Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 25

Editor: Carole Currie 232-5832 ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES Limelight D2 Weddings D6 4toGoD3 LE IFESTY Sunday Jan. 18, 1998 Almost everyone in Asheville knew The mysterious of the well-dressed stranger ff: By Paul Clark STAFF WRITER The Duke was such a work of art, so expertly embalmed, that the funeral directors wanted to show him off. Might as well, since no one came to claim the body. The consumptive Charles Asquith, 54, gave all the appearances of royalty he claimed when he came to Asheville in the summer of 1902. He had beautiful clothes, a private doctor and rooms in an exclusive boarding house in Montford.

He also had a past, old Asheville Citizen clippings indicate, of charming people out of money. And after he died, his body certainly had no takers for eight years eight years the old Noland-Brown uneral Home on Church Street used to display their handiwork, the product of the fashion-able-once-again art of embalming. The Duke was the talk of the town. "Back in those days, the main thing they wanted people to understand, if you embalmed a body, you could keep it from now on," William Noland of Asheville said. "Just for the novelty, they dressed him up for whatever time of day.

They wouldn't do it all the time." Noland's grandfather was Massenie C. Noland, who was the director of Noland-Brown Funeral home. William Noland remembers hearing I jffv I his grandfather talking about the Duke, the name used by the hundreds of people who visited his glass-covered coffin at the funeral home. "He lived like a wealthy man, although he depended on his wife or his lady friends to supply the money," Noland said. "When he died, he didn't have anything at sA-f Paul Clark, The Duke was a great advertisement for Noland-Brown, William Noland said.

People sought out the funeral home to view him. Sometimes, Noland-Brown rode him around in a carriage, all dressed up. Anything but his name. His name was Sidney Las-celles, according to a death certificate on file with the Buncombe County Register of Deeds. Lascelles arrived at the Biltmore station in Asheville inOctober 1902 on the train from Norfolk, according to clippings of the time from the Asheville Citizen, as the ii news repuuer with the 1 Citizen-Times 1 since 1984, I has moved to the Features 1 Department.

I Clark has been I 'i thenewspa- I I per's municipal I affairs reporter I since 1991. He sk lives in i Weaverville I with his 10- I year-old I daughter, I Kathryn Clark. To reach him in Features, call I 232-5854. Citizen-Times forerunner was known. Asquith the name he traveled under was "in the last stages of tuberculosis," according to clippings of the time.

With a nurse and doctor in attendance, he and his trunks of fine clothes were carted off to well-appointed rooms in Montford. Three weeks later, on Nov. 10, 1902, he died. "Asquith's career, which ended here in the luxury that his frauds had provided for him during his life, was as strange and mysterious as any from a Hugo novel," the Citizen reported May 20, 1910. "He made a specialty of marriage whenever it suit ed his plans to acquire money, and his cavalier and elegant manners made it easy for him to impose on women." He bought "the best of everything" while in Asheville, but when his "alleged rich connections" were contacted after See Mystery on page 09 MARTHA STROUDCrnZEN-TIMES earning umir Best thing about Titanic' was watching the credits roll I k' 1 rs top of a dresser), "The Fugitive" (Harrison Ford was the only actor who took her breath away), "Nell," "Something to Talk About," "Last Dance," "A Time to Kill," "The Chamber," "My Fellow Americans," and other films including "In Dreams," shot See Titanic on page D3 her for the next gig managing extras on the set of Walt Disney's "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken," a beautiful story filmed in South Carolina.

From that picture onward, her film credits are pure A-list, including "Sommersby" (photos of Bobak and Jodie Foster are on Susan Reinhardt COLUMNIST been a month since "Titanic" was released, but Kathleen Bt's "Bo" Bobak still can't get 1 i She has a laugh that can mimic Phyllis Diller's and even won second place in a Phyllis Diller laugh-alike contest. "Phyllis won first," she says. "Want to hear me do it?" And though she's partied with big stars, once even beating Tommy Lee Jones and Sharon Stone at pool, she's not into the glamour, preferring to hang out with her extras, sometimes even living in then-homes while on a movie set. BEFORE THE BIG ROLE: Bobak was a child of the U.S., living all over and never really claiming a hometown until she found Asheville nine years ago and bought her first house in the suburbs where she lives with her two dogs. Before coming here she earned a degree in film and broadcasting at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and worked out West in television production.

Her TV credits include "Christy," in which she was a production assistant. She was also Tyne Daly's stunt double, doing horseback tricks despite her twice-broken neck. "It's amazing how much I look like her," says Bobak, a blonde who can go from one look to another as quickly as an actress. Not long after moving to Asheville, a place she wouldn't trade for any city in the world, Bobak got her first movie job. "It was a very bad B-horror movie starring Phyllis Diller who turned into a 10-foot ghoul." The movie, filmed in this area, was a hoot to work on but didn't quite prepare She still can't believe it happened to her.

A series of tragedies, including two broken necks, had marked her life, and finally, being hired as a second assistant director on the set of "Titanic" meant her world had taken a new turn. She was even able to get into the Director's Guild of America. Bobak is the kind of woman a director dreams about when recruiting help to "wrangle extras," the grueling, physically exhausting job of managing, mothering, and instructing as many as a thousand people in non-speaking, background roles in movies. Her role in "Titanic" was to oversee ALL the extras, a job she says she was meant to do. "Extras tell me, 'Bo, you give me so I say, 'Oh my God, I'm a They give me much hugs, strength of character.

They have the most amazing stories." Bobak certainly has the characteristics to get people moving. She is loud but loving. Her voice is that of a cheerleading commander who's led one too many squads. It's as if her poor throat can't accommodate all the energy that washes up from within, far more than a single voice was built to handle. Bobak is a woman literally vibrating with life, jumping up and down from her kitchen table as she tells the story of her work in( movies, as she shows guests the antique! toys she collects, the lamp shades she custom designs.

mar over what she saw on that huge screen. And I don't mean the drama, the action, the exquisite attention to detail director James Cameron mastered in recreating the ship as it was that fateful April night in 1912. Bobak's glorious moment came after the last emotional scene, shortly after the screen went as black as the luxury liner itself as it sank to the bottom of the ocean floor. She waited with her heart beating as if she'd just run 10 miles. And then it rolled.

Her name in letters large enough to dress windows. How many Asheville women who work in movies get a solo film credit on what Bobak calls the biggest motion picture ever made? i PHOTO COURTESY OF KATHLEEN BOBAK Bo Bobak, of Asheville, shared her photos from the set of "Titanic." The ship built by movie crews was almost as large as the actual ocean liner. This is a shot as the Titanic begins to sink. TOIviORROW: WEDNESDAY: Super bowl snacking favorites.