Stony Brook, NY - January 5, 2017 - Considered one of the greatest untold stories in Olympic swimming history, The Last Gold screens at Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University on Friday, January 27 at 7:00 pm. For this showing of The Last Gold, Marcia Morey, who was captain of the 1976 Olympic women’s swim team, along with the documentary’s director and 15-time Emmy winner, Brian T. Brown, will answer questions following the film. Other members of the ’76 swim team may attend.
Produced by USA Swimming, The Last Gold details the remarkable efforts of the women’s 1976 U.S. Olympic swim team as it competed against the systematically doped East Germans at the Montreal Games. After an entire competition of disappointing results and facing critical media that added even more pressure, the U.S. women’s 4×100 meter freestyle relay team of Kim Peyton, Wendy Boglioli, Jill Sterkel and Shirley Babashoff rallied together for a final relay.
This film documents an incredible story that many people outside the swimming community may not know,” noted Chuck Wielgus, Executive Director of USA Swimming and Executive Producer of the film in an article in Swimming World. (July 28, 2016) “This topic is as relevant today as it was 40 year ago and the NBCSN broadcast honor[ed] those athletes from the 1976 Olympic team who kept their focus and believed that anything was possible.”
Alan Inkles, director of Staller Center for the Arts, notes, “With The Last Gold, we are thrilled to have the bonus of filmmakers and athletes coming to Staller Center to represent the film and answer questions. Our fall and spring semester film series continues to be a campus and community draw, since select films that may have not have made it to local theatres or had short runs are in the mix. The series is also very affordable. A film pass for ten films in our series is only $30. We screen films on five Friday nights from January to April.”
Tickets to single films are $10 general admission; $7 for students, seniors and children; and $5 for Stony Brook students online or by calling the box office at (631) 632-ARTS [2787].
The feature-length documentary previously aired on the NBC Sports Network in August 2016. The Last Gold premiered during the 2016 LA Film Festival as one of only 12 documentary films chosen from over 4,000 submissions. The film is narrated by Julianna Margulies, the Emmy award-winning actress of the NBC medical drama ER.
