Jennifer Aniston - Movies & Other Works - Official "Marley and Me" Thread

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'Marley & Me': Fact vs. fiction

By Liz Doup | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
9:05 AM EST, December 19, 2008

A dog barks in the background and John Grogan, at home in rural Pennsylvania, tries talking over the yelps. Grogan is describing the movie Marley & Me, which premieres Christmas Day.

The barking pup, Woodson, is a yellow Lab, one of the almost two dozen canines used in the movie based on Grogan's 2005 bestselling book about his family's lovable, loony dog, Marley.

Once filming was complete, Woodson went home with the Grogan family.

On this day, Woodson barks again and you hear Grogan's wife say, "He's got the remote." Then, firmly: "Put it down!"

Shades of Marley. All over again. And you have to wonder: Can life get any more surreal -- or ironic -- for this family?

In the '90s, Grogan was the Sun Sentinel's popular metro columnist, living in Boca Raton with his wife, Jenny Vogt, and three kids.

Flash forward: They recently were in New York City's Brill Building watching a private screening of Marley & Me starring A-listers Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston playing Grogan and his wife.

"The film is beautifully made and the ending is tender and touching," Grogan says. "But it took a while for the movie to sink in. When the lights came up, we were numb. It's an out-of-body experience to see a movie about our life."

Almost as crazy

Happily, the movie "faithfully captures the spirit of the book," Grogan says.

The book's themes are universal: a couple learns about love, life and family through their dog's antics.

But director David Frankel's film is a movie, not a documentary.

"The biggest fiction is that Jenny's character is a very successful journalist and I'm the hapless guy trying to get a job," Grogan says.

Grogan and Vogt were professional equals, not rivals, when they married in 1989. Vogt was a feature writer at The Palm Beach Post, while Grogan covered local news before his promotion to columnist.

Another difference: Clyde, the Lab trained to play the adult Marley for much of the movie. He's not Marley. He was trained to act crazy.

Grogan and Vogt saw Clyde in action when they worked as extras during the filming of a dog obedience class, a scene straight from the book. In the movie, they stand in the background, holding two mutts, while Clyde acts out of control with the trainer, played by Kathleen Turner.

"Clyde would do something nutty and everyone would look at me for my affirmation," Grogan says. "Like, 'We got Marley, didn't we?' Clyde was close, but he's three notches shy of the real Marley. He'd do wild things and calm down. Marley could not do that."

Filmed mainly in South Florida, the movie brought Grogan back to familiar territory. Camera crews focused on a Hollywood bungalow that resembled the couple's first home in West Palm Beach, before they moved to Boca. A building on Miami's Brickell Avenue served as the exterior of the Sun Sentinel's main office in Fort Lauderdale, and a park along the Miami River as the site of the dog obedience class.

For 3 1/2 days, cameras invaded the real Sun Sentinel newsroom on Las Olas Boulevard, capturing Wilson in scenes with Alan Arkin as his editor and Eric Dane as his best friend.

More irony here: For most of his dozen years at the paper, Grogan worked in the West Palm and Delray Beach bureaus, not Fort Lauderdale.

During filming, Grogan and Vogt met Wilson and Aniston, who were gracious, they say. During breaks in filming one day, Wilson even kicked a soccer ball with their youngest child, Colleen, 11.

"They were respectful and more down to earth than I expected," he says of the stars. "When no fans are around, all that celebrity stuff drips away."

Both found Wilson especially convincing as Grogan. And who'd know that better than Vogt?

"John isn't arrogant. He's self-deprecating and kinda goofy at times," she says. "Wilson captured that. Nobody could have done it better. He's a brilliant actor."

These days, Grogan is looking beyond Marley. He's on the road talking about his post-Marley book, The Longest Trip Home. It's a thoughtful, poignant memoir, punctuated with humor, that tells about growing up in Detroit in an Irish Catholic family during the '60s and '70s. It's a story, he says, that resonates with rebellious Boomers who rejected their parents' values only to understand them better as they, themselves, grew older.

For all of the Marley & Me success -- 3-plus million copies in hardcover, 23 weeks on top of The New York Times bestseller list and now on the paperback best-seller list as well -- this is the story Grogan wanted to tell.

"I believe Marley & Me was the warm-up act for this book," he says. "It was much more ambitious."

As Grogan globetrots, talking about the new book and the movie, he sees the irony of his fame.

"I write about the sweet, simple joys of family and home, but I'm not at home and I'm not with my family," he says. "I'm somewhere off in a hotel room."

He's hoping that will change next year and so does Vogt, who's ready to get her husband back.

"It's been a nonstop roller-coaster ride for me and my family," Grogan says. "I'm ready for a nice, long exhale."

Grogan and his family, including sons Patrick, 16, and Conor, 15, just moved into a renovated 1790 farmhouse on 19 acres. It's also home to their two Labs.

The Grogans got Gracie, a well-behaved Lab, after Marley died in 2003. Gracie is the "anti-Marley," Grogan says. And when they were offered a puppy from the movie's menagerie, they happily took in Woodson. They were looking for company for Gracie.

"Dogs and kids," Vogt says. "The more, the merrier."

Though Woodson is a handful, there's only one Marley. Yes, he created such havoc, but he also fueled the best-seller and the movie, too.

Liz Doup can be reached at [email protected] or 954-356-4722.