Eugene Walter: Last of the Bohemians  documents the life and career of a writer, poet, actor, artist and raconteur whose work celebrates the art of living and personifies the culture of the coastal South. Living in Paris and Rome, Walter (1921-1998) lent his unique personality and wide-ranging talent to a number of different endeavors, many of them at the heart of the postwar artistic renaissance in Europe -- winning numerous awards for his poetry and fiction, helping start the Paris Review, working with and acting in the films of Federico Fellini and other Italian directors, editing the polylingual literary magazine Botteghe Oscure and meeting and entertaining many of the most famous writers and cultural figures of his time.
             From his beginnings in Mobile, Alabama, Walter was blessed with survival skills that enabled him to live the bohemian life, dedicating himself to artistic pursuits without visible means of support. He ran away from home literally as soon as he was able to walk, moving in with his grandmother, then receiving shelter from Mobilians who recognized his talent and his brilliance. He lived for a time in a warehouse, then in the back of the city's famed Haunted Book Shop, then as the ward of local theater patron Hammond Gayfer. Walter would later be honored by his native city as an artistic 'Renaissance Man' for his achievements in so many creative endeavors.
             But Walter's return to Mobile in 1978 after almost three decades in New York and Europe was not the triumph he had hoped for. Many people disbelieved his stories of meeting and entertaining William Faulkner, Anais Nin, Judy Garland, Leontyne Price and Gore Vidal, among many, many others. Like Truman Capote -- who Eugene also claimed to know -- Walter was prone to embellish his stories, using his wit and charm to ingratiate himself with his audience. And Eugene needed his audience. He had come back from Europe dead broke. Once again he relied on the kindness of Mobilians. And in this city which was the birthplace of Mardi Gras, 'sweet lunacy's county seat', he called it, Eugene Walter once again found generosity and a cultural scene grateful for the infusion of energy he provided.
             Eugene Walter was one of the last of an increasingly rare breed -- the freelance, wandering poet, living day to day in pursuit of art, truth and beauty. Paris and Rome are no longer the inexpensive cities they were in the aftermath of World War II, where artists and writers could survive on a few dollars a week. Most writers and poets today have an academic affiliation, or else a full time job with little time left to write, to dream and to live in the fantasy world that Eugene Walter inhabited every single day, to the delight of most everyone he met.

           To be completed in the summer of 2007, the film has been funded in part by a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the Sybil Smith Charitable Trust, A.S. Mitchell Foundation, M.W. Smith Foundation, Malbis Memorial Foundation and Ben May Foundation.