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Melvin Dummar, 74, "Melvin & Howard"; claimant to Hughes' "Mormon will"

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That Derek

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Dec 11, 2018, 12:03:07 AM12/11/18
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https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900045831/utahn-melvin-dummar-who-claimed-to-be-a-howard-hughes-heir-dies.html

Utahn Melvin Dummar, who claimed to be a Howard Hughes heir, dies

By John Hollenhorst,

Published: December 10, 2018 11:34 am
Updated: 6 hours ago

Dummar case stays unresolved

Dummar may have told truth after all

PAHRUMP, Nev. — A Utah man who repeatedly made headlines around the world in the 1970s has died.

Melvin Dummar was a gas station operator in Box Elder County in 1976 when he suddenly seemed to be on the verge of becoming a multimillionaire. He was named an heir to the fortune of eccentric and secretive billionaire Howard Hughes.

Dummar's name was contained in a handwritten will discovered in the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.

The document became known as the "Mormon Will" because someone had mysteriously dropped it off at the church's headquarters. The purported will divided the Hughes estate into 16 equal shares, with one share designated for the church itself and another sixteenth for "Melvin DuMar."

Dummar's story — told in the Oscar-winning film "Melvin and Howard" — is that years before Hughes died, Dummar found him injured, lying in a remote Nevada desert. Dummar said he drove Hughes to Las Vegas, dropped him off and gave the billionaire a quarter to use a pay phone.

He said he didn't believe it was actually Hughes at the time, but "thought he was a bum."

The discovery of the will created a worldwide sensation. Dummar later acknowledged he was the one who delivered the will to the church after his fingerprint was found on the envelope that contained the will. He claimed he got the document from a mysterious stranger who brought it to his gas station.

Dummar said he read the will and didn't know if it was real or a hoax. Not knowing what to do, he drove to the Church Office Building and dropped it on a desk.

That story was legally discredited when a Las Vegas jury concluded that the will was a hoax.

But many people still believe it.

Late in life, Dummar's story was championed by retired FBI agent Gary Magnesen who investigated the case and wrote two books in Dummar's defense. Magnesen confirmed Dummar's death to the Deseret News and said Dummar "absolutely" stuck to his story right to the end.

"I wouldn't have had a chance even if God himself had delivered the will," Dummar said in 2005. "So many people thought I was a con artist or a scammer. And they treated me like a criminal."

Dummar was 74 and lived most recently in Pahrump, Nevada.

Ray Dummar told the Las Vegas Review-Journal Monday that he believes his brother's account of that night.

“He picked him up. I know that part happened,” Ray Dummar said. “From then on, it was kind of a fight.”

He told the newspaper he thinks his younger brother will ultimately be remembered as “a hard-working guy.” He said his brother was in the midst of his third bout with cancer but he was still working.

Michael OConnor

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Dec 11, 2018, 12:42:18 AM12/11/18
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Bermuda999

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Dec 11, 2018, 6:03:05 AM12/11/18
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On Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 12:03:07 AM UTC-5, That Derek wrote:
> https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900045831/utahn-melvin-dummar-who-claimed-to-be-a-howard-hughes-heir-dies.html
>
> Utahn Melvin Dummar, who claimed to be a Howard Hughes heir, dies


Bye Bye Blackbird

RHDraney

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Dec 11, 2018, 11:38:34 AM12/11/18
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On 12/10/2018 10:03 PM, That Derek wrote:
>
> PAHRUMP, Nev. — A Utah man who repeatedly made headlines around the world in the 1970s has died.
>
> Melvin Dummar was a gas station operator in Box Elder County in 1976 when he suddenly seemed to be on the verge of becoming a multimillionaire. He was named an heir to the fortune of eccentric and secretive billionaire Howard Hughes.

And how fitting that the composer of the song "Santa's Souped-up Sleigh"
should die just two weeks before Christmas....r

Bryan Styble

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Dec 12, 2018, 11:34:54 AM12/12/18
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Much appreciate your making so handy "Melvin and Howards", one of the cleverest SCTV bits ever, in my view, Sir O'Connor.

But actually, Michael, when I first noticed you had posted a YouTube clip regarding the sad Dummar demise, I erroneously assumed (based on some of the other cultural choices you've proffered us alt-obiters) you were instead providing the brief scene in "Melvin & Howard"* where Dummar plays himself as a convenience store clerk, if I recall precisely)...thus joining Chuck Yeager [in the chaotically-directed "The Right Stuff"] and but a tiny handful of other figures who've appeared in films ABOUT themselves while NOT portraying themselves.**

[I'd post the M&H scene myself for y'all's convenience--assuming it is in fact somewhere lurking in YouTube or some other online video vault--but alas, dumb-old-stuck-in-the-20th-Century Styble still hasn't figured out how to duplicate all those confusingly pesky URL characters which videos always seem to require...]

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
______________________________________________________________________
* Sorry, Folks, but this morning I'm just too plum tuckered out--i.e., lazy--to confirm via wiki-or-wherever whether that terrific film's title in fact employs an ampersand or not...but since it SHOULD (for more than one reason in my amateur-grammarian's view), I'm just tossing it in.
** SO tiny, in fact, that I cannot cite ANY additional examples, although there surely must be several, I would think; anyone know of any other elements*** of this exceedingly small cinematic set, as we mathematicians like to annoyingly phrase things?
*** Mickey Spillane as Mike Hammer in "The Girl Hunters" doesn't qualify, as there wasn't somebody ELSE portraying Spillane in it, for the very good reason that the thriller wasn't ABOUT Spillane, but rather Hammer, obviously.

Bryan Styble

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Dec 12, 2018, 11:55:41 AM12/12/18
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Hey, maybe I ain't as dumb as I write (or look)...

There's at least one additional element to that tiny cinematic set: Jim Garrison appearing in "JFK", but as a judge (Commission chief Earl Warren, maybe?), while Costner played Garrison!

I'm gonna keep on thinkin' and rememberin', and presuming my noggin doesn't explode--a hefty assumption, I'll grant--shall endeavor to provide more!

STYBLE/Florida

Michael OConnor

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Dec 12, 2018, 1:23:03 PM12/12/18
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Jim Lovell had a cameo in "Apollo 13", he was the commander of the aircraft carrier who saluted and shook hands with Tom Hanks in the final 30 seconds of the movie after the astronauts got off the helicopter and onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier.

Bryan Styble

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Dec 12, 2018, 1:31:30 PM12/12/18
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Thanks for that addition regarding "A13" and Lovell, who is (you're likely well aware, Michael) now the sole survivor of the only three humans to ever lunarly journey a SECOND time, the others of course being the late moonwalkers Young and Cernan.

STYBLE/Florida

Bryan Styble

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Dec 12, 2018, 1:57:32 PM12/12/18
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Upon reflection, an addendum:

At least if you're NOT a semi-literate, ever-inarticulate, always-shootin'-yer-mouth-off NBA star who, rather than intelligently accepting that much-publicized shut-up-and-dribble advice proffered to fellow NBA dimwit James, instead hopes to counter the few-exceptions rule that pro jocks are dumb guys who read nothing but the sports page by opining about stuff he never bothered to research, at least not from paranoid sources.

That is, if you ARE Steph Curry, you think Lovell, Young and Cernan were just hallucinating. Or seriously conning the very countrymen all three--I believe Cernan militarily served; I know both Lovell and Young did--once enlisted to defend with their lives, a self-sacrificial generosity all three demonstrated in space twice to and fro the moon, not to over mention several other earlier sojourns in the Gemini program.

STYBLE/Florida

RHDraney

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Dec 12, 2018, 3:08:35 PM12/12/18
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On 12/12/2018 9:34 AM, Bryan Styble wrote:
>
> But actually, Michael, when I first noticed you had posted a YouTube clip regarding the sad Dummar demise, I erroneously assumed (based on some of the other cultural choices you've proffered us alt-obiters) you were instead providing the brief scene in "Melvin & Howard"* where Dummar plays himself as a convenience store clerk, if I recall precisely)...thus joining Chuck Yeager [in the chaotically-directed "The Right Stuff"] and but a tiny handful of other figures who've appeared in films ABOUT themselves while NOT portraying themselves.**

> ** SO tiny, in fact, that I cannot cite ANY additional examples, although there surely must be several, I would think; anyone know of any other elements*** of this exceedingly small cinematic set, as we mathematicians like to annoyingly phrase things?

Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, appears in "Pixels" as a
video-arcade repairman...it's a non-speaking role because Iwatani
doesn't speak English...the character of Iwatani in the film is played
by actor Denis Akiyama....r

That Derek

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Dec 12, 2018, 3:10:49 PM12/12/18
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How about the real "Officer Obie" portraying himself in Arlo Guthrie's film version of "Alice's Restaurant"?

Author James Dickey portrays a sheriff in "Deliverance."

Humourist Jean Shepherd narrates "A Christmas Story," an adaptation of a story from his collection "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash."

One-time comic book writer Stan Lee appeared in virtually every big-screen adaptation of Marvel Comics super-hero.

Screenwriter Earl Hamner Jr. narrated "The Waltons."

Stephen King has appeared in several movie/TV adaptations of his novels and short stories.

Neil Simon makes a cameo in a TV episode of the Odd Couple" -- I think it was the ticket scalping episode which featured the "ASSUME"/"ASS out of U and ME" courtroom gag.

Erle Stanley Gardner once portrayed a judge in a TV episode of "Perry Mason" -- it might have been the final episode.

SPOILER ALERT, recent Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody": Mike Myers portrays a nay-saying British record exec who resists the band's desire to push the movie's titular song as a singles release by saying something to the effect of wanting a song that would prompt teenaged boys to perform head-banging gestures while cruising down the highway -- an obvious reference to Myers' "Wayne's World" where his character and his friends did such to the song "Bohemian Rhapsody."

In an episode of "Newhart," Dick Loudon and his wife (Bob Newhart, Mary Frann) attend couples counseling and meet the immediately preceding patient, a not-referred-by-name Mr. Carlin (Jack Riley), in the waiting room; their therapist tells the Loudons that she was in the process of undoing all the damage that Carlin's previous therapist -- a stammering Chicago practitioner -- had done to him.

This is kind of a stretch: a 1969 episode of the Smothers Brother's variety show featured the largely forgotten/underrated political impersonator David Frye. King LBJ (Frye) wishes to abdicate and chargers his major-domo and court jester (Dick and Tom) with the task of finding a replacement with the caveat that whoever could extract a well ensconced sword from a large boulder would be awarded the throne. Frye returns as medieval versions of Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, both of whom are unable to perform the "sword and the stone" task. Frye returns as a medieval Nixon, who also is not up to task. The smothers decide to give up and designate Frye/Nixon the winner. A celebratory crowd leaves the tableau just as a hapless street cleaner comes along. Left alone, this man extricates the sword without any difficulty, the camera makes a close-up, and reveals that it's Pat Paulsen! (Paulsen had left the programme by this point).

Two of the producers of the 1960s "Batman" series appear in the final episode of the series (villain was Zsa Zsa Gabor).


Michael OConnor

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Dec 12, 2018, 3:27:52 PM12/12/18
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> Humourist Jean Shepherd narrates "A Christmas Story," an adaptation of a story from his collection "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash."

Jean Shepherd also had a cameo in "A Chrismas Story" - he was the guy in the department store who uttered the line to Ralphie: "The line ends here. It begins there."

Bryan Styble

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Dec 12, 2018, 4:04:28 PM12/12/18
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Oh, and after waxing philosophic on matters ranging from NASA to the NBA, I shall return to the subject de jour, the late Mr. Dummar.

I want to go on record as thanking the ever-diligent poster That Derek, whose headline accurately described the sometimes-seemingly-hapless Dummar as a Hughes Estate "claimant", rather that the posthumous slap-on-the-tombstone formulation of "American Fraudster", with which the Wikipedia editors have decided to summarize his existence.

Given that two books have been published by a former professional investigator arguing that Dummar's quite improbable story indeed was essentially true, clearly "Claimant" seems much more apropos. I fully realize at least one court somewhere along the way determined Dummar to have not been fully on the up-and-up--he should never have denied he delivered the purported Will to LDS, for one--but it still seems the case is enough in dispute at this point to make to make "fraudster" simply an unfair distillation of his life.

So again, thanks for your journalistic scrupulousness herein, Derek, on a minor point which is pretty much a miniscule one surely to everyone except those close to the late Dummar.

STYBLE/Florida

A Friend

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Dec 12, 2018, 4:08:08 PM12/12/18
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In article <3f4e7da0-29de-48a7...@googlegroups.com>,
And that's his wife, Leigh Brown, standing just behind him.

Michael OConnor

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Dec 12, 2018, 5:08:46 PM12/12/18
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> At least if you're NOT a semi-literate, ever-inarticulate, always-shootin'-yer-mouth-off NBA star who, rather than intelligently accepting that much-publicized shut-up-and-dribble advice proffered to fellow NBA dimwit James, instead hopes to counter the few-exceptions rule that pro jocks are dumb guys who read nothing but the sports page by opining about stuff he never bothered to research, at least not from paranoid sources.
>
> That is, if you ARE Steph Curry, you think Lovell, Young and Cernan were just hallucinating. Or seriously conning the very countrymen all three--I believe Cernan militarily served; I know both Lovell and Young did--once enlisted to defend with their lives, a self-sacrificial generosity all three demonstrated in space twice to and fro the moon, not to over mention several other earlier sojourns in the Gemini program.

The more time that passes that we don't send people to the Moon, I believe, the more people think it was some sort of hoax, that it never happened. There is a poll of Brits in 2016 which stated 52 percent believe Apollo 11 was faked. I don't know what the percentage is in the US, but the schools are too busy teaching Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Change in lieu of actual historical scientific events, or people are swayed by some youtube video created by a teenager which gives definitive proof the moon landings never happened.

I think we could have landed the LEM on the surface of the Moon from Earth, but what about the planting of the flag? What about the stuff we left behind, like that dune buggy thing they rode around in? With a really good telescope you can still see that stuff if you know where to look. I think if Steph Curry went out to JPL or Cal Tech or the Mt. Palomar Observatory, the scientists there would be happy to show him the lunar landing sites.

When JFK gave his Moon landing by the end of the decade speech, we did it using computers as big as rooms with far less memory and computing power than the computers we use today, by Scientists and Engineers and Mathematicians using slide rules. As a Draftsman I did get to view some of the old Apollo blueprint drawings for parts and assemblies for the rocketry, and wished I could have worked on the program, but I came along 25 years too late as I was five years old during Apollo 11. I worked alongside some of the guys who worked on Apollo and there was such a pride in their voices hearing them talk about it, that something they contributed a tiny bit to helped put a man on the Moon and return him home safely. It was surely the professional achievement of their careers.

One of my favorite scenes in "Interstellar" (which was set roughly 60-70 years in the future) was when Matthew McConaughey (a former NASA test pilot) goes to his kid's school and was shocked to find out that his daughter's history books have been historically revised. They state (and the teacher defends it to the hilt) that the Apollo missions never happened, they were faked in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union. It's only a matter of time, I worry, before the Moon landings are historically altered to suit some sort of agenda.

MJ Emigh

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Dec 12, 2018, 6:01:06 PM12/12/18
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On Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 2:10:49 PM UTC-6, That Derek wrote:
> the largely forgotten/underrated political impersonator David Frye.

Wow....I certainly largely forgot about him. He was pretty terrific. He did the faces as well as he did the voices. Faces and voices that, in most cases, would mean nothing today (although a good Spiro Agnew might still attract a crowd). I guess that kind of act has gone the way of plate spinners and chimpanzee performers. Too bad, though. Man, he was really GOOD!

That Derek

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Dec 12, 2018, 7:04:50 PM12/12/18
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IMHO, Stanley Myron Handelman OWNED Spiro T. Agnew !!!
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