Long Beach highlighted during film tour

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano joined more than 25 film producers and location managers on a film tour last week in an effort to draw movie industry jobs to the county, including Long Beach.

The Film Friendly Nassau County Location and Studio tour, a two-day event that took place on Dec. 14 and 15, showcased numerous locations throughout the county to major film studios, including the Allegria Hotel.

“Filmmakers are always looking for the perfect location. They will find what they are looking for right here in Nassau County,” Mangano said in a statement.

Sponsored by the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency, the tour visited the Sands Point Preserve, Old Bethpage Village Restoration, and the Nassau County Correctional Center, all of which have been used in the past as locations for film and television productions.

Other stops included tours of Gold Coast Studios and Grumman Studios, both in Bethpage, as well as the Allegria Hotel and Spa.

Ingrid Dodd, entertainment sales manager for the Allegria, developed the idea to have the two-day film tour with Debra Markowitz, director of the Nassau County Film Commission, along with Mary Dolan-Grippo, chief marketing director of the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency.

Dodd said attendees had the opportunity to stay at the Allegria and were given a tour of the hotel.

“The attendees were blown away,” said Dodd, who explained that the hotel’s rooftop was a major attraction. She added that she recently received filming inquiries from producers, and was contacted by a location manager of the TV show “Gossip Girl.”

Long Beach has long held an appeal to filmmakers, said Long Beach historian Roberta Fiore, a member of the Long Beach Historical and Preservation Society. Fiore said that the city has been featured in famous films directed by some of the most renowned filmmakers.

“Scenes of films have been shot here in Long Beach since 1910,” Fiore said. “Long Beach was really known for its interesting film locations. Here, you [had] a location, a background shot, and you didn’t have to create a set.”

Fiore said that Long Beach, because of its location by the water, has always been a popular location for filming, particularly along the boardwalk, and said that scenes for silent films were shot in the city between 1910-1930.

Fiore said that Betty Boop creator Max Fleischer lived and worked in Long Beach in the 1930s, and that famous directors including Sidney Lumet and Woody Allen have also filmed movies here. Lumet, who directed Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon,” once lived in Long Beach and shot scenes for his 1959 film “That Kind of Woman,” which starred Sophia Loren, while Allen shot scenes for his 1983 film “Zelig” in parts of the city.

Fiore added that famous director D.W. Griffith, who lived in Lynbrook, filmed smaller-scale short films in Long Beach in 1910 before his 1915 film “Birth of a Nation.”

Mangano, who recently approved television shoots for shows such as “Royal Pains,” “Running Wilde” and “Comedy Central” at the Theodore Roosevelt Legislative and Executive Building in Mineola, said that the motion picture industry is a job creator, and stressed the importance of jobs for those in Nassau County.

“If we are putting people to work we are doing the right thing for the people of Nassau County,” said Mangano. “Every time a film project calls Nassau County home, revenue is generated.”

Dodd emphasized that Nassau County — and Long Beach in particular — still holds a tremendous appeal for entertainment productions.

“I think that Nassau County, especially the beaches, are so gorgeous,” said Dodd. “This film tour brought so much awareness to those beaches and to locations in Nassau County.”