While Marshalltown native Jean Seberg has been gone 36 years, to fans around the world, she still represents an enduring actress, activist and icon.

In fact, the documentary “Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg,” which recently won Best Documentary at the 9th Annual Landlocked Film Festival in Iowa City, tells the movie star’s story divided in those three categories.

“This is a perspective of Jean’s life and work by the people who knew her best,” said Kelly Rundle, one of the filmmakers on the project.

Home movies, rare photos, movie clips, interviews and footage showing Marshalltown at various time periods make up the body of the film. Work on the documentary began back in 1991 by Iowan Garry McGee, who had enrolled at Iowa State University as a film student after working in the entertainment industry throughout the 1980s. Upon viewing a Seberg film in one of his classes, McGee drove to Marshalltown to conduct research at the Historical Society of Marshall County.

He secured interviews with Seberg’s sister Mary Ann Seberg Shuey, high school theater instructor Carol Hollingsworth, and Warren Robeson, long-time Times-Republican editor who had befriended Seberg at the height of her career.

He also began work on biographies about the actress with “Jean Seberg: Breathless” and “Neutralized: The FBI vs Jean Seberg” both published in 2008.

Lack of funding delayed the project until grants were secured from Humanities Iowa, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Iowa Arts Council. In 2008, McGee joined forces with husband-wife filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle who brought their own award-winning style and career successes to the project.

“The subject fell into the type of story we look for – Midwest and historical with a regional following that deserves a larger audience,” Kelly Rundle said.

The Rundles shot footage of historic places in Marshalltown related to the Seberg story and pursued additional interviews. Movie co-stars, childhood friends, relatives, Jean’s first husband Franois Moreuil and film and movie historians from Iowa and other locales were all pooled to present different perspectives of Seberg’s legacy.

Included in the film are the views of Marshalltown native, singer Mark Adams-Westin, who cultivated friendships with the Seberg family.

“My father was a lawyer who did some legal work for the family, particularly looking over the movie contract for ‘Saint Joan’ (Seberg’s first film,)” Adams-Westin said.

From 1969-71, the teenaged Adams-Westin worked at Ed Seberg’s pharmacy in Marshalltown. After the death of Jean’s days-old baby Nina Hart Gary in August 1970, Ed approached the teen about singing at the baby’s funeral, with the burial held at Riverside Cemetery.

“It was a rather surreal experience,” Adams-Westin said. “After the funeral, six or eight of us sat around the Seberg home and played music. The funeral service was recorded, at least partially. I think she took the music with her when she had a breakdown.”

That fall, Seberg flew several of her friends to Chicago, including Adams-Westin to meet with Rev. Jessie Jackson and attend one of his church services. Adams-Westin said he last saw the actress in 1973 or 1974 when he ate lunch with Seberg and her then-husband Dennis Berry at Lillie Mae’s in Marshalltown. After Seberg’s passing in 1979, Adams-Westin said, “I was more saddened than anything else because a person I cared about was ruined by people [in the FBI smear campaign] who had no ethics.”

“There have been a number of revisions made to ‘Movie Star’ since the preview in 2013,” said filmmaker Tammy Rundle. “We are looking forward to sharing the updated version of the documentary at the Orpheum during Jean’s birthday in November.”

The award-winning documentary will be screened Friday, Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. and again Saturday, Nov. 14 at 1 p.m at the Orpheum Theater. An exhibit of newly donated posters, photographs, and Seberg memorabilia will open that Friday and remain on display through the end of January.

Adams-Westin and his wife Amy will perform Saturday at 7.30 pm in the theater’s Black Box, as the duo Amy & Adams.

For more information on the Seberg event, contact the Orpheum at 641-752-7106.

—–

Contact Sara Jordan at 641-753-6611 or sjordan@timesrepublican.com