As I work on my autobiography the words and events seem to stretch out ahead of me in an endless parade. I wish I could put events in their proper order but that is impossible at this stage. There is no way I can pinpoint the year, but it was roughly 1955.
I was short on cash. I was staying on a friend’s living room couch and I figured that two nights sleeping on an uncomfortable sofa would save me $10 that I would have had to spend for two nights in a motel. I could buy raw film instead.
In Aspen I ran into Don Bren, who was trying to make the 1956 Olympic ski team. He and his wife had rented a small log home somewhere in town and I really liked his couch. While he skied and trained hard every day, his wife worked for Howard Aurey at the Skiers Chalet, a restaurant alongside the old Number One chairlift.
Don’s wife would work occasionally at night when Howard figured there were enough people in town to stay open for dinner.
I had known Don Bren for a few years from Sun Valley. Over Christmas vacation, he would come up with his mother and stepfather. He was a great skier and trained hard but just didn’t make the cut.
When he did not make the team at the end of the season he went back to Southern California and with his business degree from the University of Southern California he decided to get in on the post-war housing boom in Southern California. He borrowed $10,000 and built a couple of what were called tract houses. He not only was the contractor but did a lot of the work on the house; pounding nails, helping with the plumbing, wiring, concrete work and anything else that needed to be done to finish the house. He was (and is) a smart and hardworking guy.
For a lot of years I would see him at Sun Valley skiing over the Christmas holidays and one year I was surprised when the talk on the ski hill was that Don Bren had flown up in his own airplane and brought along some friends.
He had a large group of friends at Sun Valley and as I got busier each year working on my films I sort of lost track of him. When his name came up the other day and brought back these memories, I Googled his name. I knew that he had been successful but not to the extent that I learned online.
Since sleeping on his couch in Aspen he became a very large land developer in Southern California and his wealth is currently pegged at $12 billion. He has contributed over $1 billion to the educational system in California, built a law building at the University of California, Irvine, and established a law school there as well. His resume is extensive and I understand he is still skiing at Sun Valley every winter with the same smooth style that I remember he had before he became one of the 100 wealthiest people in America.
To me the wonderful part of this story is that this can happen only in America, and nearly everyone I’ve ever met, and there have been many, has all been equally as generous with their money to help out in the areas they feel need it most.
But even more important to me is that everyone pays the same price for a ski lift ticket, skis or snowboard, boots and poles. They can sleep in their cars in the parking lot or in a very nice condominium, but when they all stand at the top of a ski hill everyone is equal.
I wonder if Don still buys his ski equipment at the end of the ski season when it is a lot cheaper as we all did when his wife was flipping hamburgers for Howard Aurey in Aspen in 1955.
I wonder what kind of a couch he has, wherever he has a ski resort home and if I show up with my sleeping bag if he will let me sleep on it as he did in 1955.