Rodeo star Wilbur Plaugher, who made an uncredited cameo appearance in Bus Stop (1956), has died aged 95, Fox26 reports. He played a clown in the famous rodeo scene, filmed in Phoenix, Arizona.
Donald Zec Remembers Marilyn
Veteran entertainment writer Donald Zec recalls his friendship with Marilyn in today’s Mirror.
“We discussed fame, and I quoted my dictionary’s definition of a star – ‘a heavenly body radiating flashes of light.’
‘Yeah, I’ll settle for that,’ she beamed…
We flew together in 1956 to Phoenix, Arizona, where she filmed Bus Stop.
When a tray of food was put before her she rejected it saying ‘I have to watch my figure.’
My response: “You eat, Marilyn, I’ll watch your figure”, induced a playful slap on my arm.
She was then close to becoming Mrs Arthur Miller. The days of the jazzy one-liners were over. She was now cooking him chicken soup and reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Suddenly alarm bells rang and we saw black smoke billowing out of one of the prop engines.
Reassurance from the cockpit didn’t extend to the passengers quaking in seats 1 and 1A.
We discussed the unthinkable. I soothed her with the thought that if we crashed her name would be on every news bulletin and front page in the western world…
As she explained to me in one of her many calls from New York: ‘I admit I made lots of demands – the choice of co-star, the script, the costumes.’
‘But I wasn’t prepared to see myself being sold down the river.’
That phone call took place at 3.30am…
I remember this rare moment of [the Millers] in their apartment on 57th Street New York.
Everything in the large sitting room was white; the carpets, the walls, and the coffee table on which a silver-framed testimonial was inscribed, accurately, ‘to Marilyn, the Wonder of the Age.’
Beside it was a marble torso of the goddess Aphrodite.
A hint of Chanel wafted from the sofa where the ‘wonder of the age’ poured the tea.
A typewriter clacked in another room. The master was at work.
Then the tapping stopped. The tall, bespectacled genius entered and sat down beside her.
There was a long silence while Miller scrutinised her, virtually feasting his eyes on the tangle of golden curls around those lovely features, the unbuttoned shirt tied loosely at the bare midriff.
They looked at each with a tenderness that a single sound would have shattered.
Miller stood up, rubbed his hands, and said: ‘Thank you’ and went back to his desk. The great man had enjoyed his fix for the day.”
Ludvic Exhibit at Arizona Biltmore
Egyptian-born artist Ludvic‘s paintings of Marilyn will be displayed at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix (where MM is said to stayed during filming of Bus Stop in 1956) through to September 5th, reports USA Today.
Phoenix Ramada Demolition
In 1956, Marilyn Monroe stayed in a penthouse suite at the Sahara Motor Inn, downtown Phoenix, Arizona, while filming Bus Stop. More recently known as a Ramada Inn, the motel is currently being razed and will be used as the site of a new law school, reports AZCentral.com.
This demolition is going ahead despite protests from local heritage organisations.
“The Sahara Motor Inn, later called the Ramada Inn, is an urban oasis that rose from the sand like a mirage in Downtown Phoenix, complete with a sparking pool, restaurant, cafe, bar, 175 guest rooms, gift shop, two large terrace suites for hosting parties and meetings, and two apartment penthouses. There are also 8 possible spaces for retail. These mini-resorts defined Phoenix in the 1950s by bringing resort-style amenities to the middle class. These mini resorts even attracted celebrities. Marilyn Monroe herself lodged in one of the penthouse suites in the Sahara while filming ‘Bus Stop’. During the late 50’s people from all over the country passed through Phoenix and many of these people spent the night in one of these mini resorts. They experienced a taste of living in the desert, fell in love with Phoenix, and then moved here.
The Sahara was built by Del Webb, the namesake for ASU’s own School of Construction which boasts of its collaboration that creates ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. ASU claims to be ‘the model of sustainability’ and the City promotes sustainable development, but in razing the Ramada, there is nothing that is sustainable, Earth-friendly, or revitalizing.”