Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I was five when this photo was taken and my sister was a very elegant 16. We are pictured with each of the grandparents we were named after. My favorite grandfather's name was Simon and my sister was named for him. "Mutt's" actual name was Rose Anne and I was named for her.

My sister had already made her first national commercial by this point. She was riding her horse, Ginger, bareback on the football field in Bluffton one day when the commercial producers saw her. They were filming a Gulf oil spot on Hilton Head that called for a horse running with an engine sort of floating beside it on the beach, as I recall. This is way before the days of CGI so it required some doing.

The beautiful trained movie horse they flew out for the spot refused to have anything to do with the engine. So the crew was stuck on Hilton Head...then still retaining some of its remote barrier island charm...with a horse that wouldn't run.

They saw my sister and hired her to ride the horse bareback on the beach and force him to do his damn job. It was the first job of her career as an actress.


She made a decent living at acting throughout the 70's, 80's and into the 90's. She lived in Los Angeles for most of that time, though she did a stint off-Broadway in NYC for a time and lived there. Some of her films, like Death Race 2000 and Swamp Girl have reached cult status as well as the Golden Girls episode that she did.

I'm not much of an authority on her acting career. Chris, who visits the SMB and seems to be like, her biggest fan, ever....is better suited to be an expert on her work. And V-Man, I met him because he blogged about her, and I've really enjoyed the hell out of knowing him.

She's just my beautiful, talented big sister. And I love her.

I hope she is having a fabulous day doing exactly what she wants to do. I'm going to get off the phone line soon and call her.

Here are a list of links about her. And if you want to leave her a birthday message, I'll make sure she gets it. (please do this...she loves getting messages like that...I know she does, even though she's sort of cool about it) She doesn't read the blog because she's not so good at the internet tubes.



SIMONE GRIFFETH~Velociworld
Yeah...Well...My Sister's a MOVIE STAR! ~ The SMB
African Violets and Major Appliances~ The SMB
Simone on the ImDb