Now showing: "Recount" with OHS grad Craig Gibbs as Supreme Court Justice

by PAUL MORTON

Associate editor

Craig Gibbs never did any acting in high school or college, but the 1969 Oberlin High School graduate had the "look" the casting director wanted for the HBO movie "Recount."

"I was sitting in my office one day last October, and I got a call from someone identifying herself as the casting director for this HBO movie," Gibbs said. "She said she had seen a picture of me and thought I would be perfect to play the part of former Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw Jr. I happen to know Justice Shaw personally, so once I realized it was not a crank call I told her I would ask him, and if it was OK with him I would do it."

Gibbs graduated from Oberlin High School in 1969 and attended Case Western Reserve University. In his senior year there he decided to enter law school as a result of an experience at Eastwood Elementary School.

"Betty Martin was the principal then, and when I was in kindergarten I wrote a poem that she read to the whole school," Gibbs said. "She said I was a great writer, and I took that all through school. So in college I thought the law would be a great way to help people and to use this modicum of writing talent I had."

He graduated from Case Western Reserve University Law School in 1976, and went to work as a law clerk for the city of Cleveland law department. By 1977 he had tired of winters in Ohio and moved to Jacksonville, Fla. to work as a senior claims representative for a major insurance company.

In 1985 he joined the law firm of Gibbs, Luster & Davis, P.A. as a partner. Two years later, he set out on his own to open his own law office.

"I'd like to come back to Ohio, but as a personal injury lawyer, your clients don't come with you," he said.

Instead he has become thoroughly involved in the Jacksonville community, serving on the boards of several government and social agencies, including the Jacksonville Super Bowl Host Committee and the Jacksonville Economic Development Committee.

He said as a result of his involvement in the economic development committee he was aware HBO was filming the movie. And a friend had worked as an extra the day prior to Gibbs receiving the call from the casting director, heightening Gibbs's initial suspicion.

"Recount" offers a dramatized behind-the-scenes look at the Florida presidential vote of 2000 from Election Day to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Gore v. Bush five weeks later. It features Kevin Spacey as Ron Klain, Al Gore's former chief of staff; Ed Begley Jr. as David Boies, an appellate lawyer recruited to argue the Democratic case; and Laura Dern as Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris.

It also features Gibbs as Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw. But Spacey, Begley, and Dern have speaking parts.

"There were two justices who spoke," Gibbs said. "One was a (Screen Actors Guild) member for eight years, and the other was a SAG member for 31 years. The other five of us just sat there looking judicial."

He said his scene was shot in a Jacksonville courtroom on Sunday, Nov. 4, when it was not being used by the the court. He said they spent all day filming what turned out to be only three or four minutes in the finished movie.

"People on the outside say the legal system moves slowly," Gibbs said. "They've never had to deal with actors."

He said he enjoyed having even a small part in the movie, because it gave him an opportunity to see what went on behind the scenes in the controversial 2000 presidential election in Florida. He said he wanted to encourage everyone in Oberlin to see it to form their own conclusions about what happened.

"The intent was to give a neutral presentation," Gibbs said. "But everyone I know who has seen it said it made them angry all over again, no matter what their politics."

"Recount" is currently playing on HBO.