Billy Duke, as the name plate reads across the back of the jersey that the Toronto Maple Leafs gave him a few years ago, is in fact Art Hindle, a veteran Canadian actor with a resume at least as long as a hockey stick.
The Internet Movie Database lists 185 acting credits, his roles spanning television and the big screen since 1971, adding work as a producer, director, cinematographer and voice actor. At 74 he’s still working energetically, headed to Newfoundland on Monday for a week of shooting on his latest project, a TV series called “SurrealEstate.”
The Boston Bruins’ Derek Sanderson grabs Toronto Maple Leafs’ Billy Duke during a Maple Leaf Gardens scrum in a scene from “Face Off.”
In the hockey community, Hindle is best known for his portrayal of Billy Duke in the 1971 Canadian film “Face Off.”
“A young hockey player becomes an overnight star of the Toronto Maple Leafs and falls in love with a beautiful young singer. Their relationship is plagued by his ‘jock’ nature and decadent lifestyle,” reads the synopsis for the film, also known as ” Winter Comes Early.”
The young player would be Hindle’s brash rookie, Billy Duke, who arrives in Toronto after a brilliant junior career carrying a flashy skill set, a magnetic appeal to fans and a cocky attitude that would fill a duffel bag.
He falls heavily for hippie folk singer Sherri Lee Nelson, played by Trudy Young, while constantly trying the patience of no-nonsense Maple Leafs coach Fred Wares, played by the late John Vernon; the latter would become a cult-classic institution for his role as Dean Vernon Wormer in the 1978 movie “Animal House.”
Veteran actor John Vernon, playing coach Fred Wares, behind the Maple Leafs bench in a scene from “Face Off.” From left: Bobby Baun, Jim Harrison and Art Hindle.
What makes “Face Off” a true delight more than a half-century since its release is the grainy film footage of the NHL of the day, especially the game and backstage views of Maple Leaf Gardens, and the cameo appearances of Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and many more.
Footage of Hindle, wearing the no. 18 of Jim McKenny, his Maple Leafs stunt double, is cut into film of NHL games, following Duke and his Toronto teammates at the Gardens and into Montreal, Detroit, Philadelphia and California.
The film premiered in Toronto on Nov. 12, 1971, and included speaking roles for Maple Leafs captain George Armstrong and Boston Bruins forward Derek Sanderson.
Benched Maple Leafs rookie Billy Duke considers the action against the Los Angeles Kings in a scene from the movie “Face Off.”
Now on this Sunday, 51 years and a day since the premiere of “Face Off,” Billy Duke is wandering the Hall of Fame, his alter ego’s first time here since a 40th-anniversary event in 2011 to celebrate the film’s release on DVD and Blu-ray, a limited release of 40,000 copies per a licensing agreement with the NHL.
I know exactly where a Blu-ray copy of “Face Off” is displayed in the shrine, showcased among other collectibles and novelties, near the Bobby Orr pinball machine. I slowly guide Hindle, who is totally unaware, towards it deep in our visit.
Still in its factory seal, it’s under glass a few feet from a 1960s rod-hockey game, among other hockey movies.
“I used to play this, with a buddy,” Hindle says brightly of the tabletop game, the Maple Leafs facing the Canadiens. “We kept stats.”
Art Hindle is delighted, and surprised, to find a copy of his movie “Face Off” displayed at the Hockey Hall of Fame.
And then he sees “Face Off.”
“Oh, there it is, in the Hockey Hall of Fame. I made it. … I made it!” Hindle exclaims with genuine joy.
He agrees to kneel beside it for a photo, saying, “I can get down, but I don’t know if I can get back up.”
I’d become friendly with Hindle in recent years on social media, our messages usually about “Face Off.” I’m unashamedly a fan of the movie and have often told him so, the film is an iPad go-to during long flights.
Three months ago at home, I fired it up on my Blu-ray player and messaged him to tell him so. I had no idea he’d be online, and for the next 90 minutes we went back and forth in what would be an unexpected Blu-ray bonus feature, the star’s live commentary complementing the action.
Art Hindle with a replica Jean Beliveau sweater in the Hall of Fame’s mockup of the Montreal Canadiens’ Forum dressing room, and with a celebration of the career of his late friend George Armstrong. Dave Stubbs, NHL.com
Hindle was effusive in his praise of Armstrong, posing for a Sunday photo with his Hall of Fame display. Hindle had acted decades ago in a car commercial with Beliveau, so he needed a photo with the latter’s No. 4 sweaters in the shrine’s replica Canadiens dressing room.
“I don’t think I should touch it,” he said respectfully of the heavy wool replica sweater, pointing at Beliveau’s name.
And he enjoyed an exhibit of his friend Doug Gilmour, whom he recalled years ago having given Hindle’s young son, Zeke, a Maple Leafs jersey and a few dozen Gilmour hockey cards.
Hindle’s online commentary a few months ago pulled back the curtain on much of the movie, and the rich behind-the-scenes happenings.
In scenes from “Face Off,” the Maple Leafs’ Bobby Baun reads a paperback of the novel “Love Story” and Jacques Plante answers fan mail on a commercial flight to a road game.
“I did a joke outtake where I skated up to the camera and fell out of the shot,” he said. “Everyone laughed, except the director.
“I went on a road trip with the Leafs before we ever shot any dramatic scenes — Philly, Oakland, LA and the Motor City [Detroit]. While in LA, I went to an actress friend’s party and missed the morning [commercial] Flight to Detroit. Boy, were the Leafs impressed with me. They had new respect for the kid!”
Hindle related how he’d come to the role of Billy Duke. The Maple Leafs’ McKenny had been considered for it before Hindle was pursued by producer John F. Bassett Jr.
A happy Billy Duke enters his team’s Maple Leaf Gardens dressing room in a scene from the movie “Face Off.”
“I didn’t want to do it because Bassett’s previous film was [not good],” he said. “Finally, casting director Pam Barney called me and said that Bassett was going to cast American actor, Michael Blodgett, in the role if I said no again. She pleaded with me. I talked it over with my friends and we thought we couldn’t let an American play Billy.”
Hindle spoke affectionately of the cameo by Maple Leafs goalie Jacques Plante — “What a sweetheart. I wish I’d had a few scenes with him” — and of the off-ice appearances of the Maple Leafs’ Ron Ellis, seen getting a training-room rubdown; of Rick Ley, taping a stick; and of Duke getting into a dressing-room pull-apart with defenseman Jim Dorey as the team struggles through a losing streak.
Maple Leafs coach George Armstrong (right) offers some advice to rookie Billy Duke in a scene from “Face Off.”
There’s a memorable scene early in the film of Duke and Armstrong going for a beer, the latter offering the rookie some counsel over a pint. Armstrong was so into it, he even wrote a few of the lines he’d deliver to an old-timer in the tavern.
Just a few years earlier, Hindle had no clue that he’d become a fictitious NHL star.
A girlfriend was to substitute for her ailing friend as Mickey Mouse in a “Disney On Ice” intermission promotion at Maple Leaf Gardens, so he tagged along. It turned out that the performer who would play Goofy was also sick, so Hindle was crammed into the costume, then given a crash course on how Goofy acts.
“Here’s me and my date, riding around the rink on the Zamboni, waving as Mickey and Goofy while the announcer shills the event,” Hindle recalled, laughing. “That’s as close as I ever thought I’d get to being on Gardens ice.”
Billy Duke in the Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room in a scene from the movie “Face Off.”
Bassett would arrange for Hindle to skate for him at a local rink. A good athlete who says he excelled at road hockey, Hindle admits he wasn’t much of a skater. But he tore off one good lap with a snow-spraying stop for the hurried Bassett, who immediately locked up his star.
“If he’d asked me to skate backwards or do a few moves, we probably wouldn’t be talking, that’s how bad I was,” Hindle joked.
But two months of filming would precede the Gardens action sequences, so Billy Duke laced up and got to work on his skating.
“We started shooting the hockey scenes and [Maple Leafs forward] Paul Henderson, who’d seen me a couple of months earlier, pulled me aside at the rink door and whispered, ‘How did you do that?'” he recalled. “The Oakland Seals players laughed when they saw me, until Paul told them I was the goon the Leafs had called up for the next night’s game.”
Art Hindle studies the statue “At The Crease” outside the Hockey Hall of Fame gift shop in Toronto’s Brookfield Place. Dave Stubbs, NHL.com
Fifty-one years after his release, Billy Duke is overjoyed that he’s enshrined at the Hall of Fame.
Ninety minutes after his visit began, having driven 40 minutes from his home north of Toronto, Hindle heads up the exit stairs to the gift shop to collect his souvenir photo with the Stanley Cup.
He had happily mugged with the priceless trophy in the Great Hall, but he never touched it.
“That’s pretty simple,” he says, grinning. “I don’t want to curse the Maple Leafs forever!”
Top photo: Art Hindle, wearing his Billy Duke jersey, gets up close, but doesn’t touch, the Stanley Cup in the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Great Hall on Nov. 13, 2022.
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