When I moved here years ago, I knew there was something special about how City celebrates Halloween. The various events, like Trunk or Treat, offer everyone something fun to do when Oct. 31 rolls around. It is usually around this time that my neighbors and friends share the city’s urban legends, alleged ghost sightings and tales of the occult.
It’s October and Halloween is around the corner. It’s time for ghosts, goblins and aliens.
Sean Penn. Vince Vaughn. Kristen Stewart. Zach Galifianakis. Eddie Vedder. These celebrities all have direct ties to Boulder City.
During the late 1950s and early ’60s, Hoover Dam and Lake Mead served as the filming locations for two cult-favorite horror movies. “The Amazing Colossal Man” and “Scream of the Butterfly” were filmed less than 15 minutes from Boulder City, which served as a popular place for the respective film crews to stop, eat and gas up.
Actors Dennis Hopper, Jeremy Irons, Laurence Fishburne, Lauren Hutton and the rest of the Guggenheim Motorcycle Club were on their way through Boulder City in 2000 when a horrible accident occurred near Hoover Dam. The accident resulted in a flood of media coverage and left one celebrity in a two-week coma.
In 1936 Warner Bros. was in a race to put out a movie called “Boulder Dam.” The movie company wanted this film to open the same weekend as the completion of Hoover Dam hoping to cash in on the press attention surrounding the massive engineering project. The Six Cos. turned over Hoover Dam to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule. “Boulder Dam” the movie premiered six days later.
One of film industry’s first ever nude scenes is linked to Boulder City — in a roundabout way. Actress Clara Bow lived less than an hour from Boulder City, and 7 miles outside of Searchlight with her husband Rex Bell, who was the 21st lieutenant governor of Nevada and a western movie star.
Lisa Marie Presley and I shared a baby sitter. Yes, my godmother, Alice Mafeo, was also the nanny for Lisa Marie when Elvis Presley would perform at the Las Vegas Hilton. But four years before Lisa Marie would be born, Elvis Presley was here in Boulder City filming Viva Las Vegas. This was his second notable trip through Boulder City and to Hoover Dam.
