The movie was adapted by Robert Gittler from the biography of Holly by John Goldrosen. It was directed by Steve Rash.
It won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Busey) and Best Sound (Joel Fein).
Plot
The film opens with Buddy Holly's beginnings as a teenager in Lubbock, Texas
and his emergence into the world of rock and roll with his fictional good
friends and bandmates, drummer Jesse Charles (Don Stroud) and bass player
Ray Bob Simmons (Charles Martin Smith), soon to be known as The Crickets.
Their first break comes when they are brought to Nashville, Tennessee to record,
but Buddy's vision soon clashes with the producers' rigid ideas of how the
music should sound and he walks out. Eventually, he finds a more flexible
producer, Ross Turner (Conrad Janis), who, after listening to their audition,
very reluctantly allows Buddy and the Crickets to make music the way he wants.
While there, he meets Turner's secretary, Maria Elena Santiago (Maria Richwine). His budding romance with her nearly ends before it can begin, when her aunt initially refuses to let her date him, but Buddy persuades her to change her mind. On their very first date, Maria accepts his marriage proposal and they are soon wed.
A humorous episode results from a misunderstanding in one of their early bookings. Sol Gittler (Dick O'Neill) signs them up sight-unseen for the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, assuming from their music that they're a black band. When three white Texans show up instead, he is stunned, but unwilling to pay them for doing nothing, he nervously lets them perform and prays fervently that the all-black audience doesn't riot at the sight of the first all-white band to play there. (In real life, that distinction belongs to Jimmy Cavallo and The House Rockers, who played at that venue in 1956.) After an uncomfortable start and an initially hostile crowd, Buddy's songs soon win them over and the Crickets are a tremendous hit. Gitler books them to come back several times.
After two years, Ray Bob and Jesse decide to break up the band, feeling overshadowed by Buddy and not wanting to relocate to New York City. Initially, he is saddened by their departure, but he soldiers on. When Maria announces that she is pregnant, Buddy is delighted.
On
February 2, 1959, preparing for a concert at Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly decides
to charter a private plane to fly to Moorhead, Minnesota for his next big
concert. The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens (who is reluctant to fly, but wins
a coin toss with Tommy Allsup for the last seat) join him on the flight. Meanwhile,
the Crickets, feeling nostalgic, appear unexpectedly at Maria's door, expressing
their desire to reunite the band. They trace Buddy's next tour stop at Minnesota,
and they plan to surprise him there. After playing his final song, "Not
Fade Away," Holly bids the crowd farewell with "Thank you Clearlake!
We love you. C'mon....we'll see you next year". A caption at the end
reveals the deaths of Holly, Valens, and the Bopper in a plane crash that
night and dedicates the film to his family and friends ("the people who
loved him first").
