Towering Book

[Gusatavo Lussier]

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Meet Mama Josefina, my maternal grandmother, and my hero. As we celebrate International Women's Day, I find myself thinking about how this one woman - small in stature but towering in her resilience, who had little education and even less wealth - did so much to shape my beliefs about the dignity of work, the joys of service and the meaning of leadership.

When I was a very young kid growing up in Mexico, my mother had to leave for the U.S. to find work. It was Mama Josefina who raised me. Though she worked hard, she could never afford a place to call home. So, we would travel the countryside, on foot or by bus, from village to village, on the roads connecting Chihuahua, Torreon and Jalisco, looking for a safe place to stay. Her work ethic and stubborn optimism made it possible for me to make it to this country. Those values also made sure I could make it in America once here. After she immigrated to America herself, Mama Josefina found work as a housekeeper at a Las Vegas hotel, eventually retiring at the tender age of 86. Later, I learned that a life of hard work had led to one of her ankles fusing together, making it incredibly painful to just walk much less work. But she never complained.

Her friends invited me to her retirement party and when I arrived I expected a small handful of people to be there. Instead, they had to rent out the entire hotel ballroom. From her co-workers to the bosses in hotel management, the new hires as well as the old guard, everyone wanted to pay their respects to this woman who was always there for them and never missed a day of work. For the rest of my career, no matter how great the challenge or how difficult the circumstance, I could always draw inspiration from her example, knowing that my worst day was likely better than her best day. And, also, that she did so much of it for our family.

This Women's History Month, as I have in years past, I want to pay tribute on this platform to some of the incredibly impressive female leaders with whom I've been privileged to work with and learn from over my career.

The Towering Inferno is a 1974 American disaster film directed by John Guillermin and produced by Irwin Allen,[5] featuring an ensemble cast led by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.[6][7][8][9] It was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson.[5][10][11][12][13] In addition to McQueen and Newman, the cast includes William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman and Jennifer Jones in her final role.[5][10]

The Towering Inferno was released theatrically December 16, 1974. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and earned around $203.3 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 1974. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning three: Best Song, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.

Architect Doug Roberts returns to San Francisco for the dedication of The Glass Tower, a mixed-use skyscraper that he designed for developer James Duncan. The tower, 1,688 feet (515 m) tall and 138 stories, is the world's tallest building. During testing, an electrical short-circuit starts a fire on the 81st floor after another short occurs in the main utility room. While examining the latter short, Roberts sees the wiring is inadequate and suspects that Roger Simmons, the electrical subcontractor and Duncan's son-in-law, cut corners. Roberts confronts Simmons, who feigns innocence.

During the dedication ceremony, chief of public relations Dan Bigelow turns on all the tower's lights, but Roberts orders them shut off to reduce the load on the electrical system. Smoke is seen on the 81st floor, and the San Francisco Fire Department is summoned. Roberts and engineer Will Giddings go to that floor, where Giddings is fatally burned pushing a guard away from the fire. With the dedication party now in full swing in the tower's Promenade Room on the 135th floor, Roberts reports the fire to Duncan, who is courting Senator Gary Parker for an urban renewal contract and refuses to order an evacuation.

SFFD Chief Michael O'Hallorhan forces Duncan to evacuate the guests from the Promenade Room. Simmons admits to Duncan that he cut corners to bring the project back under budget, and suggests other subcontractors did likewise. Fire overtakes the express elevators, killing a group whose elevator stops on the engulfed 81st floor. Bigelow and his girlfriend Lorrie are killed when another fire traps them in the Duncan Enterprises offices on the 65th floor. Lisolette Mueller, a guest and resident of the tower being wooed by con man Harlee Claiborne, rushes to the 87th floor to check on a deaf mother and her two children. Security chief Jernigan rescues the mother, but a ruptured gas line explodes, destroying the stairwell and preventing Roberts and the rest from following. They traverse the wreckage of the stairwell to reach a service elevator that takes them to the 134th floor, but the door to the Promenade Room is blocked with hardened cement. Roberts uses a ventilation shaft to reach the room, while Lisolette and the children stay behind.

As firefighters begin to bring the fire under control on floor 65, the electrical system fails, deactivating the passenger elevators; O'Hallorhan abseils down the elevator shaft to safety. As firemen ascend to free the blocked door at the Promenade Room, another explosion destroys part of the remaining stairwell, blocking the last means of escape from the upper floors. After the stuck door is freed, reuniting Lisolette and the children with Roberts and the others, Simmons tries to escape down the stairwell, but is blocked by flames and retreats. Meanwhile, Claiborne reveals his true identity and intentions to Lisolette, who says she does not care and still wants to be with him.

An attempt at a helicopter rescue fails when two women run up to the aircraft; the pilot tries to evade them and crashes, setting the roof ablaze. A Navy rescue team attaches a breeches buoy between the Promenade Room and the roof of the adjacent 102-story Peerless Building, and rescues guests, including Patty Simmons, Duncan's daughter. Roberts rigs a "gravity brake" (fall arrest) on the scenic elevator, allowing one trip down for 12 people, including Roberts' fiance Susan Franklin, Lisolette, and the children. An explosion near the 110th floor throws Lisolette from the elevator to her death, and leaves the elevator hanging by a single cable. O'Hallorhan rescues the elevator with a Navy helicopter.

As fire reaches the Promenade Room, a group led by Simmons attempts to commandeer the breeches buoy, which is destroyed in an explosion, killing Simmons, Senator Parker and others. In a last-ditch strategy, O'Hallorhan and Roberts blow up water tanks atop the Tower with plastic explosives. Most of the remaining partygoers survive as water rushes through the building, extinguishing the flames.

Claiborne, in shock upon hearing of Lisolette's death, is given her cat by Jernigan. Duncan consoles his grieving daughter, and promises such a disaster will never happen again. Roberts accepts O'Hallorhan's offer of guidance on how to build a fire-safe skyscraper. O'Hallorhan drives away, exhausted.

In April 1973, it was announced that Warner Bros. production chief John Calley paid $350,000 for the rights to Richard Martin Stern's The Tower, prior to that book's publication.[15][16] This amount was larger than originally reported. The book had been the subject of a bidding war between Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures; Columbia dropped out when the price reached $200,000 and Warner Bros. offered $390,000. Irwin Allen, who recently had a big success with a disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure, was at Fox, and persuaded that studio to make a higher offer when the book was sold to Warner Bros.[17]

Eight weeks later, Fox was submitted a novel, Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson's The Glass Inferno, which was published the following year, and which Allen says had "the same sort of characters, the same locale, the same story, the same conclusion". They bought the novel for a reported fee of $400,000.[17]

Allen was concerned that two films about a tall building on fire might cannibalize each other, remembering what happened in the 1960s when rival biopics about Oscar Wilde (with Oscar Wilde and The Trials of Oscar Wilde in 1960) and Jean Harlow (with Magna Media Distribution's Harlow and Paramount Pictures's Harlow in 1965) were released.[17] He convinced executives at both studios to join forces to make a single film on the subject. The studios issued a joint press release announcing the single film collaboration in October 1973.[18] Stirling Silliphant, who had written The Poseidon Adventure, would write the script and Allen would produce.[19] It was decided to split costs equally between the studios, but the film would be made at Fox, where Allen was based. Fox would distribute in the United States and Canada, and Warner Bros. outside those territories. Warner Bros. also handled the worldwide television distribution rights. Incidents and character names were taken from both novels.[17]

Several actors who appeared in small roles, including John Crawford, Erik Nelson, Elizabeth Rogers, Ernie Orsatti and Sheila Matthews (Allen's wife) had previously appeared in The Poseidon Adventure, which Allen also produced. Additionally, Paul Newman's son, Scott, played the acrophobic fireman afraid to rappel down the elevator shaft.

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