From: Cherlyn Strong
I have been yearning for the Tucson I knew and loved in the 70's.
I should be receiving "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" from Netflix today,
which I have seen a few times over the years. I'm sure most of you have seen
it, too. One of my favorite lines in the movie comes from a very young Jodie
Foster, when she says "Tucson's the WEIRD capital of the world...WEIRD!!!"
Probably because in 1966, Life magazine published a front cover article on Charles Schmidt, "The Pied Piper of Tucson". A wannabe Charles Manson type who had his "gang" kill Gretchen and Wendy Fritz, a local physicians daughters.
The Life magazine cover showed a telscopic shot of Speedway that made it look like seedy bars and billboards every few feet. More about the story here:
Tucson during the '60's was also the "retirement" home to such notables as Joe Bonanno and Salvatore "Lucky" Luciano, reputed mafia bosses. There were a lot of businesses that mysteriously blew up in the middle of the noght during that time period.
George Cohn
