Imagine being abandoned at six months old, then being bounced around between your dad, your grandparents, and children’s protective services only to find yourself a runaway living on the streets at age 14. Thankfully, her grandparents were finally able to have her live with them. With their support and encouragement, Robin Hayes overcame her past adversities to become a Registered Emergency Room and Flight Nurse. She now works as a high-acuity home care nurse. More than that she is also an Emmy-nominated film producer, screenwriter, and actor. Extraordinary accomplishments for someone whose life could have turned out much differently.
Hayes began stage acting at the Fallon House Theatre in Columbia, California when she was 5 years old. By the time she was 12, she was cast as an extra in a Larry Wilcox film. “The film bug hit me at that time, just being there and being involved in the process, I knew that’s what I wanted to do for a career.” Her grandparents encouraged her to find a profession that would pay well, and be a good backup to support her acting “hobby.” While training to be a paramedic, she realized she was a “trauma junkie,” and got involved with a Search and Rescue team. She also continued acting part-time at the Fallon House Theatre. When she moved to San Diego, California, she became a Trauma Nurse and continued auditioning for acting parts.
However, she quickly found that she wasn’t the only young and pretty lady with blond hair and blue eyes looking for acting roles. “I would go into an audition and there would be 30 people there that looked and acted just like me. It was a bit disturbing. I only landed one audition at that time. It was for a commercial, and when I walked in, I saw that I didn’t look anything like anyone else on set. It was for South Korea, so I asked why they wanted a tall blonde. They said ‘Oh no, you have the wrong face. That’s not what we hired.’ That was awkward.”
Hayes got married and had 4 children, a son, and three daughters. The family moved to Nevada, but shortly thereafter, she found herself divorced and with the little ones to care for and she continued working as a nurse to support her family. While working in the Carson Tahoe Hospital Emergency Department, she met Carson City Sheriff’s Deputy Virgil Hammond III who was guarding a prisoner there. He told her he and his wife were also originally from the Hollywood area, and they were filmmakers. “His prisoner was my patient, so we had some time to chat. He said he and his wife owned the Black Forest Company, a production company. I said I was an actor, and also trying to be a producer. We soon started working on projects together, including “The Down Boys: It Could Happen To You” in which I was one of the writers and an actor. Her stage name is Robin Adair. Because the show was nominated for an Emmy, we got to network with some of the bigwigs in California, like Clint Eastwood. Suddenly, I was a novelty, Robin from Northern Nevada.”
Hayes started getting calls from Walt Disney, Phil Abrams, and Lou Diamond Phillips. She worked on the 2003 movie, “The Cooler” with William H. Macy, Maria Bello, and Alec Baldwin. By this time, Hayes had formed Nevadaland Productions. She had a host of local contacts in many aspects of the movie production business, including area actors, caterers, hair and make-up, set design, props, and signage. She became certified to do special effects. Out-of-town production companies began hiring her company to coordinate all of those services for films being made here, rather than scout out those services themselves. “I would just bring everybody on set, and that saved them time and money.”
Hayes put herself through film school to become a producer and director of cinematography. She said, “I don’t aspire to be a director. I’m an actor-producer. Being director is all the same, and all the blame. If the show is good, they get all of the credit. But if it tanks, down goes the ship.” For her, producing is like project management. She gets to manage all of the moving parts, while the director has to be concerned with how it will look on film.
Hayes is still friends with Hammond and co-produces projects with him sometimes. She had the desire to produce a feature-length film and started hunting in the western genre for scripts. Not finding what she was looking for she decided to write the script herself. “I don’t know where the name “Crazy Woman Creek” came from, it just popped in my head one day.” Her son Shane went to the same film school Hayes attended, and is now her editor, computer expert, and co-producer. Her daughter, Storey, is the artistic lead handling props, signage, and costume design. Her oldest daughter is an ER Nurse in North Carolina whose twin sister passed away.
“Crazy Woman Creek” is Hayes’s new production in which she also plays the lead role, opposite co-star, and director John Marrs. The film, set in the 1800s in a fictional Nevada town, is about an abused woman whose husband abandons her in the desert, telling her to walk home. She’s got some grit and decides to walk in the opposite direction. Eventually, she gets lost and with no provisions, lies down to d ie. She’s discovered by a crazy woman and her goat who are none too keen about having this lost woman follow them home. It’s a story of rejection, redemption, hope, and encouragement, and given Hayes’ background, it is easy to see where her passion for these elements comes from. Most of the filming was done in Virginia City, Nevada, and a few other local desert locations.
There were more challenges for Hayes during production. The movie was filmed two years prior, and as they were pulling together the first cut, their editing system was hacked. The hackers took remote control of her computer and exported the film. “We were about 10 minutes from being done. They exported the entire film and installed malware so that I couldn’t continue. The next day, I got an email saying they had hijacked my film, and if I wanted it back, I had to pay them a bunch of money. We told them to kick rocks.” Hayes and her team tried to recover what footage they could but had to scrap the entire computer system and buy all new equipment. Hayes brought the footage she had left to KTVN TV in Reno where a technician told her it was encrypted and irrecoverable. “My heart just sank. But once we got the new system up and running, we were able to reload most of the digital data from the chips in my cameras. It’s taken us a couple of years to piece it back together. There are some glitches, and we lost some key footage important to the storyline. But we managed to put together a two-hour Hallmark type of movie.” Hayes said the music for the movie was given to her by Lacy J. Dalton from her “Wild Horse Crossing” album. Hayes was a backup singer for Dalton on the album.
“Crazy Woman Creek” has been invited to enter the Santa Fe Film Festival, and Hayes is also hoping to enter the movie into the Sundance Film Festival. The film cannot be shown as a premier release if it’s to be considered for entry at Sundance.
The film includes a tribute to Virginia City’s Doc Durden who passed away less than a year ago, as he was instrumental in helping many local filmmakers, including Hayes get their start in the industry and allowed them to use his movie set. He also had about nine projects in the works when he passed, and now Hayes is getting calls to help with some of those. Durden has an acting part in the movie, and some of his movie set was also used.
Hayes’ private life includes foster children and two grandchildren. She’s just an extraordinary person, and when asked if she could be any busier, she replied, “Well, I’m sure I could fit something in. I keep myself busy. My grandparents always taught me that you get one spin around the earth, so make the most of it.” It would appear she is doing exactly that.
A private screening of “Crazy Woman Creek” will be held at the Silverland Hotel in Virginia City on April 7 at 7 p.m., with a $10 donation at the door to defray the cost of the viewing room and equipment. A second showing, a special Sunday matinee, will be held at the Fallon Theatre on Maine Street on April 16 at 1 p.m.
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