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Show f '.V.V.V.'.Y.V.W.WwWAWtoWAWi'.WAVAyAliWftW.WAVft1 p patrol cai?" but tell it for the record." Rusty told me this story over a beer a few months before foe heart attack when he weighed fifty pounds more and was quite spry for a man in his Rusty is such a hard worker that it scares the hell out of those who love him Bette Stanton, concerned with his health once remarked to hint, "Rusty, you are getting mighty hL You'd better slow down or get some help. What do you think will happen to you if you just keep working "Yes, so hard?" Rusty smiled and said in a matter of feet tone, 1 guess 111 die." The heart attack took a lot out of him, but he wu slowly returning to his old self. The evil chuckle was back infectious as ever, and his wit was as sharp as it ever was. He continued, aA couple of my deputies arrested this gal and die started taking her clothes off in the bade of the patrol car. She kept saying to my deputy, 7hn, Tm gonna take my clothes off.' She ended up throwing her clothes out of the window. She was stark naked and crawled up onto the shelf above foe bade seat By foe time they got to Bluff than musfa been 60 cars following them." I said, "She must have been an exhibitionist" "Yea, we had lot of them. Inez Posey was another one. Her son shot her in foe breast one time, and me and my deputy took her to foe doc, an oriental fella, to get foe bullet out and sew her up. She was drunk as a skunk and laughing like crazy. Inez weighed way over 300 pounds and the doc was having a hard time getting to the problem. Hell, her breast musfa weighed 30 to 40 pounds by itself. My deputy was getting really tired holding it up so foe doc could work on it He and Inez was laughing and Inez was jiggling like jello. Finally we had her hang upside down so her breast would dangle down and foe doc could get at the wound. It was pretty funny lookin'. The doc was laughing. Orientals is pretty reserved. You know if you can get an oriental to laugh, it must be really funny. "You could write a book on that jail I was thinking about it "We had a gal who lived at the mouth of Red Canyon and was always calling in about UFOs landing out there. She said she would talk to them aliens, but they didn't like no strangers. She said their space ship looked like a giant MAM with spider legs. I think she was a little dinged-oubut she was real serious about them UFOs. She said they was with awake her that keepin' humming noise. I don't know what she thought we could do about it" I stepped outside to shoot some photos of Rusty's collection of western artifacts. When I returned I changed the subject to Rusty's current profession; furnishing western propa for movies. His propping business is named after Roughlock, a cowboy whiskey and on his business card is written: al profit Buy for $1, sell for $2. "I got into propping for the movies while I was sheriff. I worked on Blue and Rancho somethin' or other' and The Commancheros and Fade In with Burt Reynolds. You know. I've worked on maybe 50 pictures, but I haven't seen five of them. I don't remember any of them Hollywood people's names, but they all know me pretty good." "What about actors. Rusty, who did you meet?" I asked. Rusty stood up, trailing the oxygen line behind him. He fumbled in a file cabinet in the comer of his dark living room. His wife, Lilly, looked on, obviously concerned with Rusty's cancer scared him, he turned out to be an alright guy. T spent a lot of time with Spencer Tracy and Brian Keith. Those guys were real drunkards. I know this Episcopalian Monk tq at foe mission in Bluff who went to school with Spencer. He said Spencer would drink shoe polish, but there's five actors I really think were the best, and he's at the top. There's Spencer, Katherine Hepburn, Marie Dressier, Wallace Berry and Judy Garland. You know with actors, after you begin to think you're good, then you are, but the old actors are gone now. Acting b different now. 1 had a few speakin' parts in movies. Just last year I had a speaking part in that movie, Riders of the Purple Sage. I got paid $600 to stand with my backside to the camera. The director said that my backside wu cheap compared to most 1 wu propping for Dean Kennedy who wu die set man on foe picture. We wu standing in file hall talking when fids fella came up and said, Who are you? And I said, Who are you?1 right back, and he snorted and Mid, Tm the director of fids picture. Come into my office when you're done here.' When I went into his office he asked if I wu acting in fids picture and I Mid T9o'. He Mid, Well you are now. You're going to be a Mormon Bishop.' I said. Well, I been called worse. I guess ifs better than bein' a son of a Bishop.' "The movies ain't what they used to be, you know. Video b taking over. The movies t, hyper-activit- b always changin'. After I got married I tried to get Lilly's folks to go to foe movies in Moab and her dad said he coukint go because he couldn't read fast enough. '. y. "Where are those pictures? They are In that brief case around here somewhere. Lilly, whered those photographs get to?" After several minutes' search, Lilly discovered the brief case behind the couch. The case was locked with a combination Rusty had long forgotten. He cussed at it and rhiirUftd at himself, "Damn filing. Fm gonna get rid rtf this business altogether," he said as he pried the lock off with a knife. Inside were reams of photos of Hollywood stars posing Inside the Musselman's Pack Creek Ranch house, clowning on the set, taking a break between shots, and posing with Ruaty. There was Ricardo Monteband, Rock Hudson, Harry Carey, and Joanne Drew, among other familiar faces whose real names have been lost in time. "Joanne Drew was such a snob. I liked CafoeUne OMley . . . and Ben Johnson. It didn't matter if you were a sheep herder or the king of England. Dobie (thaf s what Harry Carey's friends called him) and Ben and me were going to make a documentary about John Ford this year, but Ben up and died on us. John Ford was loud, but that was his way. Once he had an actor that was supposed to fall off a hone into a cold river, but the actor refused to do it John screamed out Til give a hundred bucks to anyone who'll fall off this goddamn horse1. A hundred bucks is a lot to fall off a hone. I was doing it a lot for free and I thought, 'Damn, why not do it for a hundred bucks', but before I could get his attention somebody else took the job. 1 wrangled for a lot of movies. At one time I had fills failin' horse that I wu offered a lot of money for. When you fell off he wouldn't step on you no matter what. That made him a valuable horse for working in the movies. Rusty fumbled through file photos, reminiscing. "John Wayne, I couldn't stand him when he was young, but when he got older and the HestOgfit Pfiotqffmpfuf Shrewsbury PHOTOGRAPHY MOAB Rusty at home. September 1996. -- UTAH -- 801 2S9 7943 Visit us at: 750 SOUTH MAIN ST (in the Miller Shopping Center) (801)259-794- 3 All during our conversation Lilly had been by his side, supporting him, jogging his memory, smiling beautifully, stepping in at the right moments, but refusing to let me take her photograph. She Mid, "You've been at fids for over three hours. Dent you think lfs time to stop?" Lilly wu concerned with Rusty's health. I had him drinking whiskey and running all over the house dragging Ms oxygen tube through foe dust Old age b so unfair and it has never been more obvious than in the case of Rusty Musselman. Hb body b old, but he remains eternally young at heart and so innocently honest As I stood in foe doorway Rusty spoke in a resolved tone, jiggling file oxygen nozzle if it were one of hb props, "I don't know if Tm ever gonna dangling from hb nose recover from fids, but Td better try." u a 'Dink Bridgen," if Out is his real name, can sometimes be found at Un danger's Rode Shop inhere he operates DreemrUes Bicycle Tom. wtfr susses to mxrnm Because we need the money, Westiight Photography... has all the conventional camera supplies & processing you need, combined with... Shrewsbury Photography... offers you commercial imaging & digital enhancement. Check us out at: www.moabutah.comshrewsbury New digital color scanner for reflecting or transparent media using ADOBE Photoshop for the new image you want Dye sublimation photo quality output coming soon. |
