The Hook
By Hawes Spence
Wednesday Sep 19th, 2012
Mutual fans greet each other on the Downtown Mall. white house photo
It was a photo that shot around the blogosphere as a classic Charlottesville moment: the president of the United States greets a town’s favorite Oscar winner. And it wasn’t even planned.
Albemarle County resident Sissy Spacek attended the August 29 Barack Obama campaign rally at the nTelos Wireless Pavilion and sat down afterward in a booth to grab a bite with friends, according to a server at Positively 4th Street restaurant.
Server Riley Dulin explains that the actress, like the other diners, probably had no idea the president would make an unannounced visit to his local campaign office, located next door.
Seeing Spacek, who had dined there previously, raised few eyebrows, says Dulin. What did raise eyebrows, she says, was when the Secret Service arrived to body-scan “pretty much everyone in here.”
Shortly after 5pm the president’s limo stopped on the Downtown Mall, and the restaurant patrons, including Spacek, took note.
“She just went out there because everyone else in the restaurant went out there,” says Dulin, who later learned that the president, having recognized the other famous face in the crowd, called Spacek by name.
“It was a wonderfully serendipitous moment,” Spacek says through her publicist
