The Ghosts of Lake Tahoe

by Patrick Betson

  The photograph shown in this book is of Clark Gable on Glenbrook beach in 1951. The love of Gable’s life, Carole Lombard, came to Tahoe in 1933 to gain state residency, so she could divorce William Powell (The Thin Man). Gable and Lombard started their romance in 1935, at the time Gable was still married to his second wife. Many movie stars came to Nevada so that they could take advantage of the state’s simplified laws governing divorce. After a short period of six weeks, they could achieve state residency, and as Nevada residents they could avail themselves of a quick divorce at the Reno courthouse.

  Many big named stars have either appeared in films shot on location around Lake Tahoe or appeared in cabaret at the south shore casinos. Some have stayed awhile, too. Frank Sinatra went so far as to purchase the CalNeva Lodge on Tahoe’s northern state line in the early 1960s. Marilyn Monroe was a guest at the CalNeva shortly before her death in 1962. Rita Hayworth played golf at Glenbrook while staying there in order to divorce Prince Aly. She also lived awhile in Crystal Bay with her fourth husband Dick Haymes.

  Rex Bell was a Hollywood actor in 1930s known for his roles in Westerns, usually wearing one of those oversized cowboy hats. He was in a film called “Lightnin” filmed at the lake in 1930. The main star of the film was the comedian, humorist, and philosopher Will Rogers. Bell and Rogers were staying at the Tahoe Tavern at Tahoe City during the film. Rex’s previous film had been Loyal to the Navy in which he starred along-side the original “It” girl Clara Bow. Bell and Bow had started a relationship following the film. While Bell was at the Tahoe Tavern, Clara came up for a visit. Rogers had never met Clara Bow before and wanted to take the young couple out to dinner.

  Will Rogers suggested dinner at the CalNeva Lodge. After dinner, Rogers went to lose a dollar or two at the gaming tables. New to gambling, Clara decided to chance her luck; she signed a chit for a few chips and went to the blackjack table. Not sure of what she was doing, she ended up losing 139 chips. She was not too perturbed because she believed one chip to be worth only fifty cents. However, when the chit was presented for payment to her bank in Los Angeles, it was discovered that the chips were worth a hundred dollars apiece. In reality, she had lost nearly $14,000. Clara put a stop to the chit’s payment. The matter was decided in court but it supplied Will Rogers with some good material for his one-man show. Clara Bow might just be the reason why casinos are required to have chips with their value clearly shown. Clara and Rex were married in 1931, and Bell was elected as Nevada’s lieutenant governor in 1954 (re-elected in 1958).

  Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable appeared together in what proved to be the last film for either star “The Misfits.” The film was about the wrangling of wild mustangs, and it was filmed in and around Reno. Not a hugely successful film, the two stars turned in their best performances. Co-starring with them was Montgomery Clift. A decade earlier, Montgomery Clift played the troubled young man in a tragic love triangle with Shelly Winters and a gorgeous young Elizabeth Taylor. The film “A Place in the Sun,” was filmed around Lake Tahoe’s southwest shore and featured Cascade Lake as the spot where Shelly Winter’s character drowned (or was murdered?).

  Cascade Lake is just over the ridge from Emerald Bay, (the setting for the “Three-Toed Island” story). It was at Emerald Bay that an attractive Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy sang their “Indian Love Call.” The film “Rose Marie” also featured two future Oscar winners just embarking on their careers: a young James Stewart and a young David Niven. James Stewart played Jeanette MacDonald’s young fugitive brother and David Niven played MacDonald’s unrequited young suitor. Forty years later it was a much older James Stewart who starred with John Wayne in what was to be the Duke’s last film, “The Shootist,” filmed in Carson City and Genoa.

  Another featured murder here at Lake Tahoe, was the murder of Michael Corleone’s brother Fredo. Shot while fishing from a small boat, Fredo’s body was dropped over the side and it went straight to the bottom. Had the Mafia learned earlier that dead bodies don’t float in Lake Tahoe; they could have saved a lot of money on concrete shoes. The Henry J. Kaiser estate at Tahoe Pines served as the Corleone’s Tahoe property in “The Godfather Part ll.” Although the main house was replaced by deluxe condominiums a few years ago, the boat house featured in the film is still there. (If you have watched the film and are able to identify the murderer you could possibly run the risk of keeping Fredo company.)

  Author’s note: I was a young man living in South Africa when I saw the second Godfather film. I knew nothing about Tahoe at the time. Twenty-five years later I returned to South Africa, and while driving around Hout Bay close to Cape Town, I saw a small café called “Tahoe’s Coffee Shop.” A couple named Dave and Leian had opened the café after they were married at Lake Tahoe a few months earlier. The groom’s family was from my hometown in England.

  Postscripts

  1) The same year as “The Gold Rush,” Charlie Chaplin supposedly entered a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest and won third place.

  2) While staying at Lake Tahoe in the summer of 1933, Carole Lombard cut the ribbon to officially open Highway 28 along Tahoe’s northeast shore. With this last section opened, it was finally possible to drive right around the lake.

  3) Unlike other celebrities who usually went to Reno, Carole Lombard obtained her divorce from William Powell at the Carson City courthouse. Despite the divorce, the couple remained friends and starred in the film “My Man Godfrey” in 1936.

  4) While gaining her Nevada residency, Carole Lombard stayed with her good friend Mary Stack. Mary’s son Robert developed a teenage crush for the blond starlet. In 1942, Robert had a small part in Carole Lombard’s last film “To Be or Not To Be.” He achieved fame as Eliot Ness in TV’s “The Untouchables.”

  5) Although Jeanette MacDonald was two years older than Clara Bow, Clara was a star of silent movies and Jeanette was a singing star of the talkies. Jeanette MacDonald’s only other film in 1936 was “San Francisco,” which co-starred Clark Gable. It was arguably her best performance. Clark Gable said of Jeanette MacDonald, “All I do is shut up and listen to her sing!” The following year she starred in “Firefly” with Allan Jones (Jones was also in “Rose Marie”).

  6) Ironically, “The Misfits” was also the last film for Rex Bell.

  7) Despite being contemporaries and going on to make more than seventy films apiece. Jimmy Stewart and David Niven never appeared in the same film again.

  11) The Squaw Valley Olympics

  1960 (In the Halls of Zeus)

  They talk of the two miracles of Squaw Valley: the first was the weather, and the second being the victory of the US hockey team.

  Although there had been little by the way of snow in the Sierras during December 1959. January 1960 was much better and things looked good. But the following month brought warmer weather. For the first two weeks of February, it only rained at elevations below 8500 feet. One week before the Games, the continuous rain had melted a large part of the valley snow pack, puddles formed everywhere, and Squaw Creek was overflowing. There was a chance, if it stopped raining, that they could bring snow down from the higher elevations and replace what had been washed away, but things were looking bleak. The contingency plan to hold some of the ski races at Slide Mountain became a distinct possibility.

  Fortunately, with only four days left, a cold front came through and produced three and a half feet of new snow. It seemed like a godsend but the cold front was slow moving. On the morning of the opening ceremonies, a blizzard was blowing through the valley. A major problem was facing the first exclusively televised Winter Games. Visibility was down to zero and the cameras could see nothing! Another foot of snow fell that morning, and traffic getting to Squaw had major problems. Vice President Richard Nixon was supposed to arrive by helicopter, but the weather was considered too dangerous. With Nixon delayed, the ceremonies had to be pushed back. Nixon arrived an hour late, and as he made his way to the microphone to declare the Games open, the skies cleared and the wind
died down…… which made the Soviets think that the Americans had discovered some form of climate control. As Walt Disney (the master of ceremonies) released two thousand doves, the scene was bathed in sunshine.

  Before 1960, the American ice hockey team had never won a gold medal. For years the Canadians had dominated the sport, until the Soviets won gold in Cortina in 1956. In 1960 the American team was on paper the weakest team they had ever fielded. They were not expected to win a medal of any color. They had lost four times to college teams in their warm-up matches and, just thirteen days before the games, had been easily beaten by the Soviets. The American coach Jack Riley was still making changes to the team up to the last minute. It was meant to be a battle between the two powerhouses, the Canadians and the Soviets, at which the Americans would be spectators and cheering on the Canadians.

  There were nine teams, split into three groups, and the top two teams of each group progressed to the championship round. The six teams who advanced would all then play each other, and the gold would go to the team with the best record. The Canadians had three of the top five goal scorers on their team, and leading up to their match against the US they had never scored less than four goals. In the game against Canada, the American goalie Jack McCartan stopped thirty-nine shots out of forty and team USA pulled off a massive upset, winning 2-1. Against the Soviets, the Americans were down 2-3 after the second period. The US scored the only two goals of the third and won 4-3. The feat of winning the gold in 1960 was perhaps, overshadowed in 1980 by the victory of a younger American team, but the gold at Squaw was the country’s first.

  Postscripts

  1) Native Americans were brought in especially to do an occasional snow dance to get the late winter started.

  2) Jean Vaurnet won the downhill gold medal at Squaw, which undoubtedly helped him sell a few sunglasses.

  3) The Squaw Valley Olympics were the first to have a purpose built Olympic Village for the athletes. Visiting dignitaries stayed at the Tahoe Tavern in Tahoe City; the tavern burned down in 1964.

  4) It was considered an unnecessary expense to build a bob sleigh run for the small number of entrants. So despite the plans for the run, it was never built, and there were no bob sleigh events at Squaw Valley.

  5) Before the third period of the Americans’ final game against the Czech team, down 3-4, the US team was visited by the Soviet coach, who suggested the exhausted team take a couple of breaths of pure oxygen. It certainly didn’t hurt; the Americans came out and scored six times in the final period to run-out 9 – 4 victors.

  Squaw Valley’s Blyth Arena, location of the USA’s first ever Gold Medal for Ice Hockey (photo shows figure skater.) In 1983 the roof collapse and the arena was subsequently demolished.

  12) Snowshoe Thompson (Sesquicentennial)

  So many stories have been written about the heroic Norwegian that little can be added. Just before Thompson died, in 1876, Dan De Quille, Mark Twain’s mentor at The Territorial Enterprise, interviewed the remarkable mailman. De Quille wrote an article for the Overland Monthly, which did not appear until 1886. Still, De Quille was able to recall some of the interview and give us some first-hand knowledge of this extraordinary man.

  Thompson described to De Quille how, during one of his mail expeditions, he came upon a pack of timber-wolves. The wolves were in the middle of devouring the corpse of a mule deer. He said it was the only time he might have wished for a gun. Because of the slope of the hill, he was unable to avoid skiing straight past the pack. One of the wolves noticed him on his approach and stopped eating. This wolf then sat in a position facing Thompson, and broke out in to the most mournful of howls! The first wolf was then joined by all the others, seated in a row, and all of them howled as Thompson hurriedly skied by. He could hear their plaintive howling for several minutes, but fortunately none of them pursued him.

  From De Quille’s article we also learn that our Norwegian hero was one of the twenty-nine survivors at the First Battle of Pyramid Lake in May of 1860. Thompson recounted his narrow brush with death. (We have to assume that our hero was armed on this occasion.) With his own horse shot out from underneath him, the Norwegian fled the Paiute Indians on foot. One of his mounted comrades is then supposed to have shouted, “Why don’t you mount the horse behind you?” At which time Thompson turned around and brushed the soft nose of a rider-less horse that had been right behind him all the time. Mounting the horse, he made good his escape. Thompson claimed it was the hand of the Lord.

  By every known account, Thompson was a good man, and what he achieved defies any reasonable assessment of what a good man does. He delivered the mail twice a month over twenty Sierra winters. It has to be remembered that people living on the eastern side of the Sierra, in the years before the railroad, were isolated by the whims of Mother Nature. An annual four hundred inches of snow on the higher ridges is but a normal winter in the Sierras. The snow was like an impenetrable wall without a door; people on the eastern side of the Sierras were cut off for weeks at a time. Thompson delivered much needed medicine to people who would have otherwise gone without. He helped all those he came across and also rescued a few lost individuals. A devout Christian, he carried his Bible throughout his journeys.

  He did seek recompense for his services from the United States Postal, Service in 1872, by which time he was able to take advantage of the Transcontinental Railroad for a journey east to Washington, D.C. Those that heard Thompson’s tale were agreed that he should be compensated. But empathetic as they were, Thompson was never paid by the United States Postal Service! It is a debt that the US government still has not paid. Any normal man might have felt ill-used, but not Snowshoe Thompson. Forgotten by those who owed him the most, he was not forgotten for his many kindnesses to ordinary people. Thompson was paid small amounts of money by individuals for deliveries of personal items and necessities. Although not paid by the Postal Service, he still continued to deliver the US Mail over the mountains for another four years!

  In May of 1876, while planting seed on his ranch near Markleeville in California, it is believed Thompson’s appendix ruptured, and this famous son of the Sierra died two days later, at the age of forty-nine. He was to reach Genoa, his longtime postal destination, one final time, and he was buried in the town’s small cemetery. Remembered by so many, there are statues to this fearless man throughout the Sierra, and on his grave in the Genoa cemetery there are three plaques. The plaque nearest to the headstone reads:

  “AS A TRIBUTE TO A GREAT COMPATRIOT FROM

  TELEMARK THIS PLAQUE WAS PRESENTED BY THE

  NORWEGIAN OLYMPIC SKI TEAM COMPETING AT

  SQUAW VALLEY IN FEBRUARY 1960.”

  Postscripts

  1) Once familiar with the terrain, Thompson’s preference was to travel by night and navigate by the stars. On cloudy nights he took note of the thickest lichen growing on the north facing side of the pine trees. He added to his knowledge by making mental notes of significant rock formations and streams. Years later Thompson stated he had never been lost in the mountains.

  2) Thompson is well remembered for having saved the life of James Sisson. Thompson found Sisson snowbound in his remote cabin, suffering from severe frostbite and unable to walk. Thompson made a fire and stacked enough wood to keep Sisson warm while he went on to Genoa for help. Sisson had to have both legs amputated. The doctor had no chloroform, so Thompson had to go to Sacramento to get some. In saving Sisson’s life, Thompson traveled four hundred miles.

  3) Born Jon Tostensen, his named was Americanized to John Thompson. However, on his grave his name is misspelled as John Thomson.

  4) Singer Johnny Horton (Battle of New Orleans) wrote a song in tribute to Snowshoe Thompson, sung with banjo accompaniment, it is very similar in style to the theme tune of the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV series.

  5) Singer Tennessee Ernie Ford (Sixteen Tons) also recorded a tribute song. Ford’s song is completely different to the Horton song, but both songs are called “Snow Shoe Thompson.
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