Peter McDowell didn’t know his brother. Well … hardly.
“Jimmy was the oldest in our family. He was born in 1948,” he recalled. “He was 19 years older than me. I was the youngest, born in 1967. So, when he suddenly and mysteriously died in 1972, I was only five years old and I didn’t really know him. In fact, one of my earliest memories of my life was his death. I only have shadowy memories of him as a person.”
For much of his young life, Peter thought his brother Jimmy had died in the war.
“But I gradually found out that he served his full tour in Vietnam and then came back to the United States. Within a few months, he was writing letters to my parents saying, ‘You’re never going to believe this, but I want to go back to Vietnam.'”
Keep in mind that this was about 1971; Vietnam was hell on earth and still a few years away from collapsing to the Viet Cong.
“But then almost exactly one year later, Jimmy was suddenly and mysteriously dead,” said Peter. “And that’s, sort of, where the story begins.”
Peter McDowell is bringing his film, "Jimmy in Saigon" to Idaho where two of his co-producers live. Just before its opening at The Flicks, McDowell visited with George Prentice.
Find reporter George Prentice @georgepren
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