Читать книгу That Wasn’t the Plan - Reg Sherren - Страница 18

By now I was getting regular face time on the network, hunting down stories that had national appeal. One of the places I could always count on was the world-class Banff Springs Hotel. It was a storyteller’s gold mine.

I told stories about ghosts and other interesting characters. There was the bride who broke her neck falling down the back stairwell on her wedding night and still haunted the stairs, and the piano in a back dining room that played the song “Canadian Sunset” all by itself. There was the reunion of former employees, some dating back to those heady days when the rich families would show up for the summer with a couple dozen steamer trunks in tow. I remember a still somewhat embarrassed former employee blurting out on camera, fifty years after the fact, that she used to try on the women’s beautiful ball gowns when nobody was around. There was the story of Marilyn Monroe injuring herself while filming River of No Return, and famous baseball player Joe DiMaggio, who was wooing Monroe, showing up at the hotel with dozens of red roses to console her.

The manager of this beautiful, majestic castle at the time was Ivor Petrak. He knew the value of my national exposure, and we developed a great relationship. When they were building their super-luxury suite in the mid-1980s, complete with lap pool and private elevator to accommodate the ultra-rich, I got a call to come and take an exclusive look. The going rate was over $2,000 a night.

As the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary approached, I covered celebrity ski weekends that included Robin Leach from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Brooke Shields and Arnold Schwarzenegger. One night the rock group America played at dinner. These were amazing times for a young fellow from Labrador. I could get used to this.

Interviewing Robin Leach at the Banff Springs Hotel, with Dennis Genereux manning the old, massive Betacam. The celebrity ski weekend was part of the huge promotion leading up to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta.