ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

In 2010, Angela Shelton was on stage speaking at a 140 Conference hosted by Jeff Pulver (co-founder VONAGE), sharing healing techniques for moving on from traumas like domestic violence and child sexual abuse and Doc Dixon was there sharing ways to begin prison reform. Angela and Doc met and became instant friends. While on a road trip later that year, Angela stopped to stay with Doc and his wife, Linda, staying up drinking wine and listening to Doc’s prison stories.

As Doc shared how he went into prison in 1978 and ran into his best friend George from reform school there and instantly struck up their bond again, Shelton was enthralled with the story of loyalty. Doc told how George had become an unbeatable boxer inside, winning every fight he ever fought. When inmates and admins would ask how he did it, he would hit his chest and say, “I got Heart, Baby!” As Shelton listened to Doc’s story of George knocking out every boxer in the ring with him, including free world champs, and then being offered a chance at the Olympics and turning it down, Shelton was riveted, especially when Doc told her the reason George turned it down.

Doc told how George had become very ill and been given a compassionate release to get out of prison to die. With tears streaming down their eyes, they toasted to the memory of George and Shelton insisted that this was a movie. Doc agreed that it would be a good movie and said that only Angela could make it.

Armed with the rights to his story, Shelton began research on the true facts, making sure she could legally write about the real people in the story. Five years later, she had raised the finances, done the research and was ready to begin.

Shelton says, “I had to make this movie. It woke me up at night, it pulled at my gut, poked at me incessantly, slapped me in the face, until I sat up in bed one morning in early 2015 with the determination that now was the time.”

Shelton had Doc come to her house and read the first draft while she stared at him. They both cried. She kept Doc on the phone after that, being sure all of prison terms and history were correct. She says she went through prison university during the writing phase, learning more than she was prepared for, which made her fall even more in love with people who lived this story.

While in pre-production, the filmmakers couldn’t find George’s death certificate for insurance purposes so they hired a private investigator to help them search deeper. They were unable to find his death certificate, they found him! He was still alive!

Prison doctors had misdiagnosed him. He is very much alive.

George and Doc were reunited just in time for filming so Shelton wrote them both parts in the movie. They play the counselor and the officer who let George out of prison. Once you know the truth behind that scene, you understand why they have tears in their eyes as they watch the actors playing them say their final goodbye.

Since boxing was an outlet that helped George stay sane on the inside, he started training young kids in his town in an effort to give them an outlet that keeps them off the streets and out of a life of crime.

Due to having a felony on his record, he cannot get a loan to start a bigger gym so he trains out of his garage. THE HAMMER Production has set up a Go-Fund-Me page that does directly to George’s bank account set up to solely to raise money for his gym.

When Doc got out of prison years after George, thinking his best friend had long passed away, he was the most surprised to discover that his best friend was alive, and it was all due to the movie they made.

Interview with George Lee Martin

When did you meet Doc?

I met Doc in 1969 at the Pikeville reform school when we were still boys. We were best friends and practically grew up together.

How did you learn to box?

I watched all boxers. Just watched and watched. In jail my sparring partner was a heavy bag cause a lot of dudes didn’t want to spar with me, they said I was hitting too hard. When I first started out, I knocked the bag out of the wall, so another bag went up. I wasn’t trying to do it but I honestly didn’t know I was hitting it that hard until I was just playing with a dude and broke his nose.

Would you say that boxing saved you in some way? In prison?

It did help me hold myself together because that’s all I did. I ran every day, I did my exercise every day. I ran 27 miles a day, a thousand jumping jacks and a thousand sit-ups. They paid me just to exercise.

Did being on set remind you of those times?

It made me think about it yes. Most of the time I wasn’t listening to what they said cause it brought back a lot of memories; it was hard. And it’s odd when a dude’s playing you, you’re sitting there looking at yourself. Gbenga is a good imitation of me though. Everybody said we could be father and son.

GEORGE’S GYM

George Lee Martin has long dreamed of building a boxing gym to help kids like him stay off the streets. We created GeorgeLeeMartin.com to help him raise the funds to achieve his dream while also benefiting his local community.

HELP GEORGE

All donations go directly to George will be used to set up his boxing gym.
The producers of Heart, Baby! cover the admin fees.

Interview with Andy “Doc” Dixon

How realistic is your story in Heart, Baby!?

Heart, Baby! covers many, many years so if we were to make it as a linear story, then we would be making a mini series. So Angela had to shrink it. All the stories in Heart, Baby! are true but in film there are some characters that actually represent two or three people. But all the stories are genuine.

Jackson Rathbone plays Doc in the film. What was it like working with him?

It was wonderful. Jackson is just really good at what he does. He’s a great professional and wants all the information he can get his hands on so that he can bring truth to the character. He asked for my advice many times throughout the shoot, to ask if he was doing ok. Truth of the matter is, he didn’t drop the ball once. He was always great. Jackson played the role perfectly and was a godsend to this project.

How do you think audiences are going to respond to this story?

I think right now, maybe positively because I think people are beginning to wake up to the completely damaged criminal justice system that we have in the U.S. They’re realizing that you can’t fix it by letting a few non-violent drug offenders go home. You’re only going to solve the problem when you look at the worst of the worst and see what you can do with them because if you can deal with them, you can work with everybody.

Doc and his wife work in the prison reform movement. Their goal is to convert prisons into healing centers.

FELONISM.com

We all knew that George would have won the gold if he had fought in the 1984 Olympics. So at our first film festival premiere we had a super surprise for him and his family - we presented him with a replicat of the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal and one of the original tokens that all attendees got! It was so magical. The whole audience stood up in tears and sang the National Anthem. I show the video when you sign up for my personal list below, so you get to see the super behind the scenes and be a part of our Heart, Baby! family.