The only San Jose Earthquakes player to operate a crumbling motel in West Hollywood for 20 years is now the subject of a documentary.
The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel screens on June 25th at Frameline, the annual San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival. The story, and the film, resulted in a remarkable, deeply emotional journey, both for the subject, Tony Powell, and the filmmakers.
For a brief few seasons in the early ’80s, Englishman Tony Powell played for the San Jose Earthquakes of the old North American Soccer League. The shaggy-haired star arrived after a formidable career back home, where he spent the ’70s playing for Bournemouth and Norwich, at a time in England when it was not socially acceptable and perhaps even dangerous to come out as a gay man. He remained in the closet.
After his playing career concluded in the US, Tony dropped off the face of the earth. No one, even his former mates and family back in the UK, ever heard from him again. Amateur sleuths declared him untraceable. Everyone just about gave up expecting to find him.
Then, just recently, filmmakers Ramiel Petros and Nicholas Freeman stumbled into a story. They discovered an old-timer about to be evicted from the Holloway, a legendary if dilapidated old junkie motel on Santa Monica Boulevard, steeped in Route 66 history. The man lived there for a couple decades, along with his dog Samantha. Over the years, neighbors and passersby regularly spotted him drinking on his balcony, always wondering just who he was.
Turned out he was a gay man with a dark story to tell as soon as he had a drink or three. Yet the filmmakers, at first, were not even aware of Tony’s backstory or his previous career, which was quite complicated, to say the least.
Slowly but surely, as the film unfolds, we learn just how much Tony hid his old life from everyone else. His motel friends and workers knew one version of Tony—the friend, the protector, the father figure. His fans back home in Norwich remembered a different person—reliable, dependable, indomitable on the field, a man whose legacy as a footballer clearly remained. His family, meanwhile, were still wondering what happened to him 40 years ago. They hadn’t seen him since.
One gets the impression the filmmakers couldn’t avoid becoming part of the story—in all the right ways, of course—as they documented Tony’s motel life, his drinking, his health, his grieving family back home, his existential crisis once the motel closes. All of which happened in real time as the film was being constructed. In other words, Tony’s own predicament, his reckoning with his past, and whatever redemption might be possible, all evolve because a film is being made about him. We then anticipate what else might be revealed or reconciled as the narrative continues.
The intrigue is deftly managed. It drips. And drips. Some secrets are always on the verge of disclosure, but we don’t know exactly what they entail. We can only guess. Between the tears and the laughs, we can’t wait to unpack everything. It even looks like there might be more additional mysteries to solve as the film creeps in pristine fashion to a solid finish.
By sheer serendipity, Tony’s story rises above ground at precisely the time when the Bay Area LGBTQ+ community is once again experiencing bigotry in the high-profile world of sports. The Last Guest is many things at once: a sports story, a tale of potential redemption, a stark portrait of homophobia and its long-term cost on the elderly.
What’s more, The Last Guest is not even the only soccer-related film to emerge on the radar as of late. Now available for digital download worldwide is No Place for Football, another remarkable documentary offering a rare glimpse into life in Greenland, where the world’s most popular sport isn’t just a game, it’s the cultural heartbeat of the world’s largest island. Directed by Brandon Scott Smith and Derek Sullivan Smith, the film, set along the Arctic Circle, follows Nuuk-based football club, B67, as they travel north to compete in the world’s shortest football season — one week — in pursuit of Greenland’s national championship.
