Sports Hollywood - Lansing Family

10 Questions with The Lansings

Lansings
Becky and Don Lansing pose at the Field of Dreams house with Rodney Lee Conover of SportsHollywood.
Don and Becky Lansing own and reside at the Field of Dreams Movie Site, which features house used in the film (the family residence for a hundred years), as well as most of the ballfield.

Don was a bachelor when the film was made, and the story of how he met Becky is one more incredible event that has added to the folklore of this magical place.

Both of the Lansings are direct, open, and engaging people who are intent on keeping their land a simple privately run, tribute to the film and to baseball.

Lansings
They built it and Hollywood came! The Lansing family pose on the porch at the time of the film: Bernice, Don, Mary, Betty, and Carol.
Their vision of the field remains pure: They have even purchased the land around their farm to keep out hotels and amusement parks that have been proposed to glom on to their site and destroy the land.

Don is a quiet man of great integrity. Becky is more outgoing, gregarious, and being extremely amusing, handles most of the interviews, publicity and promotion.

Both of them were kind and patient enough to sit in the bleachers of their beautiful field and answer questions from SportsHollywood. After two teams from a Baylor University fraternity took the field and sang the National Anthem to the flag in right field, our interview began:

TEN QUESTIONS

Lansings
The real "Ray and Annie" on the porch.
SportsHollywood: Are you big baseball fans?

BECKY: I remember growing up in the 60's and there was never anything else on television on a Saturday afternoon. And I would just sit with my dad. He was a big Brewers fan. Now--years later--we've got to be good friends with some of the players from the 60's who have come here. I enjoy all sports.

SportsHollywood: Are you in the film?

DON: I was in the movie a few times. But I was cut out a few times too, I'm not really an actor, I'm a farmer. (Laughs.) I haven't tried out for any new films.

BECKY: But can I tell his most famous scene? In the final scene in the movie with 1500 cars lined up to the farm, he's in the first car.

SportsHollywood: Did you spend much time with Kevin Costner and the filmmakers?

DON: Sure, I got to meet all the actors. Kevin Costner, and my favorite was James Earl Jones.

BECKY: And Burt Lancaster!

DON: I met him one day, and just shaking his hand sorta made my knees buckle.

SportsHollywood: Are you still in touch with anybody from the film?

DON: The only actor who has returned to our knowledge is Timothy Busfield. But W.P. Kinsella, who wrote the original book, loves to come here. He brings his college students in a bus!

BECKY: Yes.

SportsHollywood: How did the two of you meet?

BECKY: I came out as a tourist, and went up to Don to shake his hand and thank him for keeping the field the way it was, and when we shook hands he said "I've been waiting for you." So it definitely brings people together!

Reg-gie!
Reggie Jackson at the field.
SportsHollywood: Have their been any marriages or special events at the field?

DON: In the first few years, we had some celebrity games, a few people got married. Some people came all the way out from New York. But we had to stop--pretty soon everybody wanted to get married here.

BECKY: When there were only a few thousand coming here it was easier. But with 55,000 coming every year now it's become too difficult to accomodate so many people, so we had to stop.

SportsHollywood: Do you believe the film's message that baseball brings people together?

DON: It sure does. There were two brothers that didn't get along real well, and the father brought them out and at the end of the afternoon, these two brothers started getting along real good. And neither knew that the other was going to be there- the father planned the whole thing. There's all kinds of stories like that.

SportsHollywood: Are there two "Fields of Dreams" or one field?

DON: There are two separate visions here. There is one united field tourists can come and visit. Donnie and I own the majority of the field. What goes on in left field totally separate from what happens on our property. We have different opinions about how this property should be portrayed.

SportsHollywood: How ironic is it to you that the film's story came true -- that you built it and people came?

DON: There are about 750,000 people that have come out to the field. One was the woman who became my wife. It's really amazing.

SportsHollywood: Are you the real Ray and Annie Kinsella?

DON: No, but I have to sign a lot of baseballs. I'm not really a celebrity, but if it makes people happy...

BECKY: I did have this little girl come up to me and say, "That's Annie Kinsella. Would you sign my baseball?" I didn't want to crush this little girl's dreams, so I wrote "Annie Kinsella," then put my name underneath it. It is such a privilege to be compared to her. Annie Kinsella was a wonderful character, and I would hope that I have some of her characteristics as a human... Now, would I have let Don plow up our only source of income and build a baseball field? Not a chance! (Laughter)

	MAIN PAGE: Filming begins on a farm in Iowa, but soon the set crosses onto the neighbor's yard, and the "Field of Dreams" is owned by two different farmers.
	THE WAR: "If you build it, they will come." And they did! 750,000 of them! But which side of the field do you want to be on?