Royd Anderson | |
|---|---|
 Royd Anderson speaking at the George Prince Ferry Memorial Ceremony, October 17, 2009 | |
| Born | July 22, 1972 |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
Royd Anderson (born July 22, 1972, New Orleans, Louisiana) is a Cuban-American filmmaker and historian based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He specializes in documentary films pertaining to tragic Louisiana events often overlooked by historians.
In 2006, Anderson wrote and directed the documentary The Luling Ferry Disaster for his Master's thesis project in Communication at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. [1] The film recounts the story of the MV George Prince ferry disaster, the worst ferryboat accident in U.S. history with 77 fatalities. [2] The documentary was released on the 30th anniversary of the disaster on October 20, 2006. The success of the film generated a movement, initiated by Anderson, to build a monument in St. Charles Parish for the victims and survivors. [3] [4] The Luling/Destrehan Ferry Disaster Memorial Committee, led by St. Charles Parish Councilman Larry Cochran, was established on January 28, 2009, consisting of family members and friends of the deceased, St. Charles Parish Council members, and concerned citizens, along with Anderson. Through the work of the bureau, a memorial was finally erected. It was unveiled in a solemn ceremony on October 17, 2009, at the East Bank Bridge Park in Destrehan, Louisiana. St. Charles Parish Councilman and architect Paul J. Hogan designed the monument. [5]
In 2007, Anderson wrote and directed the documentary The Continental Grain Elevator Explosion. The film documents the deadliest grain dust explosion of the modern era, occurring on December 22, 1977, at the Continental Grain plant in Westwego, Louisiana. 36 lives were lost. [6]
Pan Am Flight 759 is Anderson's third documentary, released in 2012. The film examines the worst plane crash in Louisiana history, occurring on July 9, 1982, in the city of Kenner. [7] [8] At 76 minutes, it is his longest film to date. An edited-for-TV version of the documentary (58 mins.) was aired on Cox 4 in three Louisiana regions: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Acadiana.
Anderson's 4th film, The Upstairs Lounge Fire, documents the 1973 UpStairs Lounge arson attack in New Orleans. The documentary was released on June 24, 2013, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the fire. [9] [10] [11]
His 2019 documentary, Mother's Day Bus Crash on 610, investigates the worst vehicular accident in Louisiana history, occurring on May 9, 1999, on Interstate 610 in New Orleans. [12] 22 perished. [13]
On November 22, 2021, Anderson released his first book, New Orleans Disasters: Firsthand Accounts of Crescent City Tragedy, published by The History Press. It explores seven tragedies and their fallout through gripping firsthand interviews, planting readers amid the chaos. [14] The book peaked at number four in Amazon's 'New Releases in Disaster Relief' category in December 2021. [15]
In 2022, Anderson wrote and directed his sixth documentary, The Rault Center Fire. The film documents the New Orleans high-rise disaster that occurred on November 29, 1972. [16] Six lives were lost. [17]
Anderson's films The Luling Ferry Disaster and The Continental Grain Elevator Explosion were honored at the Pelican d'Or Short Film Festival at Nunez Community College, winning the Best Documentary category in 2007 and 2008. He was awarded Delgado Community College's Circles of Excellence Outstanding Alumni Award in 2011. At the 2013 Lake Charles Film Festival, Pan Am Flight 759 won the Best Documentary category. The UpStairs Lounge Fire was selected the best Documentary Short of the Boomtown Film & Music Festival in Beaumont, Texas in 2016.
Anderson was invited to Princeton University as a guest speaker to screen and discuss The UpStairs Lounge Fire in 2014. He was also an invited guest speaker at Tulane University, Loyola University New Orleans, and the FBI New Orleans Division. His documentaries have been accepted into The Historic New Orleans Collection, one of Louisiana's prestigious archives.
On television, Anderson has been a featured guest on the LMN (TV channel)'s show Ghost Inside My Child, the Louisiana Public Broadcasting network show Louisiana: The State We're In, the WYES-TV news program Informed Sources, WGNO ABC 26's Good Morning New Orleans, and Netflix's show Animal House. He is an alumnus of Loyola University New Orleans, [18] the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Delgado Community College. In addition to being a filmmaker, Anderson is also a former high school teacher. [19] [7]
Kenner is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the most populous city in Jefferson Parish, and is the largest incorporated suburban city of New Orleans. The population was 66,448 at the 2020 census, making it the sixth-most populous city in Louisiana.
Westwego is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located in Jefferson Parish. It is a suburban community of New Orleans in the Greater New Orleans metropolitan area and lies along the west bank of the Mississippi River. The population of the city of Westwego was 8,568 at the 2020 United States census.
St. Charles Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, its population was 52,549. The parish seat is Hahnville and the most populous community is Luling.
Pan Am Flight 759 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight from Miami to San Diego, with en route stops in New Orleans and Las Vegas. On July 9, 1982, the Boeing 727 flying this route crashed in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner after being forced down by a microburst shortly after takeoff. All 145 on board, as well as eight people on the ground, were killed.
Interstate 310 (I-310) is a short spur route of I-10 west of New Orleans, located entirely in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. It begins at a point on I-10 just west of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and the city of Kenner. It travels southward as an elevated freeway across the LaBranche Wetlands and intersects U.S. Route 61 (US 61) in St. Rose. The highway crosses the Mississippi River from Destrehan to Luling via the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge. After a brief concurrency with Louisiana Highway 3127 (LA 3127), I-310 terminates at US 90 in Boutte.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans is a Latin Church ecclesiastical division of the Catholic Church spanning Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Washington civil parishes of southeastern Louisiana. It is the second to the Archdiocese of Baltimore in age among the present dioceses in the United States, having been elevated to the rank of diocese on April 25, 1793, during Spanish colonial rule.
WWL-TV is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Slidell-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL. The two stations share studios on Rampart Street in the historic French Quarter district; WWL-TV's transmitter is located on Cooper Road in Terrytown, Louisiana.
Charles Garland Robinette is a journalist in the New Orleans area. He was recently the host of "The Think Tank" on New Orleans radio station WWL (AM).
Destrehan Plantation is an antebellum mansion, in the French Colonial style, modified with Greek Revival architectural elements. It is located in southeast Louisiana, near the town of the same name, Destrehan.
The MV George Prince ferry disaster was a nautical disaster that occurred in the Mississippi River in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the morning of October 20, 1976. The Luling–Destrehan Ferry George Prince was struck by the Norwegian tanker SS Frosta, which was traveling upriver. The collision occurred at mile post 120.8 above Head of Passes, less than three-quarters of a mile from the construction site of the Luling Bridge which would replace the ferry seven years later. The ferry was crossing from Destrehan, Louisiana on the East Bank to Luling, Louisiana on the West Bank. Ninety-six passengers and crew were aboard the ferry when it was struck, and seventy-eight perished. This accident is the deadliest ferry disaster in United States history. It is also the deadliest peacetime nautical disaster involving a non-submersible vessel in U.S. waters since the explosion of the SS Grandcamp in 1947, which killed 581 people. In addition, it is the deadliest accident involving a single vessel in U.S waters since a fire on board the SS Morro Castle in 1934, which killed 137 people.
Hexing a Hurricane is a 2006 documentary film about the effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. It has been billed as the "First Katrina documentary" released by a New Orleanian. The film was directed by Jeremy Campbell and distributed by the National Film Network. The film's score was orchestrated by New Orleans artist Eric Laws.
Bernard Saverio Diliberto, Jr., a.k.a. "Buddy" and/or "Buddy D" was a sports commentator in New Orleans for over 50 years. Buddy earned a Purple Heart for sustaining shrapnel wounds in the Korean War, during which he was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes. He got his start as a sportswriter at The Times-Picayune while attending Loyola University in 1950, eventually becoming the newspaper's daily sports columnist in his last two years of his stint there. His sportscasting career began at WVUE-TV in April 1966, where he remained as its sports director/anchor until he switched to WDSU-TV in March 1981, becoming sports director/anchor at that station for 9 years. WDSU-TV had previously been dominated by sportscaster Wayne Mack in this television market.
Angus Lind is retired American journalist. He retired in July 2009 after 39 years with the Times-Picayune and the now-defunct afternoon States-Item newspaper. He began as a general assignment reporter for the States-Item in 1970 and covered the biggest local news stories of that decade, including the plane crash of U.S. Rep. Hale Boggs (D-LA) in Alaska, the Downtown Howard Johnson sniper incident, the Rault Center fire in which five women leaped to their deaths, the Upstairs Lounge fire, and the construction of the Louisiana Superdome.
State Palace Theatre is a performing arts venue located in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. It is located at the uptown lake corner of Canal Street and Rampart Street. The Saenger Theater is directly opposite the State Palace on Canal Street.
In October 2009, Keith Bardwell, a Robert, Louisiana, Justice of the Peace, refused to officiate the civil wedding of an interracial couple because of his personal views, in spite of a 1967 United States Supreme Court ruling which prohibited restrictions on interracial marriage as unconstitutional.
The UpStairs Lounge arson attack, sometimes called the UpStairs Lounge Fire, occurred on June 24, 1973, at a gay bar called the UpStairs Lounge located on the 2nd floor of the 3-story building at 604 Iberville Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States. 32 people died and 15 were injured as a result of fire or smoke inhalation. The official cause is still listed as "undetermined origin". The primary suspect, a gay man with a history of psychiatric impairment named Roger Dale Nunez who had been ejected from the bar earlier in the day, was never charged and died by suicide in November 1974.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Angela Hill is an American journalist.
Frank Joseph Davis (1942—2013) was a radio and television personality in New Orleans, Louisiana, distinguished by his tag line "Naturally N'Awlins" that concluded his on-air interviews. He served New Orleans television station WWL-TV and its radio affiliate WWL-AM, from 1974 until his health-related retirement in 2011. Davis's inaugural broadcast responsibility was a live sportsman's radio talk show, following a brief career with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. His journalistic style shifted to on-air featured stories and interviews as his subject matter expanded from fishing in southeast Louisiana to the New Orleans Mardi Gras and the cuisine of New Orleans. His outdoor sportsmen's reports tied together south Louisiana cuisine with the sport of fishing in a way that was said to be pioneering. Davis perennially covered Mardi Gras festivities for local television audiences from a St. Charles Avenue broadcast booth. His death was due to Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, a rare autoimmune disease.
Upstairs Inferno is a 2015 American documentary film written, produced, and directed by Robert L. Camina. It chronicles the events surrounding the UpStairs Lounge arson attack on June 24, 1973, in New Orleans, Louisiana and the city's response to the tragedy.