Source: South Devon Herald Express
TORBAY will enjoy far-reaching financial benefits when Brad Pitt's new film hits the silver screen.
The Hollywood heartthrob hit the headlines this week when he was photographed sporting a straggly beard in preparation for his role as Torquay explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett.
Pitt's desire to make the film was announced by the Herald Express two years ago, and the actor has subsequently spoken on many occasions of his admiration for Fawcett.
Fawcett first came to prominence in Victorian society for his acts of derring-do while with the British secret service in North Africa.
But it was his expedition to the Amazon in 1925, searching for the lost city he called Z, for which he is remembered — having vanished, never to be seen again.
Details about Fawcett's amazing life form the centre piece of the Explorers' Gallery in Torquay Museum, and curator Barry Chandler believes the film will have a positive effect on the Bay.
He said: "We're absolutely delighted that Brad Pitt's long-awaited film of Colonel Percy Fawcett's search for the legendary lost city of 'Z' will shortly be coming to our screens.
"Colonel Fawcett was one of Torquay's most dynamic and colourful characters, an explorer whose determination and courage was quite extraordinary.
"He was one of an unusually high-proportion of explorers with Torquay connections, and was one of the inspirations for Torquay Museum's new Explorers Gallery, which traces the incredible journeys made by Torquay's famous explorers, from the frozen wastes of the Antarctic to the depths of the Brazilian rainforest.
"This new Colonel Fawcett film is great news for Torbay and Torquay Museum, and it will, hopefully, encourage more visitors, British and international, to the English Riviera."
For decades, explorers and scientists have tried to find evidence of Fawcett's lost city of Z, and author David Grann was inspired to write a book about the subject.
Brad Pitt read the book and was so fascinated by it, his Plan B production company and Paramount Pictures bought the rights for a movie.
No release date has yet been given for the film, but it is currently in production and could be released later this year or early 2011.
Colonel Fawcett and the stories surrounding the lost city of Z inspired his novelist friend Arthur Conan Doyle.
Doyle, a regular visitor to South Devon who based The Hound of the Baskervilles on Dartmoor, used Fawcett's adventures as the basis for a bestseller, The Lost World.
Fawcett is also believed to have been an inspiration for Indiana Jones.
