Some people’s lives could be a movie. Hers was. Fort Mill played a role, too.

It’s been quite a run for Mary Ellen Donovan Fuller in Fort Mill.

She’s done design at Springs Industries, run an antique shop and watched her 8-year-old self immortalized on the big screen two dozen times.

"I've been living in Fort Mill for 20 years, so it's been a big wrenching experience to leave," Fuller said.

The traveling part isn’t new. Since late 2015 Fuller has made countless speaking engagements, often right before or after a group viewed the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks collaboration, “Bridge of Spies.” In the movie Hanks plays James Donovan, an attorney sent to East Berlin during the Cold War to negotiate a prisoner exchange. Or, as Fuller knew him better, dad.

"I've seen the movie on the big screen 24 times,” Fuller said. “I knew it was leaving the big screen, and I'd get a ticket and a popcorn and a Coke, and I'd go in sometimes by myself to see it one more time.”

The movie led to face time with Spielberg and Hanks, a flight up to the New York City premier and a private screening in advance. She was flown to Central Intelligence Agency headquarters for a tour. Speeches have been constant.

"It's just shocking how everybody just adores history,” Fuller said. “Everybody seems to crave Tom Hanks, no question. But there are people who are just history buffs out there."

She has an eye for history herself. Fuller moved to the area in 1996 as design director for textile manufacturer Springs Industries. After living in Tega Cay for nine years, she moved into 315 Confederate Street in Fort Mill with its charm as an 1880s pastor’s manse. She then ran an antique shop on Main Street called Asian Journey. Even now she is working on her first novel and a historical screenplay set in Cuba.

Having to sell her historical home will be the toughest part of leaving, as she and her husband are moving to a small town between Sumter and Manning.

“We’ve absolutely loved being here,” Fuller said.

Fuller expects another speaking engagement or two before she leaves. In some ways having her family portrayed in a movie is odd, she said. The family friend who she remembers playing Santa Claus growing up, the world will remember for Alan Alda playing him. The actress who played Fuller is more “squeaky” than Fuller remembers being, but otherwise the film is true to most details.

"It is, very much so,” Fuller said. “And any departures that were made were to get something across in a two-hour span."

Fuller was 8 when a Russian spy was caught, for instance, but 14 when the 1962 prisoner exchange took place. In the movie she is forever 8 years old. She’ll give a little on chronology to get the bigger points of the movie across to viewers. Fuller recalls meeting the British screenwriter who she thanked for bringing her family’s story to light.

"He's basically taken my father out of footnotes of history," she said.

Her time in Fort Mill soon will be history, too. And while that part of her life never made the big screen, Fuller is happy with how it turned out, the friends made.

“It’s a wonderful place,” she said.

This story was originally published February 4, 2017 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Some people’s lives could be a movie. Hers was. Fort Mill played a role, too.."