I was 1955 and I was an 18 year old who had just graduated from High School= in Rapid City SD. I got a job as the salad chef at a hotel, Sylvan Lake H= otel in Custer State Park. Little did I know that a movie, The Last Hunt, w= as being filmed in Custer State Park and that several of the movie stars we= re staying at the hotel.=20

The movie was directed by Richard Brooks and stared Robert Taylor, Stewart = Granger, Lloyd Nolan, and Russ Tambyln. Taylor and Granger eat at the hotel= most nights and had breakfast in the kitchen with the cooks and with me in= the morning.=20

The first morning Mr. Granger asked me to do him a favor and wake up his w= ife, Miss Jean Simmons, a movie star, who was also staying at the hotel. H= e explained that Miss Simmons needed coffee when she awakened and it was im= portant for me to stay until she had her coffee. I readily agreed. And I di= d wake her up and wait to she had her coffee and chatted with her about the= Black Hills.

For the next two weeks I had the honor of getting to spend some time with J= ean Simmons. She was 8 years older than me and a very nice British lady. = So, when I had time, I took her horseback riding, fishing and boating while= she waited for Mr. Granger to return from the set. I even by chance was at= the airport when she left to return to California and she went out of the = way to introduce herself to my parents and grandparents. That was as close= to Hollywood that I ever got and this weekend I stopped to think about her= as the word came that she passed away on Jan. 22 in California.

According to reports, Simmons, who was 80 and had lung cancer, died at her= home in Santa Monica on Friday night. The report went on to say =E2=80=9DB= orn in London, Simmons started acting in British films as a teenager and la= ter moved to the United States to star in movies such as the 1955 musical G= uys and Dolls with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, and Stanley Kubrick's S= partacus with Kirk Douglas in 1960. Simmons won a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for playing Ophelia = in Hamlet in 1948 and a best actress nomination for her role in The Happy E= nding -- a 1969 film directed by her second husband Richard Brooks.

Her marriage to Brooks ended in divorce in 1977. She married Brooks in 1960= , months after divorcing actor Stewart Granger.=E2=80=9D

And I did wonder many years later if Miss Simmons met Mr. Brooks while in S= outh Dakota making The Last Hunt?