Playing a round of golf at Clint Eastwood’s private golf club, Tehama Golf Club in Carmel, California, is a rare opportunity for some and not even an option for many.
However, playing a round of golf with Eastwood on his own golf course is even more rare.
For James Hansen, history professor at Auburn, both of these situations became a reality years back. However, Hansen was not just teeing it up with Eastwood as former NASA astronaut and the first man to land on the moon, Neil Armstrong, also joined the two.
In 1999, Hansen reached out to Armstrong in hopes Armstrong would allow him to write his biography.
At first, Armstrong told Hansen he was too busy and had already turned down several previous offers from renowned authors such as Stephen Ambrose and James Michener.
While Hansen admits he thought about quitting, he said he elected to send Armstrong what he described as a “goody box,” which included three of his books, including a biography called “From the Ground Up,” about aircraft designer Fred Weick.
“He was known to be not a reclusive man but a private man,” Hansen said. “After I got the polite rejection letter, I thought that was it, but then I sent that box and I thought I’ll just let him take a look at these books and maybe he will come around.”
Nearly two years later, in June 2002, Armstrong came around to the idea as he wrote Hansen a letter granting him access to write the biography.
Days later Hansen drew up a formal contract, and after a few months, Armstrong signed the letter, giving Hansen his full support and encouragement.
Published in 2005 by Simon & Schuster, “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong” is the official biography of Armstrong.
In 2003, Hansen’s agent was approached by Eastwood and Warner Bros. about purchasing the film, and after much thought, Hansen gave them the rights to make a movie out of Armstrong’s biography.
“I didn’t think about it [making it a movie] right at the very start,” Hansen said. “As soon as the word got out that I was going to do this book and it was being done with one of the major New York City trade presses and the fact the biography was being in done in itself made news and almost immediately, Warner Bros. called.”
However, the production came to a halt after years of no production at all. Eastwood decided not to continue on with the production of “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong,” as Hansen said Armstrong found himself immersed in too many projects at one time.
After Eastwood decided not to pursue producing the film, the timetable to their rights expired, giving Universal Studios the opportunity to purchase the film and actually produce it.
“There’s been two or three different attempts to get scripts written and get this project moving, and nothing has really come of it until now,” Hansen said. “The man who wrote the screenplay for ‘Spotlight,’ Josh Singer, has now written a script for the Armstrong movie, and Universal plans to start shooting sometime next year.”
Now that Universal has the rights to the film and the script is nearly finished, Hansen said he still has his doubt about letting one of his “babies” out of his hands.
“I tried so hard to get the Armstrong story factual and now my biggest fear now that it’s in Hollywood’s hands is that they have to fictionalize the story in order to make a dramatic movie, and I am concerned they could go too far with the fictionalization,” Hansen said.
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