The Stanley Hotel Shines On

Here's a really cool article by Caryn Eve Murray titled "Hotels in Literature - One Novel Idea!" It looks at some famous hotels that appear in literature. Of course, the section that interested me was on the Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for The Shining.

.
Haunted Amusement Park

Murray quotes operations director Leslie Hoy as saying, “He didn’t know the hotel existed and he was toying with the idea of writing a novel about an abandoned amusement park. . ." wait! I didn't know that. A novel about an abandoned amusement would be awesome!

.

I just got home from Disneyland. It's raining pretty hard here in Southern California, and the thought of something spooky happening on one of those rides is pretty cool. Of course, making it all broke down and abandoned is even more exciting. But then , I did see a B-rate movie that followed that idea. It wasn't good. But then, it wasn't Stephen King! I wonder if he'll ever return to that idea.

.

An amusement park is a naturally scary setting. See, it's full of clowns and "characters." Further, once we are on a ride -- we're trapped. That bar goes down and the ride follows the set track, and there is not a thing in the world you can do about it.

.

My mother told me about a fun house she used to go through at an amusement park along the California coast (The Pike). She said it was absolutely the scariest thing she had ever been in. Then, on an HBO show titled Autopsy, I learned that a real skeleton was found inside that fun house!

.

Wikipedia says: "In December 1976, during filming at Queens Park (A.K.A. The Pike), of the television show The Six Million Dollar Man 1977 episode "Carnival of Spies"(1979), a crew member was moving what was thought to be a wax mannequin that was hanging from a gallows. When the mannequin's arm broke off, it was discovered that it was in fact embalmed and mummified human remains. Later, when medical examiner Thomas Noguchi opened the mummy's mouth for other clues, he was surprised to find a 1924 penny and a ticket from Sonney Amusement's Museum of Crime in Los Angeles. That ticket and archived newspaper accounts helped police and researchers identify the body as that of Elmer McCurdy." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_McCurdy

.

Not Bad For Business!

Murray reveals that the hotel's center stage position in The Shining was good for business. "King’s room – which is Room 217 – now gets reservations months and months in advance and it is already sold for the next couple of Halloweens,” she (Hoy) said. The hotel had been near bankruptcy in the 1970s and was struggling at the time “The Shining” gave it a new shot at prosperity, Hoy said. The horror novel was published in 1977. The top draws at the hotel are now its guided ghost tours and history tours. “We’ve had 61,000 people come through since January [2010],” she said.

.

Reading The Shining At The Hotel:

Murray's last lines are pretty spooky: "As for Hoy, it took her about two months to build up courage to sit down with Stephen King’s book. “It took me some time to read it. I had to get myself acclimated,” she said. “I was living on the property and in a building all by myself in the winter.”And then, when she did, she said “I made sure I had my door locked.”

.
I think that lady has got guts! Would you read The Shining while all alone in the Stanley Hotel? I'm not sure I would.

.

http://www.hotelinteractive.com/article.aspx?articleid=19767