BY JOHN LUNDIN

The Shah of Iran was one of the many high-profile visitors to Sun Valley after World War II.

His experience show how Sun Valley treated celebrity visitors in its early days. Filmmaker Warren Miller, Sun Valley Mountain Director Nelson Bennett and Sun Valley publicist Dorice Tayor told somewhat different stories about the Shah’s visits, but their stories painted a picture of how Sun Valley accommodated well-known guests during those years.

Miller said the Shah loved Hollywood films and believed “Sun Valley Serenade” was the best movie of all time. The Shah knew that Otto Lang, head of Sun Valley’s Ski School, directed the ski scenes and this inspired the Shah to ski there.

Nelson Bennett said the Shah’s first visit was initiated by the U.S. State Department in December 1947, before the resort reopened after the war. Arthur Stoddard, president of Union Pacific, and the resort’s Pat Rogers wanted to accommodate the State Department and realized how valuable the publicity would be.

Since Sun Valley sometimes did not have enough snow in early December to ski, Nelson Bennett was sent to check on the snow in Boulder Basin, north of Sun Valley, where there was an abandoned mining community with cabins still standing.

There was sufficient snow to ski in the surrounding couloirs. Bennett and a crew fixed up one of the cabins, hauling in supplies on a Tucker SnoCat, including a wine-colored carpet and a wood burning stove to create a luxurious and comfortable site.

They also built two new outhouses behind the cabin. The Shah was accompanied by Otto Lang and “Sun Valley Dicks.” Nelson took the Shah up the hill in a SnoCat and food was brought from Sun Valley in big hot Thermos food containers.

The Shah spoke good English and was a good skier. And he had such a good time that on his next trip he brought an entourage of around 50 people.

That trip took place in December 1949. The Shah was “a man of absolutely outstanding energy” and engaged in most that Sun Valley had to offer, according to Dorice Taylor. He shot skeet at the Sun Valley Gun Club, went skating and swimming, went bowling (where the pro was ordered to let him win), shot pool and enjoyed the ambiance of the resort.

In his book “Lurching from One Near Disaster to the Next,” Warren Miller says the Shah was in Sun Valley with 16 bodyguards but none could ski. The head of the ski patrol asked for volunteers who could handle a .45 caliber pistol to help with security, and four ski patrolmen with service in the 10th Mountain Division were selected.

They took target practice out Warm Springs and showed up to protect the Shah the next day. After several days of skiing, with two patrolmen in front and two in back and Sigi Engl skiing with the Shah, the guards began to relax.

The next day, the Shah had lunch at the Roundhouse and the patrolmen hung their weapons on the clothes rack, covered by their ski patrol parkas. Miller and a friend went to the clothes rack, switched their parkas for ski patrol parkas and each took a pistol. After skiing to the bottom, they left the guns and parkas on a fence.

“Not knowing his firepower had been cut in half, the Shah skied the rest of the afternoon. At the end of the day, one of the ski-patrol-guards without guns skied over and was very embarrassed when he was handed the two guns and parka we had ‘borrowed’ at lunch,” Miller said.

The Shah never learned of the incident. Beatrice Haemmerle, wife of ski instructor Florian Haemmerle, said one of the ski instructors with a gun fell, and his gun went off.

The Shah held a nighttime party at the Roundhouse where the champagne flowed on a beautiful evening lit by a full moon, arranged by Pat Rogers. Rogers gave strict orders that only one person could ride in each one-person chair at a time.

Victor Gottschalk, a ski instructor, let his girlfriend load for the ride down, then he jumped on her chair, fell off and ran yelling back, although he was unhurt. It was so entertaining the guests wanted him to do it again.

After the party, where much caviar and champagne were consumed, the Shah wanted to ski down rather than ride the lift. Sigi Engl arranged for ski patrol members to hold lighted torches for him on one side of Canyon, but the Shah skied down the other side.

The run was so enjoyable the Shah said, “Now...we’ll do it again,” according to Taylor. The ski patrol followed the Shah down the mountain a second time, with a toboggan in case of an emergency. It ended up being used to retrieve a ski patrolman out of a snowbank, according to Bennett.

Miller said when several of the non-skiing members of the party rode the lift to the bottom, one party goer threw a bottle of champagne to another in the chair behind him, and the person trying to catch the bottle fell out of the chair. He was stuck in the snow and had to be dug out by the ski patrol.

Miller contrasted the Shah’s Sun Valley ski vacations with one taken by President Clinton’s family in 1998, at Deer Valley, Utah, that cost taxpayers $3.7 million: “I couldn’t help but wonder what today’s ever-present media would have had to say if a drunk had fallen off a chairlift or a prank with guns had been played during the Clinton’s learn-to-ski vacation. Somehow, I think that our journalists would have raised these incidents to the level of a national crisis, and Janet Reno would have ordered a multi-million-dollar investigation.”

Because of the genius of Steve Hannagan, Sun Valley pulled Americans into the age of high-mountain, luxury resort living, attracting everyone from ski bums such as ourselves to the top end of the celebrity chain, said Miller.

Indeed, Warren Miller had lunch at the Roundhouse most days eating tomato soup made from free hot water, ketchup and oyster crackers as he shared the facility with such people as the Shah, Otto Lang, Gary Cooper, Cooper’s wife Rocky, and Ernest Hemingway--a celebrity network only Sun Valley could knit together.

At the end of a typical lunch, Hemingway had gone through a bottle of wine and taken the lift down, while the Shah and his group rode to the top of the mountain to ski. Miller tagged along behind the group on the mountain, “where everyone was equal,” and he talked to celebrities on equal terms. Gary Cooper was always friendly, eager to talk about waxing and invited Warren to visit him when he was in Hollywood.

Dorice Taylor said the Shah returned to Sun Valley in 1955, with his second wife. Sigi Engl, head of the ski school, was supposed to teach the Shah how to ski but the Shah would have none of it. Sigi skied in front at a speed he thought the Shah could handle, but the Shah would ski past him.

One time Taylor was skiing on Ridge when she saw the Shah go by in “his wide, sturdy snowplow,” with no sign of Sigi. She looked at the Warming Hut and saw Sigi struggling to put on his skis trying to catch the Shah.

Engl told the Shah he was concerned he was skiing beyond his ability and might get hurt. The Shah replied he “would be a hero in his country if he was hurt skiing.” Sigi thought, “and I’ll be a bum in mine if you’re hurt.”

Editor’s Note: You can find more stories like this in John Lundin’s comprehensive “Skiing Sun Valley: A History from Union Pacific to the Holdings.”