Oregon Local News - Poised for greatness, 'Pillars of Portland' soap ... - Pamplin Media Group

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Screening of '83 TV show takes fun look at local history

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“Portlandia” has been a hit showing the quirkier side of Portland, with some exaggeration. But it’s not the first time somebody has made our city and its citizens the subject of a television show, and now the Northwest Film Center brings back a show from yesteryear.

“Pillars of Portland” was an ill-fated attempt to cast the city and its conveniently named citizens in a soap opera format way back in 1983. In fact, some episodes were written, rehearsed and shot, and then strung together into a 1 1/2-hour premiere that actually aired during prime time on KOIN (6).

It was not a hit. In fact, after the budget was blown and nobody was interested, “Pillars of Portland” was left in storage with other VHS tapes — yes, VHS.

A copy of the show has been posted on YouTube, the Clinton Street Theater showed a digitized “Pillars of Portland” last year, and now the Northwest Film Center plans another screening at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, at Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 S.W. Park Ave. ($6-$9); for more: nwfilm.org. Director Tom Chamberlin says the video quality isn’t great because it’s been transferred from VHS to digital and not enhanced.

“There has been a revival, but as you can imagine, it wasn’t a big success when it happened,” says Chamberlin. “Now it’s really quite a bit more fun, more like a mockumentary about the early 1980s in Portland.”

The show was fashioned after Larry Colton’s column in Willamette Week, in which he wrote about Portland happenings, and made to be a pilot for a weekly TV series. There was $100,000 earmarked for the show (half by KOIN), Chamberlin directed, Jim Blashfield and Eric Edwards served as cinematographers, and an up-and-coming filmmaker named Gus Van Sant also worked on the crew.

All of them are expected to attend the Friday screening. There’ll also be cast and other crew in attendance.

Sentimentality hasn’t sunk in. It was not a memorable, well-done production that just never caught on. Once aired, everybody knew the show had flopped and that it wouldn’t be going anywhere. But, it’s a little-known, fun part of Portland media history.

It was meant to show the zeitgeist of life in the Rose City, with characters right out of hokey and fictitious Portland history, stereotypes of their Portland neighborhoods: Multnomah Athletic Club member Wes Hills, bookstore guy Grant Parks, snobby lawyer Al Ameda and wacky author Sandy Burnside, as well as Marshall Lovejoy, Laurel Hearst, Elliot King and more. The cast and crew (totaling about 50 people) came from Portland theater, with scenes shot at locations and businesses in the city.

“We shot all summer (1983), and once we went to KOIN they wanted to do an hour and a half special prime time,” Chamberlin says. “We stuck various episodes and scenes together.”

The show aired on KOIN on Dec. 14, 1983, with much anticipation, but the amateur quality and production quickly extinguished any hopes of “Pillars of Portland” becoming an actual television series. The original shows focused on the Portland characters going to therapy and getting to know one another.

“The thing about the project in ‘83, it was a real collaboration between the business community, acting community and production community,” Chamberlin says. “The idea was to bring those people together and see what we could come up with. But we needed another show or two to get everybody together.”

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