When Edie McClurg is channel surfing, she occasionally comes across “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” the 1980s teen movie that has become a staple on cable television. “It comes on a lot. If I’m flipping around the dial, I’ll look at it,” McClurg says casually. For her, though, the movie is not just 102 minutes of comic entertainment, it’s a chance to walk down memory lane. Although McClurg’s name may be unfamiliar, her face and voice are anything but. In ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,’ McClurg played Grace, the secretary and assistant of Principal Ed Rooney, Bueller’s arch-nemesis in the film. This Saturday evening, Palisadians will have the opportunity to see her in person at Movies in the Park, which will screen “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off,” after a brief introduction by McClurg. ‘I’m just going to say, ‘Hello, it was a lot of fun making the movie and I hope you enjoy the movie,’ says McClurg, who lives in the Hollywood Hills and might be joined by Palisadians Cindy Pickett (who played Ferris’s mother in the film) and Jonathan Schmock, who played a maitre d’. McClurg, a redheaded character actress who relies heavily on her keen improvisational skills and hilarious accents to elicit laughter, has been in hundreds of productions, including guest appearances on “Seinfeld,” “Roseanne,” “Full House,” “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Mad About You.” She’s done voice acting in “Bobby’s World” and Disney/Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” and “Cars.” She has also played memorable bit parts in “Carrie” (in which several of McClurg’s scenes were filmed at Palisades High) and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,’ just to name a few. Chances are, if you’ve watched television shows or movies in the last 30 years, you’ve seen Edie McClurg. ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,’ released in 1986, written and directed by John Hughes and starring Matthew Broderick, is the story of a high school student who skips a day of school to gallivant around Chicago with his girlfriend and his best friend, trying to elude his parents and the principal. Like many other John Hughes flicks (‘The Breakfast Club,’ ‘Pretty in Pink,’ ‘Sixteen Candles’) ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ has become a classic in the teen comedy genre. ‘I thought it would be okay, just the summer’s teenage movie,’ McClurg recalls. ‘At the time some of the reviewers were a little concerned that it would give good kids bad ideas, but it just struck a chord with so many people.’ Now the film ranks at number 10 on Entertainment Weekly’s ‘Top 50 Best High School Movies.’ In the film, McClurg delivers one of the film’s most memorable lines. ‘Oh, he’s [Ferris] very popular, Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, bloods, waistoids, dweebies’they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude,’ she says, in her trademark thick Minnesota accent. ‘I just added [the accent] at the end of the line during my audition,’ McClurg says. ‘John [Hughes] laughed, and that’s how I got the part.’ McClurg, a self proclaimed ‘brain’ in high school, remembers asking Hughes which teenage stereotype he fell into. He smiled and replied, ‘I was a wastoid.’ A ‘wastoid’ or not, Hughes take on high school life still resonates with a lot of people. This Saturday, join the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce and Movies in the Park Palisades for ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ at 8 p.m. on the Field of Dreams at the Palisades Recreation Center, 851 Alma Real. Admission is free, and they might be taking roll: ‘Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?’
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