Joey Hamlin’s last stand

Former model and child actor in ‘spaghetti westerns’ filmed in Spain makes Cornelius chiropractic clinic his professional watering hole

By Nancy Townsley

The Forest Grove News-Times, Mar 18, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

Chase Allgood / News-Times

Joe Hamlin, a former child actor and model, and his wife, Heymi, have taken over the Cornelius Chiropractic practice of Dr. Richard Tilden. The couple left southern Spain after their two children were grown.

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He had one line in the 1966 Roman comedy “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” starring Phil Silvers and Zero Mostel.

And Joe Hamlin screwed it up.

“I had to say, ‘Sire, sire, merchant Scruffalous bid me tell you he has a silent woman for sale’ – and it wasn’t easy,” recalled Hamlin, 54. “I saw the movie years later, and the line was cut. It didn’t make the final edit.”

At the time, Hamlin was an 11-year-old boy living in southern Spain, the son of professional golfer Charles Hamlin and Egyptian-born actress Mona Fouad.

His mother’s connections won him a handful of modeling jobs and bit parts in a few “spaghetti westerns,” including 1967’s “Seven Guns for the MacGregors.”

During one star-struck phase of his unusual childhood, Hamlin got to meet the likes of Hollywood superstar Omar Sharif and Dan Blocker, one of the Cartwright brothers in the long-running American western television series “Bonanza.”

So did his younger sister, Jackie, who appeared with him in a movie or two.

“We got to ride horses, shoot bad guys and learn how to drink wine from a goat’s gourd,” Hamlin noted. “It was just a lot of fun.”

That was then. Today, Hamlin and his wife, Heymi, are chiropractors in Cornelius. The couple settled in the western Washington County town only a month ago after leaving Spain for good. They’re taking over the 46-year-old practice of Dr. Richard Tilden and his wife, Ann, placing their bets on yet another sterling chapter in their lives.

The move will likely put an end to the Hamlins’ globetrotting ways.

“This is our last stand,” quipped Joe, who specializes in teen and adult chiropractic therapy.

Over the last two decades the Hamlins lived in Spain, Texas, Maine and Nevada.

Between 1999 and 2009, they operated Central Europe Chiropractic Clinic in southern Spain near the American School of Madrid, where their son Evan, who’s now 24, and their daughter Talia, 21, attended classes.

“It was a wonderful opportunity for my kids to grow up in a culturally rich environment,” said Joe.

Married to Heymi – whose mother, Kim Mee-Chong, was the first contestant to represent Korea in the Miss Universe pageant in the 1950s – since 1984, Joe said he’s ready to give up the family’s nomadic lifestyle.

With Evan living in Florida and Talia in Washington, D.C., the empty-nesters turned to the North American map – and Internet search engines – to guide their geographical future.

“Google and I became good friends,” Joe said.

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