Daughter of ‘Bridge of Spies’ subject to speak at Francis Marion

Mary Ellen Donovan Fuller said her father, James B. Donovan, lived in the shadows of history for nearly 45 years.

But now, through a Steven Spielberg movie called “Bridge of Spies,” people are beginning to learn his story.

“It’s a shock and an adjustment,” Fuller said. “It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions.”

Donovan, the movie’s central character, was the U.S. appointed defense attorney for Russian spy Rudolf Abel. Donovan then negotiated the spy’s exchange for captured U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, who was imprisoned in Russia.

Fuller currently lives in Alcolu, SC, a small town approximately nine miles outside of Sumter. She will tell her father’s story at 4 p.m. Wednesday during a public lecture at Francis Marion University.

Though Donovan’s story might have been left untold for years, he still impacted the lives of many people, she said.

Fuller recalls the day of her father’s funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It was a day when she realized the full extent of his significance.

A young Cuban construction worker, clad in a flannel shirt and work boots and carrying a lunch pail, asked if he might pay his respects to Donovan on his lunch break.

Fuller said her father, who also helped negotiate with Fidel Castro in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs, would have relished the moment.

“That was so Dad,” Fuller said.

She said she is glad her father’s story is now being told, thanks to the movie and his memoir, “Strangers on a Bridge.”

“People just move on to what’s current,” she said. “History is not taught in schools as readily as it had been, and that’s been unfortunate.”

Education is the key to preventing history from being repeated, Fuller said.

In the film, which is out in theaters now, Donovan is played by Academy Award winner Tom Hanks.

Fuller, who has seen the movie at least 10 times, said Hanks does a remarkable job.

“By the fourth time (seeing the movie), my whole emotional being was missing my father,” Fuller said. “That told me that Tom Hanks had done a fabulous job … that I could miss him so much when I am watching him up on the screen. That said it all to me.”

Fuller and her two siblings met Hanks, Spielberg and the rest of the cast and crew at a special movie screening in New York City.

Everybody was relaxed, gracious and incredibly humble, she said.

Her father was a quick study of people, Fuller said, and Hanks portrayed this part of Donovan incredibly well.

“Bridge of Spies” shows that Hanks truly understood her father’s passion for the law and desire to fight for his clients, no matter the circumstance, she said.

Fuller said her father hoped to show the world how democracy works and to let people know that everybody is entitled to a fair trial.

For Fuller, the movie allows her to remember the quick-witted man who loved his country, the law and his family.

“Maybe I go so many times because it’s like reliving a section of my life,” she said. “In fact, I think I’m going to go to tomorrow.”