Time: June 16 2003 at 09:59:16
Name: Harry Lime
Location: Sun Valley, Idaho
Comments: Mr. Burch is right about Idaho's having potatos and right
wing militants, but it also has in Larry Craig the dumbest man in the US
Senate, and, as everybody knows, this is where Janet Leigh was discovered
for Hollywood.
It's also rich but hardly ancient in history. This area, for example, with
a population of fewer than 5,000, goes all the way back to 1936 when Averill
Harriman---diplomat, presidential chum, international ladies man, owner of
the Union Pacific railroad with a fortune of $100 million---decided that
America should have a European-like ski resort and chose Sun Valley to become
the first one.
By 1939, Hemingway had come to stay (on and off for 20-plus years), along
with visitors like David Niven, Gary Cooper and Darryl Zanuck. Still other
notables that put down roots included MGM's Norma Shearer, the Irving Thalberg
widow. Also rushing in were European ski bums by the hundreds, most of whom
were very poor and searching for rich America women they could propose to
on the slopes. We were honored too in the early days by the occasional presence
of mobster Bugsy Siegel, and after his Luciano-ordered, five-bullets-to-the-head
death in the late 40's, we were glad to welcome as a permanent resident,
his sweet and tough as nails mistress, Virginia Hill. She seldom said no
and brought long nights of smiles to many chalets; in time, she married a
European ski instructor. Both later committed suicide, as did Hemingway in
1961. He's buried just down the road a little south of here, at Ketchum.
We don't have nearly as many downtown parking lots as Tulsa, but we do have
mountains, out of this world trout streams, fresh air on demand, and here
in Sun Valley, say local poets, stealing a line from e.e. cummings, 'even
the flowers pick themselves.'
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