The rules of Larry Munson's movie club were simple but strictly enforced.
You had to be female, young and on time, which in Munson's world meant 30 minutes early.
And, most importantly, no boyfriends or husbands (i.e. men) allowed. Just Larry and his ladies.
"They seemed to get younger over the years," noted original movie club member Ellen Gibson, now in sales with Clear Channel. She worked at WSB with Munson, the legendary voice of the Georgia Bulldogs who died Sunday night at the age of 89, in the early 1990s when the group, which included co-workers Belinda Skelton, Trevor Johns and Dana Averbush, was formed.
Though he was 40-plus years their senior, age and gender never got in the way of what would become lifelong friendships.
"He was just one of the gang," said Skelton, now executive producer of the Neal Boortz show. She was a young call screener at WSB when she first met the irascible bachelor, also a neighbor at the Post Chastain apartments.
"We had Happy Hour pretty much every day," Skelton said.
The movie club met every Saturday and always for the first show.
"On time didn't mean when the movie started" but 30 minutes beforehand," said Skelton, who called Munson a "film connoisseur," though it helped if the movie featured an attractive starlet.
Companionship developed into friendship between Munson and the four originals, who now refer to themselves as "Larry's Golden Girls."
"He talked me into having my second child," Skelton said Monday. He was there for her wedding, too, reluctantly agreeing to read a few lines of Scripture selected for the ceremony.
Munson called her a few days before the wedding to tell her he wanted to lose a couple of verses. "I think it works better this way," he told her.
"That was Larry, trying to edit the Bible," Skelton said.
Munson also threw Skelton a bachelorette party, hiring a stripper and supplying his lady friends with ample dollar bills.
"He was not an attractive stripper," Gibson recalled. "You better believe if it had been a woman Larry would've hired the most attractive one."
No question Munson loved the ladies, but around his movie chums he was more like one of the girls. He could dish with the best of them, recalled Trevor Johns, who worked with Munson on WSB's "Hometown Radio Show."
"He was quite the fashion critic," Johns said. "If he didn't like what you were wearing he'd tell you: ‘My God, that outfit looks terrible.' "
"Larry liked being with us because he could be himself," she added. "And he liked that we took care of him."
It was usually this week when the friends would gather at Munson's apartment, first in Atlanta, then in Athens, to decorate for Christmas. Actually, there wasn't much decorating going on outside of hanging some seasonal lights from the unassuming broadcaster's aging silk ficus trees.
"The menu was the same every year: Hickory Farms summer sausage, smoked gouda and crackers and red wine," Johns said. The tradition endured through last year, though they had hoped for at least one more.
Skelton has asked Munson's sons if she could have one of those "ugly old ficus trees" to remember him by, though her old friend left the movie clubbers with so much more.
"He had so many stories and a lot of them didn't have anything to do with sports," Gibson said. "He was just a phenomenal storyteller."
And always the life of the party.
"You know, it's a helluva lot more fun hanging around fun people," Gibson said. "And Larry was fun."
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