Jekyll Island has inspired many artists to create literature, music and film. Some of which has been filmed here for its beauty. Following is a brief listing of media featuring Jekyll Island. If there is a link in its title or description, you can click on it and buy it!
Movies
Movies filmed on Jekyll Island.
The View From Pompey's Head
1955 – Richard Egan, Dana Wynter. Beach scenes show Fort Frederica visible across the water.
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Glory
1989 - Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes. Glory Boardwalk on Jekyll Island was the site of the filming.
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Camilla
1993 – Jessica Tandy and Bridget Fonda.
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Jekyll Island
1998 – The film features the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, Jekyll Island Club Wharf, Summer Waves, and Clam Creek.
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The Legend of Bagger Vance
1999 – Robert Redford, Charlize Theron, Will Smith, Matt Damon. Set locations included the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and the Jekyll Island Club Stables.
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Books
Books about Jekyll Island.
The Jekyll Island Club
Author: Bagwell, Tyler E. and The Jekyll Island Museum
Year: 1998
Publisher: Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing
Jekyll Island: A State Park
Author: Bagwell, Tyler E.
Year: 2001
Publisher: Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing
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It is a Wonderfully Lovely Place: Jekyll Island as Seen through Kate Brown's Fresh Eyes, The Letters of Kate Brown
Author: Bahlinger, Nanette
Year: 1992
Publisher: Jekyll Island, GA: The Jekyll Island Museum
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The Wanderer: The Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy that Set Its Sails
Author: Calonius, Erik
Year: 2008
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
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Golf-Lover's Guide to Jekyll Island: The Must-Have Golf Guide, Jekyll Island's Early Golf History to Current Course Tips from the Pros
Author: Fleuren, Ed and Bauman, Steve
Year: 2005
Publisher: Jekyll Island, GA: Seascape Press
Their Gilded Cage: The Jekyll Island Club Members
Author: Hutto, Richard Jay
Year: 2006
Publisher: Macon, GA: Henchard Press Ltd.
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Seas of Gold, Seas of Cotton: Christophe Poulain DuBignon of Jekyll Island
Author: Keber, Martha L.
Year: 2002
Publisher: Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press
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The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony
Author: McCash, June Hall
Year: 1998
Publisher: Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press
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The Jekyll Island Club: Southern Haven for America's Millionaires
Author: McCash, William Barton and McCash, June Hall
Year: 1989
Publisher: Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press
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The Simple Life: The Memoirs of Susan Albright Reed at the Jekyl Island Club, 1913-1918
Author: Teall, Martha L., ed.
Year: 1996
Publisher: Jekyll Island, GA: The Jekyll Island Museum
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Music: Present Day
Bill Monroe
Bill Monroe has been called the "Father of Bluegrass." Bluegrass music got its name from Bill Monroe's Band, The Blue Grass Boys. Monroe’s instrumental song "Jekyll Island" was recorded by MCA in Nashville on March 17, 1986. It was on Monroe's album, Bluegrass '87. It is also on Disk 3 of the boxed set My Last Days on Earth 1981-1994.
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Reba McEntire: I'd Rather Ride Around With You
1996 - Reba McEntrie's music video for "I'd Rather Ride Around With You" from the album What If It’s You features the historic Faith Chapel and Cherokee Cottage. This song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks Chart. The Album also climbed to #2 on the Billboard Top Country Albums. Recorded by MCA Nashville.
Reba McEntire: What If It's You
1996 - Reba McEntrie's music video for "What If It’s You" from the album What If It’s You was shot on Jekyll Island in 1997. The song was considered a sequel to "I'd Rather Ride Around With You." "What If It's You" reached #15 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks Chart. The Album reached #2 on the Billboard Top Country Albums.
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Patty Loveless: The Trouble with the Truth
1997 - The music video for the country single "The Trouble with the Truth," was filmed March 17, 1997 on Jekyll Island. It was included on Patty Loveless's third album with Epic Records, her 8th album overall, also entitled The Trouble With the Truth (1996). The song reached #15 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart the week of July 12, 1997.
Alison Krauss & Union Station: Find My Way Back to My Heart
1997 - "Find My Way Back to My Heart," a song from the album So Long So Wrong, was produced by Rounder Records. The music video was filmed in Dubignon Cottage on Jekyll Island. So Long, So Wrong won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 1998.
Billy Ray Cyrus: You Won't Be Lonely Now
2000 - The ballad "You Won't Be Lonely Now" is from the album Southern Rain, produced by Monument Records. Filming for the music video took place on Driftwood Beach and at Hollybourne Cottage on Jekyll Island. The song reached number 20 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks Chart.
Sherrié Austin: Driving Into the Sun
2003 - Austin shot the music video for "Driving Into the Sun" from her album Streets of Heaven on Jekyll Island in 2004. The video features Driftwood Beach, Mistletoe Cottage, and Horton House.
Music: Club Era
Mrs. A.A. Prestone
A Brunswick resident, Laura Fitzhugh-Prestone, composed a piano score known as the "Jekyll Island Club Waltz" in 1898. Club Superintendent Ernest Grob assured her of the quality of the song and advised her to dedicate it to Charles Lanier, "our President of the Club (as that would assure it a good sale) he being a very popular man in N.Y. Society."
Marian Maurice
In correspondence with her Grandmother, Marian Maurice described an oyster roast on the beach in 1898. "After lunch we danced a Virginia Reel in which all, old and young, took part, one of the gentlemen being 89 years old, others of them children only 8. It was very jolly." Fiddle music for the event was provided by African American employees of the Jekyll Island Club.
Marshall Rutgers Kernochan
A composer and the founder and president of the Galaxy Music Corporation, was a Jekyll Island Club Member from 1926-1934. Songs included "A Song of Ylen," "We Two Together," "Give a Rouse," "Smuggler's Song" (Words by Kipling), and "Round Us the Wild Creatures," "Portrait," "Pray But One Prayer For Me," (1917 – Words by William Morris), "And this Shall Make Us Free" (1933).
Henry Walters
An associate member of the Jekyll Island Club from 1901-1931, Walters owned an original manuscript of "The Star Spangled Banner."
Dr. Gustav Kabl
In 1903, The Metronome published an account by Dr. Gustav Kabl from New York City, who first experienced Ragtime music on Jekyll Island. His account first appeared in a highly regarded German musical periodical of the day, "Die Musik" and was translated for The Metronome. Kabl wrote "It was during a visit to the little island called Jekyl, on the coast of Georgia, somewhat of an American Riviera, that I first became acquainted with the ill-famed Rag-time rhythm of American Folkmusic." The occasion was a masquerade ball arranged by the servants of the Club and the cottage owners. Club Members and their families had been invited to attend. Kabl found the music bewildering at first. "It seemed incredible to me for quite a while, how any person could dance a single step to such an irregular and noisy conglomeration of sounds; and it was even more difficult for me to understand how such complicated and to me unmusical noise was brought about. Singularly enough, when looking over the musicians, I found that there were only two men, who managed to produce all this noise." One of the Club's African American employees, seated at a Grand Piano "belabored the keys in sixteenths with such ease, and dexterity as many a pianist could wish for his wrists."; Another musician supported his rhythms with a Double Bass, creating bass notes "with vivacious and grunting strokes from his bow." Kabl's body suddenly developed an overwhelming urge to move on its own and threatened to pull him from his seat. "The rhythm of the music, which had seemed so unnatural at first, was beginning to exert it influence over me... Naturally the company I was in – a bejeweled daughter of a millionaire to either side of me - together with my own determination finally aided me in gaining a victory over these anarchistic desires of my feet. But the effect remained." In the end he concluded that ragtime music "imparts somewhat of a rhythmic compulsion to the body which is nothing short of irresistible."
Eric Wylie
A waiter and Captain of the Jekyll Island Club remembered that the Club gave an annual dance for employees, complete with an orchestra, at the Tea Room on the beach.