Rusty Sailing, Now Ghost At Hippodrome

Rusty Salling Becomes the Newest Ghost of the Hippodrome


One day as I was thumbing through the Gainesville Sun, I ran across an article titled, "Theater community remembers beloved actor". With a sinking feeling in my chest, I saw a picture of Rusty Salling below it, and I started to recall the cold day in December I spent with my family at the Hippodrome Theater in Gainesville watching Rusty act out the part of Ebenezer Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol. Rusty was such a good actor that he carried you away with the scene and you forgot it was just a play. But at that time, he had been playing the main role in the play for 20 years...and had spent 17 before that playing various male roles in the play. Rusty was a character not easy to forget, his acting was flawless and he showed how much he cared about his audience by starting a talk-back session at the end of each performance. Rusty brought so much joy to his patrons he became the icon of the Hippodrome and the face of each holiday season for the theater.

Actors who portrayed the children in this play grew up and returned back to their hometowns all over the United States and then returned to see the play with their children so they too could experience the magic of Rusty as Ebenezer Scrooge. And his performance was considered to be one of the very best at the Hippodrome.

Rusty was born in Wilmington, North Carolina on October 17, 1948. He moved to Jacksonville, Florida as a teen, and then enrolled at the University of Florida as an English major. But Rusty soon discovered he had a passion for the stage and began working at the Hippodrome. It was then he met his best and lifelong friend Dan Jesse who was directing a play he decided to cast Rusty in. After college, Rusty and Dan formed a theater production called Bacchus Productions and they began playing all across the country a production called "Waiting for Godot". They even performed at 12 Florida prisons, and finally settled in a brownstone in Manhattan for about 3 years. Then realizing their best work had been done at the Hippodrome, they returned to make Gainesville their permanent home.

Rusty was so devoted to the Hipp that he ended up working in every department of the theater. He ran the box office for years, and then when the need arose he took courses in computers so he could become the theater's information systems director. Rusty was kind to everyone and carefully trained those under him to work in the computer department, too. In fact, he worked so hard at times, they had to force him to take time off from the theater.

Rusty also authored and started and was the guide for the Hippodrome's legendary ghost tour, about a ghost named Lucinda Born. I wonder if he and Lucinda are now haunting the theater together. His ghost is certainly apparent to all who work there.

Rusty is now survived by his sister, Susan Pfahler, her husband Randall Pfahler, and his nephew Cameron Pfahler, of Neptune Beach. And his beloved step-dad, Leon Clark of Jacksonville. A celebration of Rusty's life is planned for later this summer at the theater.