Run, Forrest, Run!

How much shrimp does it take to create a movie classic?

Painting by Paula Holtzclaw

The windswept shores of St. Helena Island are home to The Gay Seafood Company and have been for over 70 years. Initially, a handful of families lived in rustic wooden homes surrounded by miles of marshlands and woodland forest. From humble beginnings, Charles Gay’s seafood business began to grow and flourish.

Not so long ago it was a moment of pure chance when Charles and his daughter Cindy Carr stumbled upon a pair of thirty-one-year-old receipts in an old filing cabinet. These receipts, dated 1993, were a tangible link to the past, documenting the sale of shrimp to the Paramount Pictures production of Forrest Gump. It was a reminder that life is like a box of chocolates, full of surprises. In this case - a very nostalgic discovery.

It all happened one day when the crew members of Forrest Gump strolled into their little cinder block fish house and requested a huge initial order for five thousand pounds of shrimp. That’s more than enough “fruit of the sea” to barbecue, boil, broil, bake, saute, or any other preparation reeled off by Gump’s Army buddy, Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue.

The shrimp was crucial for the pivotal scene in which novice shrimp boat captain Gump and fellow Vietnam War vet Lieutenant Dan haul in a huge load of shrimp in the aftermath of 1974’s Hurricane Carmen. The crew's request was ambitious. They wanted enough shrimp to make Gump’s net too big to put their arms around and enough shrimp to cover the deck when dumped. Gay estimates that before they were finished, it involved nearly six hundred pounds, a quantity that far exceeded their expectations.  In the movie, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company becomes a huge success when the swollen net spills its bounty across the deck.

Other scenes took place at Tomotely Plantation, an old rice plantation in the heart of the historic Ace Basin in Yemassee, South Carolina. There is a dirt road Forrest ran down while young Jenny yelled, “Run, Forrest, Run!” That happened one day when Forrest was being bullied and hit by rocks thrown by three boys on bikes. Young Jenny, the only kid who liked Forrest, told him, “Just run away, Forrest.”

Many think the Gumps’ white two-story house was in Alabama, but it was constructed in Tomotley, a plantation in the ACE Basin.  One morning in May 1993, 20 trucks and 30 workers arrived on the grounds to build the house. It was ready two months later, although all the rooms were not complete. But moviegoers never saw the unfinished areas. Once the movie producers finished filming, they tore down the house. 

………………………………………………………….