Lynwood Metts

Lynwood Metts is an actor, writer, stand-up comedian, musician, and professional photographer born in Kinston, North Carolina. His father Jedious, a tobacco farmer from Comfort, North Carolina, moved the family to Newport News, Virginia as a construction worker, then to Cocoa Beach, Florida as a mechanic for General Electric, and finally to Summerville, South Carolina again with General Electric. His mother Peggy (maiden name Peggy Thigpen) helped support the family as a secretary and book keeper. He is the second oldest of four children. His ancestors were German immigrants escaping conflicts involving land between France and Germany about 1700. His siblings are former musicians. Buddy played trombone, Nancy played saxophone, and Jeff played french horn. His daughter Ashley Metts, who won awards for the roll she wrote and performed as the Fairy Godmother in "Another Cinderella" in High School drama, inspired Lynn to follow his dreams. Lynn's introduction to the arts began, and continues to this day, as a way to overcome shyness and to help others. His writing is based on his unusual personal experiences and the people he has met. During the Winthrop College Summer Camp for the Academically Talented (SCAT) in the summer of 1972, Lynn caught the attention of his first girlfriend by parroting Southern stand-up comedians such as Brother Dave Gardner, Jerry Clower, and Andy Griffith. While not a prude, he prefers to be involved in projects such as Romantic or Family Comedies that any of his friends, who span the range of religious and political views, would attend and admire. Lynn's role models in the arts are Ron Howard, James Stewart, Steve Martin, and Tim Abell. Lynn learned to play trumpet at the age of 11, and transitioned to valve trombone and baritone during his senior year in the Summerville, South Carolina High School Marching Band. While Lynn enjoyed the rigors of practice and enjoys the benefits of being able to distinguish instruments while listening to music, he felt he was much better at the physical performance aspect as opposed to being a good musician, so sought other avenues to express his creativity. Upon the encouragement of a fellow trumpet player, Milton Blanchett, Lynn successfully auditioned for the part of Brian in the high school play "Murder is a Matter of Opinion". The role called for Lynn's big Southern hair to be spray died gray, which prophetically made him the spitting image of the character he would play 40 years later in his first film role as Government Agent 3 in Subconscious (2015). On opening night, the play had rave reviews as a drama. On the second night, after a few sophomores in the crowd laughed at some opening lines, Lynn witnessed the genius of Milton, who starred as the lawyer defending Lynn's character, altering his delivery to harness the energy of an engaged audience, resulting in the play being acclaimed as a must see comedy. While attending The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, Lynn met and became life long friends with Bob Luke, who after a career on Broadway, became the acting coach for Sarah Michelle Gellar during her Emmy Award winning season on All My Children (1970). Although Lynn was in The Citadel's Air Force program, during the Christmas break of freshman year he volunteered and attended marksmanship training with his Marine Corps classmates at Paris Island. He earned the Pistol Sharpshooter badge with a 45 automatic and Rifle Marksman badge with the M16. Lynn quickly learned that joining extracurricular groups helped avoid many of the challenges a military school. By senior year, he was Commander of the Touchdown Cannon Crew, a reenactment group that fired large Civil War replica black powder cannons at football games. In the Spring of 1979, Lynn commanded the crew as it accompanied the Charleston Symphony orchestra playing the 1812 Overture during the Spoleto Festival at Middleton Garden's Butterfly Lakes. Graduating with a degree in Biology at age 20, Lynn entered the Air Force and attended pilot training at Columbus, Mississippi. He washed out after six months due to an inner ear problem, and has been rated as a Service Disabled Veteran due to complications from injuries sustained during parachute landing fall training accidents. He then attended Intelligence Officer training in Denver Colorado, where he learned the science and management principles of running large reconnaissance laboratories that processed film from systems such as the RF4 Phantom, the U2, and satellites. But his training was cut short due to the Iranian hostage crisis and he was assigned to the First Special Operations Wing at Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Lynn received a Commendation Medal for developing and demonstrating a technique to adapt night vision goggles to still and motion picture cameras. While filming a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) night time exercise from an orbiting AC130H Spectre Gunship, the crew opened the scratched and discolored dome on the tail ramp used to observe surface to air missiles in attempt to allow Lynn an unobstructed view while filming with his motion picture camera. Upon hitting an air pocket, Lynn fell out of the plane as far as his knees, and was pulled back in with the body harness that had been tied to the ribs of the plane. When asked how he had remained calm and kept hold of the camera, which the crew thought he would drop to free his hands and attempt to pull himself back in, Lynn replied that all he could think of was being blamed for killing the President of the United States if he dropped the camera, who was observing the exercise one mile below. One of Lynn's sergeant's, Edward Simpson, was an award winning photographer and student of Ansel Adams. Ed offered to train Lynn to be a professional photographer as opposed to just managing the processing lab, and asked what subject Lynn wanted to photograph. Lynn replied he wanted to put the Girl Next Door on magazine covers, and hoped that would help him stop stuttering around women. Simpson gave Lynn books on the theory of light by glamor photographer Peter Gowland and handed him an unloaded Nikon F3 with instruction to study a tree behind the office through it every morning at sunrise for a month to get Lynn's eye accustomed to faint differences of light as described by Gowland's methods. The first and second rolls of film Lynn ever shot were of Tina Kroske (maiden name Tina Ruth Jennings). The rolls produced the June and July 1985 covers of "True Romance" magazine. Upon reassignment to the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, DC a neighbor introduced Lynn to Deborah Leveque, whom he had on the December 1984 cover of "True Romance", the January 1985 cover of "True Story", and the June 1986 cover of "Secrets" magazines. Family friends in Charleston, South Carolina introduced Lynn to College of Charleston freshman Robin Powell (maiden name Robin Truett) whom he had on the August 1987 cover of "True Story". Robin's daughter Rebecca Powell, a student at the University of South Carolina, is now one of Lynn's models and is planned to appear in his first film Youth Ministers (in development). Lynn met actor Tim Abell and Gail McGlynn during a modeling competition in Baltimore, Maryland and invited them to a surprise party for Deborah Leveque during which Deborah would meet all of Lynn's models and be told she had been picked for her third magazine cover. The morning of the party, in order to kill time, Lynn assisted by one of his former photographers in the Air Force, Charles Wright, shot one roll of Tim and Gail. That roll produced the Autumn 1987, Collector's Series No 14 cover of "True Confessions, Romance Special" magazine. Lynn discovered that some of the best photographs don't get published when an editor he was visiting rejected a photo of one of his favorite models, Kathy Probst (maiden name Kathy Kohler), with a comment that Kathy was one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen, and reminded her of the girl that stole her high school boyfriend. Lynn overcame his fear of women until 1994 when he met Kimberly Rutledge Baughn, the sister of his three time cover girl Deborah Leveque. Lynn and Kimberly have been happily married since Christmas Eve 2003. She still makes him stutter. Lynn served four years at The Citadel teaching National Security Policy and Military Law with students including two sons of Ted Turner. He also served as the Military Adviser to The Citadel's elite, silent rifle drill platoon The Summerall Guards. Lynn's next duty station was a three year tour in Hawaii. Due to Lynn's success as a magazine photographer, he was invited to judge bikini contests, which led to his meeting celebrities including Lee Majors and the other cast members of the TV show Raven (1992). Lynn was given the opportunity to visit on set in return for allowing some cast to accompany him on photo shoots of glamor models such as Angela DeVore Sosna (maiden name Angela DeVore), Kate Hogle (maiden name Kate Klabo), and Theresa Reese. While having lunch at his favorite hang out, Snappers Sports Bar in Waikiki managed by his friend Paula McKnight, Lynn met US Immigration Agent Dennis Smith, who was grabbing lunch for agents observing a human smuggling operation. Denny explained to Lynn that smugglers are cruel and that the aliens often end up in horrible conditions akin to slavery. After discovering that the smuggler's motel room was directly opposite Lynn's Waikiki apartment balcony, the federal agents accepted Lynn's offer to base their operations from his home. "The Honolulu Advertiser" reported on September 19, 1992 that the eight smugglers were arrested for smuggling 137 people. Lynn was reassigned briefly to the Headquarters USAF at The Pentagon, before moving to his final duty station, a return to the Defense Intelligence Agency as the manager of a software program which he deployed on trips around the globe. Lynn became friends with actor Jay Hillmer, best known as Principal Davidson in Hairspray (1988). Jay shared scripts he had written with Lynn, and encouraged him to continue writing a story based on his life as a glamor photographer, Bedside Manner (in development). Lynn had no idea that Tim Abell had moved to Los Angeles and become an actor. Reconnecting in 2012, Lynn was intrigued by the story of Tim's career and proceeded to interview Tim by phone 6 hours a week for 6 months in order to produce material for Tim's biography. In August of 2013, Tim invited Lynn to the set of Subconscious (2015). Lynn volunteered to help behind the scenes in order to learn the art of film making and became friends with cast and crew. The Director, Georgia Hilton invited Lynn to perform in a speaking role as Government Agent 3 during pickup shooting in April 2013. Lynn is now collaborating with Tim Abell, Naomi Brockwell, and Georgia Hilton to bring to fruition his film projects Bedside Manner and (in development) Youth Ministers (in development).