom Wilde portrays — along with Hamm’s FBI agent — as a duo who cast professional ethics aside for the sake of doing their jobs.

Other fictionalized elements related to the Scruggs character include a post-Olympics in-newsroom confrontation between Jewell, his lawyer and the reporter. According to "The Suspect" no such meeting was possible nor took place. Jewell’s attorneys also barred him from ever recording, for the FBI’s investigation, a voice comparison of the transcript of Rudolph’s actual 9-1-1 call from a downtown Atlanta pay phone, "There is a bomb in Centennial Park … you have thirty minutes!" The attorneys aptly protected their client in real life.

Fictional elements aside, "Richard Jewell" is a well-crafted hero story destined to inspire, like its real-life persona, many news articles and water cooler conversations.

Nicholas Wolaver is an Atlanta-based public relations executive, lifetime member of International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH) and founder of the website Olympic Rings And Other Things.

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