Speaker 1: Originals. This is an I Heart original. It's one fine
Speaker 1: winter's day in the late ninety nineties and prominent Hailey lawyer,
Speaker 1: Lee Slender, is busy working from home, like a lot
Speaker 1: of his out there in heavy snow country. I had
Speaker 1: my house upstairs, in my office is downstairs. You build
Speaker 1: on two layers because our our winners are so long
Speaker 1: and so much as snow and cold, that it made sense.
Speaker 1: That's Lee. Lee is deposing a client of his, Jim Lovey,
Speaker 1: whose heating and ventilation firm is alleging their owed fifty
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars over an unpaid invoice. Lovey says that
Speaker 1: their client, Valley Entertainment, has refused to settle the bill.
Speaker 1: We were downstairs taking the deposition and Bruce came charging
Speaker 1: in and like, you know, boy, the lone rangers here.
Speaker 1: And he sat down and listen for a bit and was,
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of I don't know, what would
Speaker 1: you say, puffing and puffing and being a little ledger.
Speaker 1: According to Lee, Bruce Willis starts making faces and emitting
Speaker 1: strange noises. He's like a student acting out in class,
Speaker 1: like he can't believe Jim Lovey has the audacity to
Speaker 1: tell his side of the story. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: Lovey is not alleging Bruce Willis owes him money. He's
Speaker 1: alleging Valley Entertainment owes him money. And Bruce Willis is
Speaker 1: never a named party in the suit. But Willis does
Speaker 1: own Valley Entertainment. Who does allegedly, Oh, Lovey the money?
Speaker 1: And clearly he's taking this a little personally. And he
Speaker 1: jumped up out of his chair and ran up the
Speaker 1: stair He didn't know where it was. I don't think
Speaker 1: he didn't know the building again, this is a home office. Well,
Speaker 1: my wife was upstairs in the kitchen cooking, and he
Speaker 1: ran right into her. She said something like, well, hi,
Speaker 1: Mr Willis, how are you. He didn't realize it was
Speaker 1: all I don't know where he thought that stairway went.
Speaker 1: But boy, if you could hear everything crashing bang as
Speaker 1: you tried to find the door out and he finally did,
Speaker 1: it was clear Willis didn't think much of the allegations,
Speaker 1: or of any kind of descent in Haley. The fuss
Speaker 1: over an unpaid bill was a kind of objection. Willis had,
Speaker 1: after all, employed countless skilled tradespeople for his projects. He
Speaker 1: had injected millions into Haley's economy, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: he had become possibly the strongest force in the community.
Speaker 1: He had what he had long enjoyed in Hollywood, power influence.
Speaker 1: The days of being a quiet resident were over. There
Speaker 1: were battles to fight now, legal ones, political ones. Because
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis had a platform. Sometimes he'd use it to
Speaker 1: interrupt a deposition, other times he'd use it on bigger issues.
Speaker 1: But even movie stars have limits, and while Bruce Willis
Speaker 1: might have been able to rattle the people of Haley,
Speaker 1: influencing the entire state of Idaho would be a different story,
Speaker 1: and quite possibly a disaster of nuclear proportions. For I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, This is Hayleywood, an I Heart original podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Danis Schwartz, and this is episode five.
Speaker 1: Citizen Willis. In spending years and millions of dollars in
Speaker 1: constructing the Mint bar renovating the Liberty, erecting the E. G.
Speaker 1: Willis Building, and more. Willis had employed dozens, perhaps hundreds
Speaker 1: of skilled laborers, and the vast majority didn't seem to
Speaker 1: have any issue. When someone did well. They took his
Speaker 1: Valley Entertainment to court. While Bruce Willis's deposition interruption may
Speaker 1: not have been his finest moment. It may have been
Speaker 1: born out of real frustration. The lawsuit brought by Jim
Speaker 1: loves Eagle Company was a result of heating and ventilation
Speaker 1: work done on the E. G. Willis Building. Jim Lovey
Speaker 1: and his brother Jack sued for fifty four thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: then raised that number to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: But the case had problems. A computer failure had wiped
Speaker 1: out the company's detailed financial records. The judge ruled that
Speaker 1: mistakes had been made by Eagle Company during installation. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the court ruled in Willis's favor. By the time everything
Speaker 1: was accounted for, Eagle Company was ordered to pay a
Speaker 1: total of fifty nine dollars and seventy four cents. The
Speaker 1: two story E. G. Willis Building was the source of
Speaker 1: other issues. It was a symbol of Haley's evolution. Willis
Speaker 1: had torn down one of the oldest buildings in Haley
Speaker 1: to build it. Here's former Blaine County Commissioner and Idaho
Speaker 1: historian Tom Blanchard. When they tore that building down, it
Speaker 1: turns out the building next door to it had an
Speaker 1: incredible mural on it. It was just beautiful. It was
Speaker 1: an old Henry George cigar advertisement. The cigar was just
Speaker 1: five cents and according to the ad, just for men.
Speaker 1: When he tore that down and exposed that mural, he
Speaker 1: left it up for a couple of weeks just so
Speaker 1: people could enjoy it. And then eventually that building had
Speaker 1: to go and he got torn down. Also, Old Haley
Speaker 1: was slowly disappearing. When Willis put up his new building,
Speaker 1: he pictured a retail complex, a Haley sized shopping center
Speaker 1: with his fifty Styles diner. Shorty is one of the
Speaker 1: flagship attractions. It was going to be retail. Let's see,
Speaker 1: you're a jewelist or a flower store owner or a
Speaker 1: coffee shop guy, and it's like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: can get in and be in. You know, Willis's this
Speaker 1: building and it's like the only building that's going to
Speaker 1: be like that in town. That's Nancy Romelman. Nancy was
Speaker 1: a writer for l a weekly who was dispatched to
Speaker 1: Haley to see about Bruce Willis's investments. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a big deal, and you're gonna get
Speaker 1: tourists that are gonna want to come in and you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're writing on the fact that this is a
Speaker 1: building that Bruce Willis built and built as Fair's grandfather.
Speaker 1: But Romelman says Willis's plans looked more like an office park.
Speaker 1: So you sink your money and it's you know, thirty
Speaker 1: sixty whatever it is. You build your floors and lighting
Speaker 1: and you know, plans and insurance, and you do all
Speaker 1: this stuff and then oh, oh, actually it's not going
Speaker 1: to be retail. We're just gonna for whatever reason, maybe
Speaker 1: they couldn't find tenants or they just changed their minds,
Speaker 1: who knows. But now it's going to be offices. So
Speaker 1: now you're this lonely dude on the second floor with
Speaker 1: let's say a jewelry store. You're screwed. You're absolutely screwed.
Speaker 1: You are definitely not going to get you know, the
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of tourists coming in to walk into
Speaker 1: an office building and maybe go to your jewelry store.
Speaker 1: It's it's never going to happen. Romeolman spoke to Francois Parrie,
Speaker 1: the owner of a furniture store in the building. He
Speaker 1: insisted on meeting her in front of a hardware store
Speaker 1: on the outskirts of town as though he were being
Speaker 1: watched in a car. We sat in the car and yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a little strange. But obviously some people in
Speaker 1: Haley felt like Willis was too powerful to go up against.
Speaker 1: It made them a little paranoid. I recall him as
Speaker 1: being definitely still pretty head up about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Francois told Rommelman he had moved into the E. G.
Speaker 1: Willis Building in his business was called primitive design, and
Speaker 1: he was eager to bask in the sunshine supplied by
Speaker 1: a Willis funded enterprise. And it was built as a
Speaker 1: retail mall, but instead of clothing stores or ice cream parlors,
Speaker 1: for SUA's neighbors were suits and business casual. The E. G.
Speaker 1: Willis Building wasn't he felt as advertised? Who wants to
Speaker 1: go furniture shopping in an office building? Francois suit Willis
Speaker 1: and Valley Entertainment to get back the thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: he had invested. Willis was off shooting another movie at
Speaker 1: the time Francois filed his claim, Willis couldn't possibly fail
Speaker 1: to show up on set. In order to appear in court.
Speaker 1: They said it would cost over one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars in misproduction per day. Willis's attorney then
Speaker 1: filed a counterclaim. Francois was also told that if he
Speaker 1: lost the lawsuit, he would be responsible for Willis's travel costs.
Speaker 1: For Bruce Willis that meant paying the fuel charges for
Speaker 1: his private airplane. In the end, a jury rejected both claims.
Speaker 1: Each party would be responsible for their own legal expenses.
Speaker 1: So that was one of the guys that tried to
Speaker 1: get his money back. He didn't want anything else. He
Speaker 1: just wanted to get what he'd invested in. And Willis's
Speaker 1: crew fought him to the nail did and win it.
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, you you gotta feel for these people. Now,
Speaker 1: were they, you know, counting their chickens before they hatched
Speaker 1: well shore? But that's what you know, hopeful business people do.
Speaker 1: And they, you know, they didn't count on the fact
Speaker 1: that Willis could get out of whatever he wanted to
Speaker 1: do a lot more easily than they could. He had
Speaker 1: a lot of options, they had. One Francois declared a
Speaker 1: personal bankruptcy. Another small business owner, Tony Lanning, told Rammelman
Speaker 1: that Willis had made her an offer to buy her
Speaker 1: antique store. Willis wasn't interested in selling antiques. He wanted
Speaker 1: the land for a planned entertainment complex. A set of
Speaker 1: blueprints had been going around town detailing the plans, and
Speaker 1: Landing was surprised to find they showed Willis as the
Speaker 1: owner of her store. At the time the plans were made.
Speaker 1: It was just assumed she would sell. Anything else was unthinkable,
Speaker 1: but Landing wasn't interested in selling. It was another hiccup
Speaker 1: in Haley, a sign that not everyone was over the
Speaker 1: moon about Willis being there, especially if you like to
Speaker 1: get a good night's sleep. The biggest issue that I
Speaker 1: had with Willis um was associated with the airport, and
Speaker 1: the airport was a problem. The major part of the
Speaker 1: population is centered around that airport, within three miles of
Speaker 1: it in the direct flight line. Tom Blanchard again, he
Speaker 1: was flying a G two and he was m arm
Speaker 1: and arm with Arnold Fortunegger who was also flying a
Speaker 1: G two, and the G twos were the noisiest aircraft, large,
Speaker 1: you know, large private aircraft that you did get other
Speaker 1: than a layer jet. And he would fly on at
Speaker 1: two o'clock in the morning with this G two or
Speaker 1: Jake off that woke you up in Bellevue. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: seemed as though Willis didn't know his own strength, what
Speaker 1: his buying sprey was doing to disrupt the economic ecosystem
Speaker 1: of Haley, to say nothing of the noise pollution. If
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis wanted something, no one was going to outbid
Speaker 1: him for it. If you wanted to develop the town,
Speaker 1: he expected people would follow along. If you wanted to
Speaker 1: land a plane in the middle of the night, he
Speaker 1: was going to land that plane, So what if there
Speaker 1: was a little collateral damage. Besides, Willis didn't often have
Speaker 1: to deal with the consequences of his decisions personally. That
Speaker 1: job was left up to his Valley Entertainment. The head
Speaker 1: of Valley was Joe McAllister, a childhood friend from New
Speaker 1: Jersey who Willis had imported to be his right hand man.
Speaker 1: McAllister was a big guy, brash, not a bad guy,
Speaker 1: just assured. Here's Nancy Ramelman, the guy who had been
Speaker 1: sort of boost his money. Guy was someone that people
Speaker 1: were intimidated by. He was apparently like a big dude,
Speaker 1: and he was still around on the streets of Haley
Speaker 1: sometimes and people were, I don't think, like physically afraid
Speaker 1: of the guy, but they were intimidated by him. McAllister
Speaker 1: had a lot of crap to deal with. Literally. One
Speaker 1: of the problems facing the E. G. Willis Building was
Speaker 1: the town's iron grip on sewer permits. There weren't any
Speaker 1: to go around with the city's engineers, fearful of the
Speaker 1: town had reached its capacity city the sewell was discharging
Speaker 1: too much waste into Bigwood River, and the Environmental Protection
Speaker 1: Agency was on their back. The following year, the town
Speaker 1: finally relented, releasing one hundred and ten permits for sewer hookups,
Speaker 1: but that was for everyone homeowners, business owners, anyone who
Speaker 1: needed to use a bathroom in a town that was growing.
Speaker 1: The E. G. Willis Building wanted ten permits to add
Speaker 1: a salon, bakery, and other businesses, but the permits were
Speaker 1: too hard to come by. When the city released them,
Speaker 1: people grabbed lawn chairs and camped outside of Haley's city hall.
Speaker 1: McAllister criticized the limits in the local press. He even
Speaker 1: tried to shame Haley's decision makers by saying that Willis
Speaker 1: planned to build a six hundred thousand dollar industrial light
Speaker 1: manufacturing building in nearby Bellevue. Willis would have built it
Speaker 1: in Haley. McAllister said if only the business climate had
Speaker 1: been friendlier. He said Bellevue had a quote cooperative spirit,
Speaker 1: and he added Bellevue also had a sewer. Haley was
Speaker 1: being potty shamed. The sewer capacity issue also stopped Demi
Speaker 1: Moore's plans to turn an old drug store into a
Speaker 1: fitness center. She also wanted to build a doll museum,
Speaker 1: relying on her extensive two thousand dollar collection housed at
Speaker 1: Freedman Mansion. Haley's gatekeepers wouldn't allow that either. Time and
Speaker 1: time again, Willis wanted to grow Haley, and he kept
Speaker 1: running into red tape and lawsuits. It was enough to
Speaker 1: make some in Bruce's orbit want to get out of Idaho.
Speaker 1: In McAllister announced he was resigning as president of Valley Entertainment.
Speaker 1: He was going back to nutr Z. One of Willis's
Speaker 1: top employees at Valley Entertainment took over, but the regime
Speaker 1: change didn't get off to a good start. Just a
Speaker 1: few months into the new president's tenure, Haley police and
Speaker 1: state officials executed a search warrant and found fifteen marijuana
Speaker 1: plants on her private property. According to Idaho law, that
Speaker 1: was considered manufacturing. She was taken into custody and faced
Speaker 1: five years in prison or fine a fifteen thousand dollars
Speaker 1: if convicted. She argued the weed was for her personal use.
Speaker 1: The charges were eventually dropped, but the feeling that Willis
Speaker 1: and his crew were beyond reproach was wearing off. For Willis.
Speaker 1: It had been a frustrating eighteen months. His main operator,
Speaker 1: Joe McAllister, had left, only to be replaced with someone
Speaker 1: upon felony charges. Haley was getting stingy with were hookups
Speaker 1: cramping his business expansion. His plan to improve the sidewalks
Speaker 1: outside of the E. G. Willis Building was getting the
Speaker 1: run around too, As he had with the mint Willis
Speaker 1: wanted them. Heated to battle the snow of Haley's harsh
Speaker 1: winters and keep his patrons from sliding, but first through
Speaker 1: his front door justice. Haley had counted on him to
Speaker 1: give their economy a boost and raise their profile. Willis
Speaker 1: was becoming more and more ensnared in local politics. A
Speaker 1: man who could command ten to twenty million to do
Speaker 1: a movie was arguing with a town over where people
Speaker 1: could go to take a dome. His political involvement would
Speaker 1: soon grow into something that concerned the entire state of Idaho, and,
Speaker 1: unlike Francois Parrie the sewer and the heated sidewalks, if
Speaker 1: this one didn't go his way, Willis issued a stunning ultimatum.
Speaker 1: He said he'd leave for good. Bruce Willis became an astronaut. Well,
Speaker 1: his character became an astronaut. In Armageddon, Willis plays Harry Stamper,
Speaker 1: a deep sea oil driller. Stamper gets recruited by NASA
Speaker 1: to help stop a humanity ending asteroid hurtling toward Earth.
Speaker 1: The plan is Willis's character lands on the asteroid, drills
Speaker 1: to its center, and plants a nuclear bomb inside, and
Speaker 1: then he high tails it off the asteroid and blows
Speaker 1: it up before it strikes her. Of course, things don't
Speaker 1: go exactly as planned. The silliness of the plot wasn't
Speaker 1: lost on Willis's co stars. Ben Affleck once asked director
Speaker 1: Michael Bay why NASA couldn't simply train astronauts to become
Speaker 1: oil drillers, which would probably be easier than doing it
Speaker 1: the other way around. Michael Bay told Affleck to shut
Speaker 1: the up. The movie would make half a billion dollars
Speaker 1: at almost the exact same time Bruce Willis was dealing
Speaker 1: with a real life nuclear catastrophe. This one was at home.
Speaker 1: Idaho's Nuclear Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, now known as the
Speaker 1: Idaho National Laboratory, opened during World War Two. It generated
Speaker 1: nuclear power and researched ways to deal with the waste
Speaker 1: it created, so there was a lot of depleted uranium
Speaker 1: just sitting around, among other things. It was near the
Speaker 1: state's largest freshwater aquifer, sure, but at least it was
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, well sixty miles east of
Speaker 1: Haley to be exact. In the mid nineties, the state
Speaker 1: of Idaho made a deal with the Department of Energy.
Speaker 1: They'd allow the federal government to dump more than a
Speaker 1: thousand shipments of new clear waste from out of state.
Speaker 1: In return, the federal government promised to remove existing nuclear
Speaker 1: waste from the state over a forty year period. Basically,
Speaker 1: Idaho would get a lot of dump trucks full of
Speaker 1: nuclear waste in the short term in exchange for having
Speaker 1: a lot of it removed in the long term. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a great deal, but the alternative was bleak. The
Speaker 1: government could just dump nuclear waste there anyway, and Idaho
Speaker 1: could get nothing at all in return. But not all
Speaker 1: of Idaho's residents trusted the government word. If you had
Speaker 1: lived in Idaho long enough, you knew the government had
Speaker 1: first promised to remove the existing waste back in. Some
Speaker 1: compared the whole situation to Chernobyl. Here's Wendy Jake what,
Speaker 1: former executive director of the Catchum Sun Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 1: There was a situation with regard to nuclear waste coming
Speaker 1: into our state, and there was a campaign, a lot
Speaker 1: of it was from here against that. The campaign was
Speaker 1: called Stopped the Shipments, and he was a fender for
Speaker 1: that group. He saw himself as a Republican, but he
Speaker 1: was angry at the Republican governor because he felt the
Speaker 1: governor that was violating the agreement the prior governor had made.
Speaker 1: He donated ten grand to raise awareness for the cause,
Speaker 1: a number that eventually grew to over one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars. Even though he hated talking to the press,
Speaker 1: Willis gritted his teeth and made his way through the
Speaker 1: interviews to get the message across. And he framed it
Speaker 1: as a kind of ultimatum. If I know didn't pass
Speaker 1: the referendum, Willis said he would leave Haley and the
Speaker 1: state altogether. If everyone votes yeah, we want it, I'll stop,
Speaker 1: I'll shut up, and I'll start looking for another place
Speaker 1: to live. He said. To some it was like a
Speaker 1: Titian was being circulated to run Willis out of town.
Speaker 1: After all, if you signed it was a vote for
Speaker 1: him to stay. If you didn't, it was a vote
Speaker 1: for him to leave. One newspaper editorial said some residents
Speaker 1: might just take that deal. Maybe Francois Parrie would have
Speaker 1: signed it. There was something about the threat that Willis
Speaker 1: leaving was supposed to rattle the population that came off
Speaker 1: as self aggrandizing, as if his absence would be a
Speaker 1: massive blow to the state. Some even seemed to resent
Speaker 1: Willis for having an opinion at all. To them, he
Speaker 1: was an outsider who was positioning himself as an expert
Speaker 1: on nuclear waste, not normally the purview of actors. Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis wasn't just deciding what was best for Haley. He
Speaker 1: was deciding what was best for Idaho. Calls to the
Speaker 1: governor's office came in, telling him to quote, go back
Speaker 1: to California, but Willis didn't back down. He doubled own,
Speaker 1: holding a press conference on the steps of the state
Speaker 1: capitol to criticize the state for allowing the deal to
Speaker 1: go through. We want zero nuclear waste in the state
Speaker 1: of Idaho, he said, and if Idaho couldn't provide that,
Speaker 1: then Willis said they needed a new governor. He predicted
Speaker 1: politicians backing the deal would be working at a seven
Speaker 1: eleven in the next four years. Still, a lot of
Speaker 1: people appreciated Willis's activism. It was a demonstration of his
Speaker 1: commitment to Haley. Someone even came up with a slogan
Speaker 1: stick with Bruce Willis for a better Idaho. He cared
Speaker 1: about the well being of where he lived, and he
Speaker 1: had the celebrity and money to support a just cause
Speaker 1: when he saw one. But in the course of the drama,
Speaker 1: a newspaper columnist named Dan Popkey discovered that Willis, who
Speaker 1: had rarely been outspoken about local politics in the past,
Speaker 1: was not registered to vote. He published that fact, much
Speaker 1: to Bruce's chagrin. It reinforced the idea of the classic
Speaker 1: Hollywood stereotype, a strongly opinionated actor who didn't even bother
Speaker 1: to vote in the nine years he'd been living in Idaho,
Speaker 1: and because Willis wasn't registered to vote, he wasn't legally
Speaker 1: able to sign the petition he had been promoting. Willis
Speaker 1: quickly ran to register. Fifty two thousand people signed the petition.
Speaker 1: The people Willis, being the most vocal, had spoken and
Speaker 1: it seemed like victory was in sight, that no mutant
Speaker 1: offspring would be arriving in Haley decades from now. But
Speaker 1: the referendum was defeated by voters. The nuclear waste was
Speaker 1: allowed in. Willis had failed to stop the asteroid, and
Speaker 1: unlike the ending of Armageddon, where spoiler alert Willis sacrifices
Speaker 1: his own life to save the planet, Willis remained in Haley.
Speaker 1: Maybe the threat to leave was insincere, a bit of showmanship,
Speaker 1: or maybe Willis was too financially entrenched in Haley to
Speaker 1: pull out, but either way, his bluff had been called.
Speaker 1: At first, Willis was unavailable for comment, with his publicist
Speaker 1: saying he was busy shooting a movie. Later, Willis insisted
Speaker 1: he had been misquoted about leaving Idaho, that it was
Speaker 1: a misunderstanding, that both the question and answer were all
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek. He also called Dan Popkey an Popkey
Speaker 1: said the quote was accurate. Bruce Willis reminded himself why
Speaker 1: he hated talking to journalists. Even though Willis couldn't influence
Speaker 1: state policy, he still had a territory of his own
Speaker 1: to survey Haley, where things could be shaped to his liking.
Speaker 1: And while some in town thought Willis had too much power,
Speaker 1: some felt like he was doing the right things with it.
Speaker 1: The E. G. Willis Building, Francois Parie wasn't happy, but
Speaker 1: others were. Well. I started my business in June of
Speaker 1: and I actually rented a space a retail's face about
Speaker 1: square feet from the B. G. Willis Building, right next
Speaker 1: to short E's, a little diner that they started. That's
Speaker 1: Christopher Roebuck, a jeweler and owner of Christopher and Company,
Speaker 1: a jewelry store that's still in Haley today. So we
Speaker 1: had customers like Arnald and Maria and imperson to me,
Speaker 1: it was a great venue to be in for him.
Speaker 1: The E. G. Willis Building represented Willis's commitment to Haley,
Speaker 1: its ability to piggyback on his fame to raise the
Speaker 1: profile of Willis's related businesses and the entire town of Hailey.
Speaker 1: So what if Christopher's retail business was in an office building.
Speaker 1: Downtown Haley was still the place to be. Definitely, there
Speaker 1: was a business they were They were investing in the
Speaker 1: community by rebuilding old buildings and refurbishing the Liberty Theater
Speaker 1: and the Ment Building and the Willis Building, the E.
Speaker 1: Willis Building. It brought people to town and got people
Speaker 1: excited about going out, even people that were local here.
Speaker 1: You know, they want to go out and be a
Speaker 1: part of the community and part of the changes and
Speaker 1: exciting new things that were happening. That also meant Christopher
Speaker 1: and other tenants of the E. G. Willis Building could
Speaker 1: become inadvertent tour guides. There's people that are star struck,
Speaker 1: really want to see him, get his autograph, and people
Speaker 1: would come into my business and and say, have you
Speaker 1: seen him today? Or is have you seen any of
Speaker 1: the family, And you know, we we do. But we
Speaker 1: didn't want to exploit their experience here because they were
Speaker 1: they wanted to raise a family in a small town.
Speaker 1: We didn't want to push people toward them that we're
Speaker 1: gonna pest around like paparazzi. And we had plenty of
Speaker 1: people that were coming in town with microphones and cameras
Speaker 1: that wanted to take a picture of their life here,
Speaker 1: which is invasive for anyone that has any variety in
Speaker 1: the world. Haley was still in a Willis boom. The E. G.
Speaker 1: Willis Building and his other projects were having a domino effect.
Speaker 1: Even things Willis didn't directly finance were improving. At least
Speaker 1: sidewalks were widened to accommodate more foot traffic. New street
Speaker 1: lamps and trees went up. Around the same time as
Speaker 1: the nuclear disaster, Willis made another major purchase, a ski mountain.
Speaker 1: It was Soldier Mountain near Fairfield, not far from Hailey.
Speaker 1: Here's Tom Blanchard, Okay Mountain. Yeah. And then I don't
Speaker 1: know what um attracted him to buy that, but he
Speaker 1: did buy it, and he put some improvements in. And
Speaker 1: I think that the difficulty was that if you come
Speaker 1: to Sun Valley, why would you go to Fairfield? Because
Speaker 1: Fairfield was more rural, more isolated, more provincial. I guess
Speaker 1: I might be a term more you know, Idaho rural um.
Speaker 1: Then certainly Haley and there wasn't any attraction that would,
Speaker 1: you know, in the sense developed that mountain. When Willis
Speaker 1: bought the mountain, people in Chamas County, where Fairfield is located,
Speaker 1: were ambivalent. Would it mean another deluge of Willis owned properties,
Speaker 1: Would Soldier Mountain become the Haileywood Hills. They didn't need
Speaker 1: to worry. Willis liked the mountains modesty. It was worlds
Speaker 1: away from the ritzy Sun Valley ski area. Tickets were
Speaker 1: cheap eighteen dollars. Unlike politics, it was just fun and
Speaker 1: no one was going to dump any nuclear waste there.
Speaker 1: See what you will about Bruce Willis opining on public policy,
Speaker 1: but at least he cared about the state and about
Speaker 1: the people in it. And Christmas, my first Christmas and
Speaker 1: maybe my second in the building and opening my store.
Speaker 1: I got to work one morning I found a little
Speaker 1: note under the door. It was just a little Christmas
Speaker 1: card like that, just a little note from to me
Speaker 1: that said Merry Christmas and dust wishes to you and
Speaker 1: your family. And and that meant a lot to me
Speaker 1: because here I've borrowed money from my relatives to start
Speaker 1: my business and I'm doing it in their building, and
Speaker 1: here I get a Christmas from to me, personal handwritten
Speaker 1: note that was heartfelt. So that really meant a lot
Speaker 1: to me as far as my connection with the family.
Speaker 1: France Swap Perrie had one experience, Christopher Roebuck had another.
Speaker 1: Which side of the Bruce Willis coin you landed on
Speaker 1: in Haley was hard to predict. The following year, Willis
Speaker 1: announced plans to join the Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 1: It was ceremonial in nature. Willis didn't attend any meetings,
Speaker 1: but it was his way of showing support for the
Speaker 1: region's business community. He believed business owners should set examples.
Speaker 1: They should be citizens as well as businessmen, and businessmen
Speaker 1: have a certain kind of power right. Trying to branch
Speaker 1: out and get involved on the state level hadn't worked
Speaker 1: out for Willis, but that didn't mean he couldn't affect
Speaker 1: change in other ways. Willis still the de facto ahead
Speaker 1: of the gazillion dollar movie industry. After all, Willis had
Speaker 1: been careful to keep his two worlds, Hollywood and Haley separated.
Speaker 1: One was work and one was home. Then something came
Speaker 1: along that would convince him to let those worlds collide.
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis would make a movie just a few miles
Speaker 1: from Haley, not a Diehard sequel, not another Army Get In,
Speaker 1: but in many ways it would be the riskiest movie
Speaker 1: of his career. Next time, on Haleywood. I got a
Speaker 1: call from the casting director and I said, well, why
Speaker 1: are you calling me? She said, well, Bruce wanted to
Speaker 1: have all of his friends audition. But then you come
Speaker 1: upon a huge problem, and that is you have to
Speaker 1: just about flying everybody. Right. Any big movie is going
Speaker 1: to bring all their principles. Extras is different X as
Speaker 1: you get anywhere, extras might as well be a lamp post.
Speaker 1: They're just moving lamp posts, right, hey, walk here, walk there.
Speaker 1: I think that was a mistake because the kind of satirical,
Speaker 1: farcical nature of the piece. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: think it worked. It seems like it took a long
Speaker 1: time to edit, and then it was screened one or
Speaker 1: two places, and maybe that didn't go well. Haleywood is
Speaker 1: hosted by Danis Schwartz. This show is written by Jake Rawson,
Speaker 1: editing by Derrick Clements, Mary Do and me Josh Fisher.
Speaker 1: Sound design and mixing by Jeremy Thal, Derrek Clemens, and
Speaker 1: me Josh Fisher. Original music by Natasha Jacobs. Research and
Speaker 1: fact checking by Jake Rawson, Austin Thompson, and Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Show logo by Lucy quentinia Our senior producer is Ryan
Speaker 1: Murdoch and our executive producer is Jason English. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the people of Hailey, Idaho and all those who've
Speaker 1: shared their stories. Haileywood is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Until next Time, h