Arkansas furniture salesman goes Hollywood

MALVERN, Ark. -- Around here, they just call him "Hollywood."

"That's Mr. Hollywood," jokes Rick Dial, accidental movie star, hometown celebrity -- and furniture salesman.

When Robert Duvall needed Farrah Fawcett and Billy Bob Thornton to start filming "The Apostle," he had no problems. Getting the 46-year-old Dial to play a radio station owner was another story.

Duvall's filming schedule conflicted with the annual sale at Dial's furniture store in downtown Malvern, population 9,200.

"We're usually working around other actors' movie schedules ... but this was the first time, probably in the history of moviemaking, we jockeyed a film schedule for a furniture sale," says producer Rob Carliner. "I remember calling Bobby (Duvall) and trying to explain that, and he said, 'Do what you have to do because I want the guy."'

On a quiet morning at his furniture store on Main Street, Dial -- balding, bespectacled, heavyset -- sinks back into a black leather chair, a red and white price tag dangling from the top left corner, and reminisces about growing up with Thornton in Malvern.

A tiny bell on the shop's front door rings as customers trickle in.

A few blocks down is the movie theater where Dial's name accompanied Thornton's on the marquee when the 1996 film "Sling Blade" came to town.

It was Dial's first film and Thornton's big break in Hollywood -- he won the Academy Award for original screenplay.

"You're like 30 feet tall and all of a sudden you see yourself on the screen with somebody like John Travolta or Billy Bob or Robert Duvall. ... It's surreal. It's a hoot," Dial says.

But Dial will be the first to tell you he doesn't know much about acting, but that selling a character on screen is a lot like selling a recliner.

"You memorize a sales pitch on your products ... and when you say that stuff to the customer, it's as natural as walking down the street," Dial says in a soft Arkansas drawl. "Acting is exactly the same thing. You just deliver the line just like you deliver the pitch."

Until receiving a telephone call in 1995 from his old pal Thornton, Dial had never considered an acting career.

"I stayed here and he went off to make his fame and fortune, but he spent years nearly starving to death in L.A.," Dial says. "He just called me out of the blue one day and said, 'I've got some money for a movie I want to film ... and I've written a part for you.' I said, 'You're out of your mind. There's no way I'm doing that."'

Dial remembers Thornton telling him it would be a small movie that not many people would see. "Billy Bob told me, 'You know, a thousand people will see this movie, your friends will see it, my friends will see it.' He says it'll probably go straight to video, it ain't no big deal," Dial said. "Finally, I thought: What the heck, it's his money, it's his movie."

Not only did Thornton go on to win an Oscar but it also landed Dial's name in Hollywood Rolodexes. He has done five more movies, including "The General's Daughter" and "Mumford."

"When you find real people who have never been in front of the camera before they're usually better than actors," says Thornton, who wrote the part of the small-engine repair shop owner in "Sling Blade" specifically for Dial.

Thornton describes himself as an "outsider" and a "geeky" kid back in high school, adding: "Rick always treated me like an equal even though I wasn't in the inner circle of people. It's something I'll never forget. He was just never shy, an outgoing guy and I thought if he didn't freeze up on camera and would just be himself, it would work."

Thornton thinks Dial has the talent to act full time, but doesn't have the desire -- "which is probably what makes him so good."

"What he treats as a hobby, people out here treat as life or death," says Los Angeles writer-director Barrett Leigh. "Everybody's envious of him. And I love telling his story out here because you've got all these actors struggling to make it ... and his only condition is that you treat him as if he's on vacation when he's on a shoot."

At the time 1999's "The General's Daughter" was being filmed, Leigh was struggling to land his own movie deal. Leigh was Dial's studio-hired driver while the furniture salesman was in Southern California.

"I've hung out with ... all these Hollywood actors, but Dial completely catches you off-guard," Leigh said. "He's a guy who makes you feel like you can be completely relaxed around him. I drove slower so I could hang out with him."

Leigh eventually got a deal to direct the yet to be released, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep." He says he didn't have to persuade Dial to play the role of a psychiatrist who works at a mental hospital. "He's more about the friendship than he is about the movie," Leigh says.

Dial remembers a conversation he had with Thornton after the release of "Sling Blade" when Duvall inquired about who the "big fella" was on the screen.

"He said, 'Billy Bob, who's that big fella up there? I could use him in my movie.' Billy Bob laughed and said, 'Well, that's a friend of mine from Arkansas.' Duvall said 'Who's his agent?"' Dial recalls. "Billy Bob laughed and said, 'Man, you call the furniture store and whoever answers the phone, that's his agent."'

Dial's wife Phyllis, Malvern's elected city clerk, says it's been fun being married to a movie star.

"And I think a lot of the people in town have enjoyed it about as much as he has," she says. "We kind of kid that we're the Beverly Hillbillies who go to Hollywood."

She remembered a recent trip to Los Angeles, driving in the back of limousines with movie stars and attending glitzy galas. "When we got off the plane and got back to Arkansas, Rick says to me, 'And now the carriage turns into a pumpkin."'

Dial says it's already difficult for him to spend time with Phyllis and their three children, run the furniture business and make movies, so he doesn't have an agent and doesn't seek out scripts. The most he's ever earned was $50,000 for "The General's Daughter."

Carliner thinks Dial sells himself short.

"He's a natural-born salesman, and the earnestness with which he does his job is something that translates on film," the producer says.

And Duvall adds: "He could easily have a second career."

But Dial is just as happy selling furniture in small-town Arkansas and occasionally getting a charge out of seeing himself on the big screen.

And when folks want an autograph from Mr. Hollywood, Dial shows them a chair.

"I tell 'em I sign every ticket that comes through the door," Dial jokes, "so if you buy that chair over there, you'll get my autograph."