Phoenix Lake home host to Hollywood set

An East Sonora home owned by Bonnie Parris has seen various famous faces over the years, including Michael J. Fox and Gary Cooper. Amy Alonzo Rozak/Union Democrat, copyright 2009

But don’t get the wrong idea. It was a classy scene.

 Gary Cooper and his fellow cast members from the 1942 blockbuster “For Whom the Bell Tolls” were once a part of a big bash at the place, and Michael J. Fox called it home for a few months decades later during the filming of “Back to the Future III” in 1989.    

Parris suspects other stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age have graced her home over the years, including Rita Hayworth and Fred MacMurray. But she can’t say for sure. The parties were before her time. She and her then-husband, Ronald, bought the home, in 1980, long after its glamorous scene.

“This house has quite a Hollywood history. It became known as the party house because whenever something was filmed here there was a party,” Parris said in an interview from her home, nestled in a forested area near the intersection of Hess Avenue and Phoenix Lake Road.

Tuolumne County was once a magnet for movie stars. Between the 1930s and 1950s, dozens of popular films were shot here, and actors could sometimes be seen walking the streets of downtown Sonora.

The county’s peace and natural beauty caught the eyes of at least one Hollywood couple —screenwriter Virginia Van Upp and producer Ralph Nelson. Van Upp is credited with making Rita Hayworth a star in the 1944 film “Cover Girl.”

Van Upp and Nelson, married at the time, liked the area so much they bought land from the Belli family and built a house — which Parris now calls home.

Construction on the three-bedroom home started in 1939 and finished a few years later. The work took so long, Parris said, because the house was hand-built out of five-pointed stones taken from an old rock quarry near Columbia. Local stonemason Swiss Foletti built the house.

The home, with its gray interior and fortified look, has the feel of a small castle.

 “My husband fell in love with it,” Parris said. “I was pretty skeptical.”

The house has since grown on Parris, though she said she’s considering selling it to be closer to her grown children in the Bay Area.

With such a solidly built house, one thing is certain — not much is likely to get broken during a party. Perhaps that explains why its former Hollywood owners beefed it up.

From the get-go, the house, it seems, was ready for good times. The wrap-up party for “For Whom the Bell Tolls” actually marked the completion of the home in the fall of 1941, according to Parris.

The wrap-up party was quite an affair, said Leonard Ruoff, 88, of East Sonora. He should know. He was there. Just 21 at the time, he worked as a driver and gofer for filmmakers. His truck even made it in the film as part of a convoy.

“It was a wild time,” Ruoff said. “It was like a catered party — there was food, drinks and everything else. You name it, it was there.”

Ruoff noted that “For Whom the Bell Tolls” leading man Cooper was no slouch when it came to imbibing.
 

In fact, Ruoff said on the many occasions he and his fellow set workers “put the Iron Door to bed” in Groveland, Cooper was there.

Ruoff described the former Hollywood heartthrob as a friendly guy who knew a lot of locals, having filmed movies in Tuolumne County before.

Ruoff’s time working on the movie, largely shot near Kennedy Meadows and Groveland, not only earned him Hollywood-grade pay, but also something movie buffs would consider priceless: a copy of the classic book “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” written by Ernest Hemingway, with the autographs of all the major stars of the movie within its pages, including Cooper and leading lady Ingrid Bergman. Unfortunately, Ruoff has since lost the autographed book, which he believes may have been stolen.

As it turns out, Ruoff is a big fan of both the book and the movie, which tells the story of a young American explosives expert fighting with a communist guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War against dictator Francisco Franco’s forces. The hero, played by Cooper, is charged with blowing up a bridge.

Ruoff will be among a group recounting stories about the film at Sierra Bible Church at noon on Saturday.

In all likelihood, Van Upp and Nelson’s getaway estate in Tuolumne County wasn’t all about fun and games. Parris pointed out that Van Upp is rumored to have worked on a number of screenplays at the home, including, “Cover Girl,” the star-making vehicle for Hayworth.

But both the Hollywood work and parties ended in 1957, when Van Upp and Nelson split up and sold the home to local couple John and Joyce Kelley.

For decades, the house was void of Hollywood’s influence. That is, until 1989, when “Back to the Future III” star Michael J. Fox needed a place to crash.

A local business owner connected Fox with the Parrises, who leased the home to Fox and his family for a few months.

“He said it reminded him of where he grew up in Canada,” Parris said while thumbing through a photo album with a picture of her, her husband and her then-teenage daughter, who appeared star-struck, standing next to Fox.

But the Parrises had to be quiet about housing the star.

"We kind of made up stories as to why we weren’t living here,” she said.

Hollywood had returned, for a time anyway.