Peter Billingsley…AKA Ralphie, says he got so sick on the set of “A Christmas Story” that he threw up and had to go lay down for 40 minutes. And he blames it on the prop master.
Remember the scene where Ralphie imagines he’s a cowboy protecting his family from “Black Bart” with his Red Ryder BB gun? Well, like any good cowboy, Ralphie is chewing tobacco in that scene.
But instead of faking it, the prop guy gave Peter actual Red Man chaw. (???) He says, quote, “I don’t know the difference, I said, ‘What do I do with this?’ He says, ‘Here, jam it down in here. Don’t swallow, just spit.'”
Peter says he was only 12 at the time, so you can guess how that turned out. He says, quote, “About 15 minutes in, the world starts tilting. I start sweating. My stomach starts hurting, and I start throwing up . . .
“So we shut down, I go and lay on the couch in the living room of the set for about 40 minutes until I can get the stuff out of my system.”
When shooting resumed, they squished together a bunch of raisins and stuck them in his mouth instead.
