Comes today the sad news that Melvin Dummar has died at the age of 74, having spent his last years somewhere in the vicinity of Pahrump, Nevada. Where better for the self-described American Dreamer to have ended up than what late night radio talk show host Art Bell once dubbed Dreamland?
People often ask me if I believe Melvin’s story that he once picked up a bedraggled Howard Hughes in the desert and that Hughes later bequeathed him 156 million dollars in his will. I always answer that it’s a great story and one I sorta WISH was true, if for no other reason than I would have enjoyed watching Melvin piss away the money on luxury cars, luxury yachts, luxury airplanes and luxury vacations to exotic places even more exotic than, say, Wells, Nevada, where he and I and Melvin’s wife Bonnie once shared a crowded motel room. The year was 1980 and money was tight, in large part because we’d pissed away our pocket change at the Ranch House Casino.
No matter. Melvin was brimming with plans and optimism at the time. Thanks largely to burgeoning fame—or was it notoriety?—Melvin had landed a contract to perform at The Gilded Cage Cabaret in Carson City as headliner for a band called Melvin and The Dreamers. I never did catch his act; however, I had been subjected to Mel’s demo tapes as we cruised the high desert in his company-issued Mercury Bobcat. Nonetheless, I was HOPING that somehow Melvin Dummar would hit the big time as a singer/composer.
Wishing and Hoping. Isn’t that what life boils down to? Especially in rural Nevada, where billboards promise that unearned riches are just waiting for you down the road at the next casino. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to leave Las Vegas with a satchel full of cash, and if Melvin had that same dream—well, I wouldn’t blame him. Working stiffs everywhere were rooting for him, and already con artists were trying to plumb his pockets. Turns our just about everyone at some time or another had encountered a comatose billionaire in the wilds.
Melvin’s gig at the Gilded Cage closed after just one night, and his next engagement in Elko was cancelled. Whenever MELVIN AND HOWARD: A LOVE STORY aired on television, Melvin would receive a royalty check in the amount of seven dollars—for his cameo performance as a soda jerk. He would have preferred to play himself in the film, of course, but let’s face it. Paul Le Mat did a fantastic job.
In recent years I’ve lost track of the Dummars, although Bonnie called one day out of the blue to announce that someone had cut down the Shoe Tree outside Fallon. Evidently if a Shoe Tree falls in the desert, at least one person will take notice.
I tried once to contact the couple in hopes of gaining permission to use privileged information for a book I was writing. I got as far as a shuttered house north of Brigham City, Utah, but no one answered my knock or responded to the note I’d left. So I guess I’ll just keep whatever I know—or think I know—to myself, and should anyone ever ask me what I think of the late Melvin Dummar, I’ll just answer, “I kinda wish his dreams had all come true.”
