Vitals

Jeff Bridges as Elroy “Junior” Jackson, Jr., moonshine runner and aspiring race car driver

Gaston County, North Carolina, Fall 1972

Film: The Last American Hero
Release Date: July 27, 1973
Director: Lamont Johnson
Wardrobe Credit: Alan Levine

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Amid the playoffs ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Race at Martinsville a week from today on November 3, today’s post celebrates one of the more underdiscussed “mooonshine movies” that also draws on the link between Appalachain bootleggers and stock car racing.

Photographed by cinematographer George Silano against an authentic North Carolina autumn in late 1972, The Last American Hero was adapted from Tom Wolfe’s Esquire essay about moonshiner-turned-NASCAR star Robert “Junior” Johnson, represented on screen by Jeff Bridges (in one of his first starring roles) as Elroy “Junior” Jackson, Jr., who speeds through the mountains of North Carolina in his ’67 Mustang to run moonshine for his father Elroy (Art Lund) and brother Wayne (Gary Busey). Continue reading →