It’s that time of year when A Christmas Story becomes one of the more popular movies around. It will run on cable TV nearly constantly for the next month, and that means both new fans and old will become intimately familiar with all of its elements, including the iconic house, which was recently the site of an altercation between a member of the film’s cast and its current owner.
TMZ recently obtained video of an expletive-laced tirade directed at Yano Anaya, who played Grover Dill in A Christmas Story, by Brian Jones, who currently owns the house. Anaya was out in front of the house earlier this month taking pictures with fans, when Jones came outside and laid into the former child actor, telling him to get off the property and never come back.
It would be one thing if the homeowner didn’t want people taking pictures in front of his house, but that’s likely par for the course for the owner of the Cleveland-area home. And it seems this was not the response the homeowner would have given to just anybody, but was specific to Anaya. This was all seemingly due to a previous issue between the two.
Apparently, the iconic house from A Christmas Story is currently for sale, and Yano Anaya had previously expressed interest, allegedly with other former cast members of the film, of buying the house. Anaya has a business partner, Emmanuel Soba, who claims to have spoken to Brian Jones the day before the incident, and he says Jones expressed willingness to sell them the house and they’d had a good conversation.
It seems the altercation was due to a GoFundMe that had reportedly been set up to raise funds for the purchase of the home. Jones says he didn’t want people to contribute money to a fund that might not buy the house, as Jones is entertaining offers through his agent, so even if he’s willing to sell to this group, he has not committed to doing so.
There apparently was a GoFundMe set up by a volunteer of the organization interested in buying the house, but it was never made active, so Soba feels that it shouldn’t have caused such an outburst from Jones.
Since 2006 the Christmas Story House has been a tourist destination. Jones bought the house in 2004, along with surrounding properties, in order to turn the house into a museum with a gift shop and a parking lot. The home is also an official Cleveland landmark.
Interest in the home as likely only increased this year due to the release of A Christmas Story Christmas, an actual sequel to the classic film starring most of the original cast.