Woody: Mother defends her son's reputation

By Dunne Puckett, Sentinel News

Diane Harrelson wants Shelby countians to know that her son, Woody, is "a good father, a good son, a good brother and a good person".

She wrote that in a letter to the Sentinel News in response to critcal remarks that had been made about the TV/movie star after his visits to Simpsonville Elementary where he promoted industrial hemp. Some parents consider him a poor role model and the subject of industrial hemp inappropriate for the fifth-graders in Donna Cockrel's class where Harrelson has been a guest speaker.

Remarks by those parents in the Sentinel-News triggered Diane Harrelson to say,"I would like for these parents to know something about this man they so casually maligned."

She said Woody Harreleon overcame childhood learning disabilities and received scholarships upon graduation from high school. "With the aid of these scholarships and his own earnings, he completed four years of college at a private univereity," she wrote. "He was a loving child, never a discipline problem, and he was well liked in high school and college by his peers and his teachers." Harrelson went to high school in Lebanon where his mother told the Sentinel-News he played basketball and football, and ran track. He went on to Hanover College in Indiana where he majored in drama and set off for Hollywood.

"You don't ever think those things are going to happen," she said about - his becoming a celebrity.

Mrs. Harrelson, who lives in Lebanon, Ohio where she is a paralegal for a law firm, said her son "has always reached out to those people to whom life has not been especially kind, and with his attention and respect and friendship has helped them to feel good about themselves"

From her office yesterday afternoon, she told the Sentinel News that she remembered a mentally challenged student in her son's class in high school who was ostracized by the children who "said cruel things to her, as children do. Woody always offered her his friendship."

She also had people from Hanover commend her son, even the janitors with whom he made friends.

"Since his success in the entertainment field, he has become involved in environmental causes, giving generously of his time and resources to support those concerns in which he deeply believes," she wrote.

She was aware of his promotion of industrial hemp "as a way of saving trees... he's very concerned about saving trees. He thinks of hemp, as I do, as a good alternative for farmers who might be willing to grow hemp instead of tobacco, which is not necessarily a good thing, but it's their livelihood. Hemp can be a livelihood and its's environmentally friendly."

In reference to her son not being an appropriate role model for children, Mrs. Harrelson said,"I can only assume that their criteria for acceptable role models for their children would exclude a great many of the creative artists of the world, most of the attorneys, and all of the tobacco growers."

"Woody is no more a pornographer or killer than he is a bowler or basketball player or policeman. He is an actor, who has worked hard to perfect his craft."

When questioned about Harrelson's switch from the light-hearted character on the TV show "Cheers" to "Natural Born Killers" and "The People vs. Larry -Flynt," Mrs. Harrelson said, There's no logic there. I agree they shouldn't let their children see them but he's an actor who's playing a role, just as an attorney who defends a criminal. He's doing his job, what he was trained to do.

"He's not identifying with the person he's playing," she said, adding that "no one would accuse Anthony Hopkins of being Hannibal Lector," the cannibal charactor he played in "Silence of the Lambs"

She said the Larry Flynt movie is a well-done film, which she said was evidenced by an Academy Award nomination Tuesday morning. "I'm very proud of Woody for doing things that challenge him... "Cheers" was easy. He wants to be an actor; this was a great chaIlenge and he met it.

She said she is proud of her son and questioned, "Not a good role model for their children? Their intemperate and intolerant judgement of my son makes me wonder just how good a role model they are."