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Speaker 1: Originals. This is an I Heart original. It's one fine

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Speaker 1: winter's day in the late ninety nineties and prominent Hailey lawyer,

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Speaker 1: Lee Slender, is busy working from home, like a lot

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Speaker 1: of his out there in heavy snow country. I had

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Speaker 1: my house upstairs, in my office is downstairs. You build

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Speaker 1: on two layers because our our winners are so long

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Speaker 1: and so much as snow and cold, that it made sense.

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Speaker 1: That's Lee. Lee is deposing a client of his, Jim Lovey,

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Speaker 1: whose heating and ventilation firm is alleging their owed fifty

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Speaker 1: four thousand dollars over an unpaid invoice. Lovey says that

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Speaker 1: their client, Valley Entertainment, has refused to settle the bill.

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Speaker 1: We were downstairs taking the deposition and Bruce came charging

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Speaker 1: in and like, you know, boy, the lone rangers here.

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Speaker 1: And he sat down and listen for a bit and was,

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Speaker 1: you know, just kind of I don't know, what would

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Speaker 1: you say, puffing and puffing and being a little ledger.

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Speaker 1: According to Lee, Bruce Willis starts making faces and emitting

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Speaker 1: strange noises. He's like a student acting out in class,

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Speaker 1: like he can't believe Jim Lovey has the audacity to

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Speaker 1: tell his side of the story. Now, to be clear,

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Speaker 1: Lovey is not alleging Bruce Willis owes him money. He's

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Speaker 1: alleging Valley Entertainment owes him money. And Bruce Willis is

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Speaker 1: never a named party in the suit. But Willis does

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Speaker 1: own Valley Entertainment. Who does allegedly, Oh, Lovey the money?

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Speaker 1: And clearly he's taking this a little personally. And he

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Speaker 1: jumped up out of his chair and ran up the

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Speaker 1: stair He didn't know where it was. I don't think

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Speaker 1: he didn't know the building again, this is a home office. Well,

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Speaker 1: my wife was upstairs in the kitchen cooking, and he

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Speaker 1: ran right into her. She said something like, well, hi,

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Speaker 1: Mr Willis, how are you. He didn't realize it was

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Speaker 1: all I don't know where he thought that stairway went.

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Speaker 1: But boy, if you could hear everything crashing bang as

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Speaker 1: you tried to find the door out and he finally did,

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Speaker 1: it was clear Willis didn't think much of the allegations,

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Speaker 1: or of any kind of descent in Haley. The fuss

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Speaker 1: over an unpaid bill was a kind of objection. Willis had,

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Speaker 1: after all, employed countless skilled tradespeople for his projects. He

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Speaker 1: had injected millions into Haley's economy, and in doing so,

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Speaker 1: he had become possibly the strongest force in the community.

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Speaker 1: He had what he had long enjoyed in Hollywood, power influence.

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Speaker 1: The days of being a quiet resident were over. There

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Speaker 1: were battles to fight now, legal ones, political ones. Because

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Speaker 1: Bruce Willis had a platform. Sometimes he'd use it to

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Speaker 1: interrupt a deposition, other times he'd use it on bigger issues.

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Speaker 1: But even movie stars have limits, and while Bruce Willis

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Speaker 1: might have been able to rattle the people of Haley,

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Speaker 1: influencing the entire state of Idaho would be a different story,

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Speaker 1: and quite possibly a disaster of nuclear proportions. For I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, This is Hayleywood, an I Heart original podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host Danis Schwartz, and this is episode five.

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Speaker 1: Citizen Willis. In spending years and millions of dollars in

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Speaker 1: constructing the Mint bar renovating the Liberty, erecting the E. G.

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Speaker 1: Willis Building, and more. Willis had employed dozens, perhaps hundreds

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Speaker 1: of skilled laborers, and the vast majority didn't seem to

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Speaker 1: have any issue. When someone did well. They took his

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Speaker 1: Valley Entertainment to court. While Bruce Willis's deposition interruption may

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Speaker 1: not have been his finest moment. It may have been

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Speaker 1: born out of real frustration. The lawsuit brought by Jim

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Speaker 1: loves Eagle Company was a result of heating and ventilation

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Speaker 1: work done on the E. G. Willis Building. Jim Lovey

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Speaker 1: and his brother Jack sued for fifty four thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: then raised that number to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: But the case had problems. A computer failure had wiped

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Speaker 1: out the company's detailed financial records. The judge ruled that

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Speaker 1: mistakes had been made by Eagle Company during installation. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: the court ruled in Willis's favor. By the time everything

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Speaker 1: was accounted for, Eagle Company was ordered to pay a

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Speaker 1: total of fifty nine dollars and seventy four cents. The

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Speaker 1: two story E. G. Willis Building was the source of

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Speaker 1: other issues. It was a symbol of Haley's evolution. Willis

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Speaker 1: had torn down one of the oldest buildings in Haley

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Speaker 1: to build it. Here's former Blaine County Commissioner and Idaho

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Speaker 1: historian Tom Blanchard. When they tore that building down, it

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Speaker 1: turns out the building next door to it had an

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Speaker 1: incredible mural on it. It was just beautiful. It was

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Speaker 1: an old Henry George cigar advertisement. The cigar was just

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Speaker 1: five cents and according to the ad, just for men.

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Speaker 1: When he tore that down and exposed that mural, he

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Speaker 1: left it up for a couple of weeks just so

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Speaker 1: people could enjoy it. And then eventually that building had

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Speaker 1: to go and he got torn down. Also, Old Haley

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Speaker 1: was slowly disappearing. When Willis put up his new building,

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Speaker 1: he pictured a retail complex, a Haley sized shopping center

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Speaker 1: with his fifty Styles diner. Shorty is one of the

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Speaker 1: flagship attractions. It was going to be retail. Let's see,

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Speaker 1: you're a jewelist or a flower store owner or a

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Speaker 1: coffee shop guy, and it's like, oh my god, I

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Speaker 1: can get in and be in. You know, Willis's this

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Speaker 1: building and it's like the only building that's going to

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Speaker 1: be like that in town. That's Nancy Romelman. Nancy was

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Speaker 1: a writer for l a weekly who was dispatched to

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Speaker 1: Haley to see about Bruce Willis's investments. And you know,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of a big deal, and you're gonna get

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Speaker 1: tourists that are gonna want to come in and you know,

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Speaker 1: you're you're writing on the fact that this is a

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Speaker 1: building that Bruce Willis built and built as Fair's grandfather.

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Speaker 1: But Romelman says Willis's plans looked more like an office park.

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Speaker 1: So you sink your money and it's you know, thirty

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Speaker 1: sixty whatever it is. You build your floors and lighting

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Speaker 1: and you know, plans and insurance, and you do all

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Speaker 1: this stuff and then oh, oh, actually it's not going

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Speaker 1: to be retail. We're just gonna for whatever reason, maybe

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Speaker 1: they couldn't find tenants or they just changed their minds,

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Speaker 1: who knows. But now it's going to be offices. So

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Speaker 1: now you're this lonely dude on the second floor with

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Speaker 1: let's say a jewelry store. You're screwed. You're absolutely screwed.

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Speaker 1: You are definitely not going to get you know, the

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of tourists coming in to walk into

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Speaker 1: an office building and maybe go to your jewelry store.

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Speaker 1: It's it's never going to happen. Romeolman spoke to Francois Parrie,

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Speaker 1: the owner of a furniture store in the building. He

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Speaker 1: insisted on meeting her in front of a hardware store

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Speaker 1: on the outskirts of town as though he were being

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Speaker 1: watched in a car. We sat in the car and yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a little strange. But obviously some people in

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Speaker 1: Haley felt like Willis was too powerful to go up against.

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Speaker 1: It made them a little paranoid. I recall him as

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Speaker 1: being definitely still pretty head up about the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: Francois told Rommelman he had moved into the E. G.

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Speaker 1: Willis Building in his business was called primitive design, and

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Speaker 1: he was eager to bask in the sunshine supplied by

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Speaker 1: a Willis funded enterprise. And it was built as a

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Speaker 1: retail mall, but instead of clothing stores or ice cream parlors,

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Speaker 1: for SUA's neighbors were suits and business casual. The E. G.

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Speaker 1: Willis Building wasn't he felt as advertised? Who wants to

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Speaker 1: go furniture shopping in an office building? Francois suit Willis

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Speaker 1: and Valley Entertainment to get back the thirty thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: he had invested. Willis was off shooting another movie at

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Speaker 1: the time Francois filed his claim, Willis couldn't possibly fail

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Speaker 1: to show up on set. In order to appear in court.

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Speaker 1: They said it would cost over one hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars in misproduction per day. Willis's attorney then

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Speaker 1: filed a counterclaim. Francois was also told that if he

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Speaker 1: lost the lawsuit, he would be responsible for Willis's travel costs.

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Speaker 1: For Bruce Willis that meant paying the fuel charges for

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Speaker 1: his private airplane. In the end, a jury rejected both claims.

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Speaker 1: Each party would be responsible for their own legal expenses.

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Speaker 1: So that was one of the guys that tried to

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Speaker 1: get his money back. He didn't want anything else. He

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Speaker 1: just wanted to get what he'd invested in. And Willis's

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Speaker 1: crew fought him to the nail did and win it.

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Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, you you gotta feel for these people. Now,

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Speaker 1: were they, you know, counting their chickens before they hatched

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Speaker 1: well shore? But that's what you know, hopeful business people do.

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Speaker 1: And they, you know, they didn't count on the fact

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Speaker 1: that Willis could get out of whatever he wanted to

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Speaker 1: do a lot more easily than they could. He had

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Speaker 1: a lot of options, they had. One Francois declared a

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Speaker 1: personal bankruptcy. Another small business owner, Tony Lanning, told Rammelman

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Speaker 1: that Willis had made her an offer to buy her

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Speaker 1: antique store. Willis wasn't interested in selling antiques. He wanted

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Speaker 1: the land for a planned entertainment complex. A set of

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Speaker 1: blueprints had been going around town detailing the plans, and

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Speaker 1: Landing was surprised to find they showed Willis as the

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Speaker 1: owner of her store. At the time the plans were made.

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Speaker 1: It was just assumed she would sell. Anything else was unthinkable,

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Speaker 1: but Landing wasn't interested in selling. It was another hiccup

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Speaker 1: in Haley, a sign that not everyone was over the

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Speaker 1: moon about Willis being there, especially if you like to

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Speaker 1: get a good night's sleep. The biggest issue that I

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Speaker 1: had with Willis um was associated with the airport, and

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Speaker 1: the airport was a problem. The major part of the

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Speaker 1: population is centered around that airport, within three miles of

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Speaker 1: it in the direct flight line. Tom Blanchard again, he

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Speaker 1: was flying a G two and he was m arm

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Speaker 1: and arm with Arnold Fortunegger who was also flying a

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Speaker 1: G two, and the G twos were the noisiest aircraft, large,

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Speaker 1: you know, large private aircraft that you did get other

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Speaker 1: than a layer jet. And he would fly on at

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Speaker 1: two o'clock in the morning with this G two or

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Speaker 1: Jake off that woke you up in Bellevue. Sometimes it

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Speaker 1: seemed as though Willis didn't know his own strength, what

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Speaker 1: his buying sprey was doing to disrupt the economic ecosystem

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Speaker 1: of Haley, to say nothing of the noise pollution. If

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Speaker 1: Bruce Willis wanted something, no one was going to outbid

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Speaker 1: him for it. If you wanted to develop the town,

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Speaker 1: he expected people would follow along. If you wanted to

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Speaker 1: land a plane in the middle of the night, he

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Speaker 1: was going to land that plane, So what if there

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Speaker 1: was a little collateral damage. Besides, Willis didn't often have

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Speaker 1: to deal with the consequences of his decisions personally. That

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Speaker 1: job was left up to his Valley Entertainment. The head

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Speaker 1: of Valley was Joe McAllister, a childhood friend from New

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Speaker 1: Jersey who Willis had imported to be his right hand man.

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Speaker 1: McAllister was a big guy, brash, not a bad guy,

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Speaker 1: just assured. Here's Nancy Ramelman, the guy who had been

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Speaker 1: sort of boost his money. Guy was someone that people

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Speaker 1: were intimidated by. He was apparently like a big dude,

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Speaker 1: and he was still around on the streets of Haley

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Speaker 1: sometimes and people were, I don't think, like physically afraid

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Speaker 1: of the guy, but they were intimidated by him. McAllister

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Speaker 1: had a lot of crap to deal with. Literally. One

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Speaker 1: of the problems facing the E. G. Willis Building was

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Speaker 1: the town's iron grip on sewer permits. There weren't any

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Speaker 1: to go around with the city's engineers, fearful of the

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Speaker 1: town had reached its capacity city the sewell was discharging

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Speaker 1: too much waste into Bigwood River, and the Environmental Protection

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Speaker 1: Agency was on their back. The following year, the town

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Speaker 1: finally relented, releasing one hundred and ten permits for sewer hookups,

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Speaker 1: but that was for everyone homeowners, business owners, anyone who

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Speaker 1: needed to use a bathroom in a town that was growing.

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Speaker 1: The E. G. Willis Building wanted ten permits to add

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Speaker 1: a salon, bakery, and other businesses, but the permits were

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Speaker 1: too hard to come by. When the city released them,

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Speaker 1: people grabbed lawn chairs and camped outside of Haley's city hall.

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Speaker 1: McAllister criticized the limits in the local press. He even

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Speaker 1: tried to shame Haley's decision makers by saying that Willis

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Speaker 1: planned to build a six hundred thousand dollar industrial light

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Speaker 1: manufacturing building in nearby Bellevue. Willis would have built it

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Speaker 1: in Haley. McAllister said if only the business climate had

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Speaker 1: been friendlier. He said Bellevue had a quote cooperative spirit,

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Speaker 1: and he added Bellevue also had a sewer. Haley was

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Speaker 1: being potty shamed. The sewer capacity issue also stopped Demi

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Speaker 1: Moore's plans to turn an old drug store into a

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Speaker 1: fitness center. She also wanted to build a doll museum,

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Speaker 1: relying on her extensive two thousand dollar collection housed at

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Speaker 1: Freedman Mansion. Haley's gatekeepers wouldn't allow that either. Time and

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Speaker 1: time again, Willis wanted to grow Haley, and he kept

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Speaker 1: running into red tape and lawsuits. It was enough to

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Speaker 1: make some in Bruce's orbit want to get out of Idaho.

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Speaker 1: In McAllister announced he was resigning as president of Valley Entertainment.

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Speaker 1: He was going back to nutr Z. One of Willis's

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Speaker 1: top employees at Valley Entertainment took over, but the regime

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Speaker 1: change didn't get off to a good start. Just a

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Speaker 1: few months into the new president's tenure, Haley police and

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Speaker 1: state officials executed a search warrant and found fifteen marijuana

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Speaker 1: plants on her private property. According to Idaho law, that

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Speaker 1: was considered manufacturing. She was taken into custody and faced

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Speaker 1: five years in prison or fine a fifteen thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: if convicted. She argued the weed was for her personal use.

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Speaker 1: The charges were eventually dropped, but the feeling that Willis

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Speaker 1: and his crew were beyond reproach was wearing off. For Willis.

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Speaker 1: It had been a frustrating eighteen months. His main operator,

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Speaker 1: Joe McAllister, had left, only to be replaced with someone

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Speaker 1: upon felony charges. Haley was getting stingy with were hookups

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Speaker 1: cramping his business expansion. His plan to improve the sidewalks

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Speaker 1: outside of the E. G. Willis Building was getting the

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Speaker 1: run around too, As he had with the mint Willis

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Speaker 1: wanted them. Heated to battle the snow of Haley's harsh

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Speaker 1: winters and keep his patrons from sliding, but first through

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Speaker 1: his front door justice. Haley had counted on him to

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Speaker 1: give their economy a boost and raise their profile. Willis

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Speaker 1: was becoming more and more ensnared in local politics. A

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Speaker 1: man who could command ten to twenty million to do

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Speaker 1: a movie was arguing with a town over where people

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Speaker 1: could go to take a dome. His political involvement would

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Speaker 1: soon grow into something that concerned the entire state of Idaho, and,

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Speaker 1: unlike Francois Parrie the sewer and the heated sidewalks, if

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Speaker 1: this one didn't go his way, Willis issued a stunning ultimatum.

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Speaker 1: He said he'd leave for good. Bruce Willis became an astronaut. Well,

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Speaker 1: his character became an astronaut. In Armageddon, Willis plays Harry Stamper,

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Speaker 1: a deep sea oil driller. Stamper gets recruited by NASA

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Speaker 1: to help stop a humanity ending asteroid hurtling toward Earth.

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Speaker 1: The plan is Willis's character lands on the asteroid, drills

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Speaker 1: to its center, and plants a nuclear bomb inside, and

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Speaker 1: then he high tails it off the asteroid and blows

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Speaker 1: it up before it strikes her. Of course, things don't

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Speaker 1: go exactly as planned. The silliness of the plot wasn't

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Speaker 1: lost on Willis's co stars. Ben Affleck once asked director

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Speaker 1: Michael Bay why NASA couldn't simply train astronauts to become

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Speaker 1: oil drillers, which would probably be easier than doing it

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Speaker 1: the other way around. Michael Bay told Affleck to shut

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Speaker 1: the up. The movie would make half a billion dollars

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Speaker 1: at almost the exact same time Bruce Willis was dealing

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Speaker 1: with a real life nuclear catastrophe. This one was at home.

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Speaker 1: Idaho's Nuclear Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, now known as the

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Speaker 1: Idaho National Laboratory, opened during World War Two. It generated

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Speaker 1: nuclear power and researched ways to deal with the waste

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Speaker 1: it created, so there was a lot of depleted uranium

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Speaker 1: just sitting around, among other things. It was near the

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Speaker 1: state's largest freshwater aquifer, sure, but at least it was

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Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, well sixty miles east of

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Speaker 1: Haley to be exact. In the mid nineties, the state

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Speaker 1: of Idaho made a deal with the Department of Energy.

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Speaker 1: They'd allow the federal government to dump more than a

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Speaker 1: thousand shipments of new clear waste from out of state.

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Speaker 1: In return, the federal government promised to remove existing nuclear

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Speaker 1: waste from the state over a forty year period. Basically,

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Speaker 1: Idaho would get a lot of dump trucks full of

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Speaker 1: nuclear waste in the short term in exchange for having

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Speaker 1: a lot of it removed in the long term. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't a great deal, but the alternative was bleak. The

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Speaker 1: government could just dump nuclear waste there anyway, and Idaho

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Speaker 1: could get nothing at all in return. But not all

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Speaker 1: of Idaho's residents trusted the government word. If you had

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Speaker 1: lived in Idaho long enough, you knew the government had

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Speaker 1: first promised to remove the existing waste back in. Some

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Speaker 1: compared the whole situation to Chernobyl. Here's Wendy Jake what,

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Speaker 1: former executive director of the Catchum Sun Valley Chamber of Commerce.

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Speaker 1: There was a situation with regard to nuclear waste coming

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Speaker 1: into our state, and there was a campaign, a lot

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Speaker 1: of it was from here against that. The campaign was

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Speaker 1: called Stopped the Shipments, and he was a fender for

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Speaker 1: that group. He saw himself as a Republican, but he

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Speaker 1: was angry at the Republican governor because he felt the

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Speaker 1: governor that was violating the agreement the prior governor had made.

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Speaker 1: He donated ten grand to raise awareness for the cause,

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Speaker 1: a number that eventually grew to over one hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars. Even though he hated talking to the press,

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Speaker 1: Willis gritted his teeth and made his way through the

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Speaker 1: interviews to get the message across. And he framed it

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Speaker 1: as a kind of ultimatum. If I know didn't pass

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Speaker 1: the referendum, Willis said he would leave Haley and the

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Speaker 1: state altogether. If everyone votes yeah, we want it, I'll stop,

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Speaker 1: I'll shut up, and I'll start looking for another place

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Speaker 1: to live. He said. To some it was like a

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00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 1: Titian was being circulated to run Willis out of town.

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Speaker 1: After all, if you signed it was a vote for

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Speaker 1: him to stay. If you didn't, it was a vote

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Speaker 1: for him to leave. One newspaper editorial said some residents

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Speaker 1: might just take that deal. Maybe Francois Parrie would have

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Speaker 1: signed it. There was something about the threat that Willis

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Speaker 1: leaving was supposed to rattle the population that came off

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Speaker 1: as self aggrandizing, as if his absence would be a

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Speaker 1: massive blow to the state. Some even seemed to resent

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Speaker 1: Willis for having an opinion at all. To them, he

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Speaker 1: was an outsider who was positioning himself as an expert

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Speaker 1: on nuclear waste, not normally the purview of actors. Bruce

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Speaker 1: Willis wasn't just deciding what was best for Haley. He

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Speaker 1: was deciding what was best for Idaho. Calls to the

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Speaker 1: governor's office came in, telling him to quote, go back

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Speaker 1: to California, but Willis didn't back down. He doubled own,

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Speaker 1: holding a press conference on the steps of the state

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Speaker 1: capitol to criticize the state for allowing the deal to

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Speaker 1: go through. We want zero nuclear waste in the state

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Speaker 1: of Idaho, he said, and if Idaho couldn't provide that,

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Speaker 1: then Willis said they needed a new governor. He predicted

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Speaker 1: politicians backing the deal would be working at a seven

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Speaker 1: eleven in the next four years. Still, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people appreciated Willis's activism. It was a demonstration of his

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Speaker 1: commitment to Haley. Someone even came up with a slogan

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Speaker 1: stick with Bruce Willis for a better Idaho. He cared

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Speaker 1: about the well being of where he lived, and he

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00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 1: had the celebrity and money to support a just cause

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Speaker 1: when he saw one. But in the course of the drama,

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00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 1: a newspaper columnist named Dan Popkey discovered that Willis, who

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Speaker 1: had rarely been outspoken about local politics in the past,

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00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 1: was not registered to vote. He published that fact, much

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Speaker 1: to Bruce's chagrin. It reinforced the idea of the classic

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Speaker 1: Hollywood stereotype, a strongly opinionated actor who didn't even bother

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Speaker 1: to vote in the nine years he'd been living in Idaho,

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Speaker 1: and because Willis wasn't registered to vote, he wasn't legally

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Speaker 1: able to sign the petition he had been promoting. Willis

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00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: quickly ran to register. Fifty two thousand people signed the petition.

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Speaker 1: The people Willis, being the most vocal, had spoken and

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Speaker 1: it seemed like victory was in sight, that no mutant

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00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 1: offspring would be arriving in Haley decades from now. But

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00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 1: the referendum was defeated by voters. The nuclear waste was

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00:24:54,040 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: allowed in. Willis had failed to stop the asteroid, and

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Speaker 1: unlike the ending of Armageddon, where spoiler alert Willis sacrifices

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00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: his own life to save the planet, Willis remained in Haley.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the threat to leave was insincere, a bit of showmanship,

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Speaker 1: or maybe Willis was too financially entrenched in Haley to

355
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Speaker 1: pull out, but either way, his bluff had been called.

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Speaker 1: At first, Willis was unavailable for comment, with his publicist

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00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:30,240
Speaker 1: saying he was busy shooting a movie. Later, Willis insisted

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Speaker 1: he had been misquoted about leaving Idaho, that it was

359
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 1: a misunderstanding, that both the question and answer were all

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00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:42,400
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek. He also called Dan Popkey an Popkey

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00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 1: said the quote was accurate. Bruce Willis reminded himself why

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00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: he hated talking to journalists. Even though Willis couldn't influence

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00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: state policy, he still had a territory of his own

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00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 1: to survey Haley, where things could be shaped to his liking.

365
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 1: And while some in town thought Willis had too much power,

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00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 1: some felt like he was doing the right things with it.

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00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: The E. G. Willis Building, Francois Parie wasn't happy, but

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00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,439
Speaker 1: others were. Well. I started my business in June of

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Speaker 1: and I actually rented a space a retail's face about

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Speaker 1: square feet from the B. G. Willis Building, right next

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Speaker 1: to short E's, a little diner that they started. That's

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Speaker 1: Christopher Roebuck, a jeweler and owner of Christopher and Company,

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Speaker 1: a jewelry store that's still in Haley today. So we

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Speaker 1: had customers like Arnald and Maria and imperson to me,

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Speaker 1: it was a great venue to be in for him.

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00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: The E. G. Willis Building represented Willis's commitment to Haley,

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00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: its ability to piggyback on his fame to raise the

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00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 1: profile of Willis's related businesses and the entire town of Hailey.

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00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: So what if Christopher's retail business was in an office building.

380
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 1: Downtown Haley was still the place to be. Definitely, there

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00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: was a business they were They were investing in the

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Speaker 1: community by rebuilding old buildings and refurbishing the Liberty Theater

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Speaker 1: and the Ment Building and the Willis Building, the E.

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Speaker 1: Willis Building. It brought people to town and got people

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00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: excited about going out, even people that were local here.

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00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:31,199
Speaker 1: You know, they want to go out and be a

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00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,959
Speaker 1: part of the community and part of the changes and

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00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: exciting new things that were happening. That also meant Christopher

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00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 1: and other tenants of the E. G. Willis Building could

390
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: become inadvertent tour guides. There's people that are star struck,

391
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: really want to see him, get his autograph, and people

392
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: would come into my business and and say, have you

393
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: seen him today? Or is have you seen any of

394
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: the family, And you know, we we do. But we

395
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: didn't want to exploit their experience here because they were

396
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: they wanted to raise a family in a small town.

397
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: We didn't want to push people toward them that we're

398
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 1: gonna pest around like paparazzi. And we had plenty of

399
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: people that were coming in town with microphones and cameras

400
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: that wanted to take a picture of their life here,

401
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: which is invasive for anyone that has any variety in

402
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: the world. Haley was still in a Willis boom. The E. G.

403
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: Willis Building and his other projects were having a domino effect.

404
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: Even things Willis didn't directly finance were improving. At least

405
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: sidewalks were widened to accommodate more foot traffic. New street

406
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: lamps and trees went up. Around the same time as

407
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: the nuclear disaster, Willis made another major purchase, a ski mountain.

408
00:28:56,480 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: It was Soldier Mountain near Fairfield, not far from Hailey.

409
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: Here's Tom Blanchard, Okay Mountain. Yeah. And then I don't

410
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: know what um attracted him to buy that, but he

411
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: did buy it, and he put some improvements in. And

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Speaker 1: I think that the difficulty was that if you come

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00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: to Sun Valley, why would you go to Fairfield? Because

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00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: Fairfield was more rural, more isolated, more provincial. I guess

415
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: I might be a term more you know, Idaho rural um.

416
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: Then certainly Haley and there wasn't any attraction that would,

417
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: you know, in the sense developed that mountain. When Willis

418
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: bought the mountain, people in Chamas County, where Fairfield is located,

419
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: were ambivalent. Would it mean another deluge of Willis owned properties,

420
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: Would Soldier Mountain become the Haileywood Hills. They didn't need

421
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: to worry. Willis liked the mountains modesty. It was worlds

422
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: away from the ritzy Sun Valley ski area. Tickets were

423
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: cheap eighteen dollars. Unlike politics, it was just fun and

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00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: no one was going to dump any nuclear waste there.

425
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 1: See what you will about Bruce Willis opining on public policy,

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Speaker 1: but at least he cared about the state and about

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Speaker 1: the people in it. And Christmas, my first Christmas and

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Speaker 1: maybe my second in the building and opening my store.

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00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 1: I got to work one morning I found a little

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00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: note under the door. It was just a little Christmas

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00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: card like that, just a little note from to me

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00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: that said Merry Christmas and dust wishes to you and

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00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: your family. And and that meant a lot to me

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00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: because here I've borrowed money from my relatives to start

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Speaker 1: my business and I'm doing it in their building, and

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00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: here I get a Christmas from to me, personal handwritten

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00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: note that was heartfelt. So that really meant a lot

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Speaker 1: to me as far as my connection with the family.

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00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: France Swap Perrie had one experience, Christopher Roebuck had another.

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00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: Which side of the Bruce Willis coin you landed on

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00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: in Haley was hard to predict. The following year, Willis

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00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: announced plans to join the Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce.

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00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: It was ceremonial in nature. Willis didn't attend any meetings,

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00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: but it was his way of showing support for the

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00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: region's business community. He believed business owners should set examples.

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00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: They should be citizens as well as businessmen, and businessmen

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00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,479
Speaker 1: have a certain kind of power right. Trying to branch

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00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: out and get involved on the state level hadn't worked

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00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: out for Willis, but that didn't mean he couldn't affect

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00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: change in other ways. Willis still the de facto ahead

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00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 1: of the gazillion dollar movie industry. After all, Willis had

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00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: been careful to keep his two worlds, Hollywood and Haley separated.

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00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: One was work and one was home. Then something came

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00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: along that would convince him to let those worlds collide.

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00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis would make a movie just a few miles

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00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: from Haley, not a Diehard sequel, not another Army Get In,

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00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: but in many ways it would be the riskiest movie

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00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: of his career. Next time, on Haleywood. I got a

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00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 1: call from the casting director and I said, well, why

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00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: are you calling me? She said, well, Bruce wanted to

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00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: have all of his friends audition. But then you come

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00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: upon a huge problem, and that is you have to

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00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: just about flying everybody. Right. Any big movie is going

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00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: to bring all their principles. Extras is different X as

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00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: you get anywhere, extras might as well be a lamp post.

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00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: They're just moving lamp posts, right, hey, walk here, walk there.

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Speaker 1: I think that was a mistake because the kind of satirical,

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00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: farcical nature of the piece. I don't know. I don't

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Speaker 1: think it worked. It seems like it took a long

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00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: time to edit, and then it was screened one or

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00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: two places, and maybe that didn't go well. Haleywood is

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Speaker 1: hosted by Danis Schwartz. This show is written by Jake Rawson,

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00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: editing by Derrick Clements, Mary Do and me Josh Fisher.

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00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: Sound design and mixing by Jeremy Thal, Derrek Clemens, and

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00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: me Josh Fisher. Original music by Natasha Jacobs. Research and

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00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: fact checking by Jake Rawson, Austin Thompson, and Marissa Brown.

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00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: Show logo by Lucy quentinia Our senior producer is Ryan

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00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: Murdoch and our executive producer is Jason English. Special thanks

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00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: to the people of Hailey, Idaho and all those who've

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00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:08,320
Speaker 1: shared their stories. Haileywood is a production of I Heart Radio.

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00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: Until next Time, h