IN 1969 1 SAW BOB BURNS come down a mogul run in Sun Valley called Lower Holiday. The sight changed my life as a ski filmmaker. Burns�s style was not like any I had seen before. He was built short and square with steel thighs and sported a head of blond hair with a handlebar mustache to match.

Burns attacked a field of moguls like Errol Flynn attacking a band of pirates. When he skied bumps, he sat down in a permanent toilet seat position, with his arms high over his head holding 60-inch-long ski poles.

He sent his skis straight out over the moguls in front of him and when it looked like he would land flat on his back, he used his strong body to catch up with the skis.

Bob Burns was the epitome of the term linked recoveries. He was unique. No one skied like Burns. Bob Burns was, in 1969, the first hot dogger.

One look and I knew that I had to capture Burns and his unconventional style on film.

Bob was skiing on a new ski called K2 and working for the company as a rep. I called Chuck Ferries at K2 that night and told him that we should make a promotional film about his new ski and try to capture Bob Burns�s wild style with the camera. Ferries, a former Olympic skier and an old friend, liked the idea and met my price for a twelve-minute movie, a pair of skis, and the cost of some film.

I met Burns in Mammoth that spring and in three days we made the first K2 promotional ski movie. The film also featured a new kid who had springs for legs. His name was John Clendenin.

Ferries liked the film and we decided to make another the following year. This time I went back to Sun Valley and began looking for more of the free spirits that I knew must haunt those steep mogul runs. There, in April of 1970, 1 found Jim Stelling, George King, Bob Griswold, Bob Hamilton, and Pat Bauman. We filmed in Sun Valley and went to Vail when the Valley closed for the season.

The film was called Here Come The K2 Skiers.

By the end of 1970 the K2 reps and the dealers were asking, When�s the next K2 movie going to be ready?

These first two promo films were low budget shows that were filmed within two weeks. We needed a bigger, better production for film number three.

I presented a rough script for K2. I proposed to take a five-man K2 demonstration team around the United States in a red-white-and-blue 26-foot motor home and make a film about their travels. Ferries and K2 liked the idea.

The project would take the entire winter, 100,000 feet of film, and 10,000 miles of driving, but the result would be a 26-minute film titled The Performers. It would be the largest budgeted film that I had ever produced and would also become one of my most popular movies.

I had the team all set: Bob Burns, Bob Griswold, Jim Stelling, Pat Bauman, and John Clendenin.

Burns left the production at the last minute because of business reasons and was replaced by the very capable Sun Valley speedster; Charlie MacWilliams. It turned out to be the perfect team.

Working for me in Dana Point as sales manager was a gregarious promotional wizard named Terry Spragg. Spragg was at that time between icebergs (referring to his idea about towing icebergs from the Antarctic to be used as a fresh water source in drought-ridden areas of the world.)

Terry managed to sell cosponsorships in the new movie to ten additional clients. He sold the boot rights to Raichle, bindings to Americana, gloves to Mohawk, sunglasses to Trappe, the goggles to Smith, sweaters to Demetre, and clothes to Roffe. He even managed to get a 15,000-dollar motor home from Open Road and twelve thousand in cash from American Airlines. SKI magazine also came aboard in exchange for advertising.

About that time I had to hold him back before the entire movie was wall-to-wall sponsor credits.

I purchased a tiny condominium across the street from the Warm Springs lift in Sun Valley and used it as a winter base station. Everything we did in the making of The Performers was spontaneous. I had no set plan and hadn�t even contacted the different ski resorts to let them know we might show up sometime that winter. We did not write ahead because we didn�t know exactly when or where we would be. We only knew that we would ski and film east, west and mid-America.

IN EARLY JANUARY, during the final preparations for our odyssey, Jim Bombard, the K2 ski technician who was living in Sun Valley, came up and said, Hey, Barrymore, do me a favor. There�s a big group coming in for �airline week� and K2 sent me a bunch of T-shirts to pass out to the stewardesses. But I�m on my way to Europe as a tech rep for the World Cup. How �bout you taking over for me and helping with the promotion, maybe give away a pair of K2s to the gal that looks best in the T-shirt.

That moment gave birth to one of K2�s biggest and most controversial promotions: the first wet T-shirt contest.

Sun Valley�s Boiler Room Bar was the meeting place for the airline crews. There was a schedule of special events for the week,wine and cheese parties, ski races, cocktail parties, etc. I was scheduled to announce K2�s participation in the festivities.

My plan was to introduce our newly formed K2 demonstration team and mention our up-and-coming film project while passing out the white T-shirts with the big red, white, and blue K2 logo silkscreened on the front.

I was sitting up on the second level at a table with the team when we began thinking of a way to give a little more life to the party. How about a degree of difficulty for the T-shirt contest? Like a diving contest, I suggested.

Someone added, Yeah, we�ll be the judges and give out scores from one to ten with a degree of difficulty.

Charlie added, How about a 1.0 for any girl who comes out wearing a T-shirt with a bra underneath.

From there we worked it out. A 1.5 degree of difficulty for no bra and 2.0 for a wet T-shirt with no bra. The total score from the judges would be multiplied by the degree of difficulty. The highest score would win a new pair of K2s.

When I introduced the team members and announced the contest rules, the place went wild. Everybody clamored for T-shirts and proclaimed that their airline would be the winner.

The word went out around the valley and by the time the contest was held three days later; everybody who was anybody in Sun Valley showed up at the boiler room.

The judging panel was a Who�s Who of Sun Valley skiing. It included Warren Miller; Bill Janss (President and owner of Sun Valley) musician Vince Guaraldi, Bob Ottum of Sports Illustrated, ski bum extraordinaire Ron Funk, plus the K2 demo team along with Bob Burns and Bob Hamilton.

The Boiler Room was a subterranean bar beneath the Sun Valley lodge and housed the heating equipment, which was protected by a floor-to-ceiling wire screen. By the time the T-shirt contest began, Gary Vinagre, the bar manager; had closed the doors at the insistence of the fire department.

The place was more than packed. No one could move and the waitresses couldn�t get through the crowd to sell drinks.

By the time I took the microphone and started the contest, I could see people clinging to the wire fence in front of the machinery, high above the crowd. With purple fingers poking through the wire mesh, they were holding themselves up for a better view.

I introduced the judges and explained the rules.

The United crew was sitting at the first table - six pilots with a blonde wearing a fur coat. I asked for the first contestant. The United captain stood up and announced that their candidate would go first.

Vince Guaraldi struck up the band and the fur coat on the blonde at the United table flew off.

The crowd went wild. She had no bra, the T-shirt was wet, and she was wearing it on her wrist.

The United pilots were going crazy. They had flown in a stripper from Denver just for the event. The whole Boiler Room went nuts.

The gauntlet had been thrown. The remaining contestants began changing their attire in the dressing room backstage.

The rest of the evening was a blur. The contestants were beautiful. They danced and the crowd cheered. They all received the highest degree of difficulty and once I had to give Vince the finger across the throat sign to stop the music. One contestant was about to get us all arrested when she figured that she�d get more points if she took it all off.

The pair of skis went to a Pan Am stew who got caught up in the moment. The next day she made it clear that she would sue any photographer who published a picture of her during the contest. There were rumors that one of the photographers was going to sell the shots to Playboy.

After the Sun Valley T-shirt contest we loaded up the Open Road motor home and headed east.

MacWilliams was the self-appointed driver. He liked to drive, and the rest of us were willing to let Chas spend as much time at the wheel as he wanted.

Just before our departure I decided to put snow tires on the rear dual wheels. Charlie had a friend in Twin Falls who owned a tire shop and he assured me that we could get a good deal.

It was a cold January day when we left Sun Valley and headed east.

After three weeks travelling and filming in the Last, we made our way west with stops at Boyne Mountain, Michigan, and at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club ski area in Wisconsin. After successful deep powder filming in Steamboat, Aspen, and Snowbird, we ended up back in Sun Valley for some emotional refueling.

We�d been in the valley for a week filming some mogul skiing scenes when I received a call from Norm Clasen, a photographer who also ran his own advertising agency in Aspen. Barrymore, I heard you were coming back to town to set up a hot dog contest. When�s it going to happen? I want to be a part of it.

A hot dog contest?

Yeah, everybody�s talking about it. You and the K2 demo team. Something about the hottest run winning a pair of K2s.

Norm, that�s the first I�ve heard about it, but it sounds like a good idea. Get the word out. How about March 10? Where�s a good place to hold it?

Only one place, said Clasen. On the ridge of Bell. Can you get some prizes?

Sure, I answered. We�ve got skis, boots, bindings, poles, sweaters, the whole works. You get the word out and I�ll bring the K2 team. We�ll run the event and act as judges.

Doug Pfeiffer was prodding Skiing magazine to sponsor a similar event at Waterville Valley, but the contest in Aspen would be the first of its kind in the West. It became the biggest K2 promotion to date.

Clasen asked Werner Kuster; the owner of the Red Onion, if we could use his bar for the awards ceremony.

An hour after Werner said yes, it was rumored that I was putting on another K2 T-shirt contest at the Red Onion to accompany the awards ceremony. That�s the way it was in Aspen � ideas and events just materialized out of thin air.

I don�t really know who started the rumor; but once started, Norm advertised it and I staged it.

And what a ball it was. Over 100 competitors bashed those moguls to death in front of 3,000 spectators on that warm sunny day on the ridge of Bell Mountain in Aspen.

All the skiers thought to be the best on the mountain had their chance to prove it that day. Even skiers who were nowhere close to being the best had a chance to compete.

The giant party lasted from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. I rented a P.A. system, complete with 12-volt car battery and giant speakers, and set it up on the hillside near the finish gate. We had several cameras covering the contest, including one guy roaming the slope taking close-ups.

The rules were simple: the most exciting run won. Recoveries scored high.

We judged some real creative performances that day. One competitor actually jumped twenty feet from a pine tree to start his run. The ski patrol entered a toboggan with a saddle tied on it. One patrolman shot down that steep mogul run gripping onto the two front bars of the sled, while the other guy, cowboy hat in hand, rode in the saddle!

Another skier; who called himself Boogie, skied so slowly between each mogul that it took him ten minutes to reach the bottom. His technique, dubbed the slow dog noodle, was the joke of the contest. Years later; I read a book on skiing techniques written by the same guy, Bob Boogie Mann, who explained in detail how to do the slow dog noodle.

Skier after skier flew down that slope, each with his own unique style. The spectators cheered when a skier came out of the start, went into the air off the first bump in a spread eagle, landed in a hole between two giant moguls, and then catapulted into the air. He landed on his back between two other moguls, rocketed into the air again, and somehow got it together and landed on his skis, making turns between the big bumps. He threw in a 360, landed, and was still going straight down the fall line before he buried a tip in the backside of a bump and lost a ski.

The crowd cheered and hooted in a wild frenzy.

Sid Ericksen, an Aspen ski instructor; won the event with an exciting high-speed run of turns and jumps.

That was the type of skiing that was starting to evolve on the slopes, friends competing with friends on the toughest, steepest mogul-filled runs in the world.

Gone were the days of controlled competitions, of running gates against the clock. You couldn�t raise a crowd of more than 100 people to watch a World Cup race in America, but pass the word that there was to be a mogul contest, and 3,000 spectators would show up.

That�s how many there were on the ridge of Bell Mountain that sunny March day. There were another 5,000 lined up outside the Red Onion when I showed up that night for the awards ceremony.

The crowds were so intense that traffic was blocked and when I tried to get in, the crowd wouldn�t let me pass. I shouted, Please let me through, I�m in charge of the ceremony.

At that, two guys grabbed me and said, If he gets in, we get in.

I retreated to the nearest phone booth and called the Onion. I can�t get through the crowd, I told the food and beverage man. Why don�t you open the doors and let people in?

You kidding? he said. We did open the doors. The place is packed already.

It was six o�clock and the program wasn�t scheduled to start until eight. He told me to enter through the restaurant. He led me through the kitchen and then through a door which opened onto the small stage in the Onion bar.

It was standing room only. Luckily, the Onion had reserved some tables up front for the demo team, who would judge the T-shirt contest, and a place for Rickers to set up the camera.

We finally got rolling after the police broke up a near riot in the street. We started off announcing the winners of the hot dog contest. Sid Ericksen received a pair of K2s along with boots, poles, bindings, goggles, and various other prizes which were worth more than a thousand dollars.

The crowd couldn�t care less. They shouted, Let�s have the T-shirt contest!

The contestants emerged one by one, decorated with K2 T-shirts. One wore no T-shirt but had a K painted on one breast and a 2 on the other. One team featured two girls with top hats whose T-shirts were stuffed with balloons. Another wore a wet T-shirt which barely concealed a pair of 44Ds.

The band jammed, the judges held up scorecards, and I acted as master of ceremonies, making sure that none of the contestants tossed off their pants in a moment of euphoria.

One of the deals I had made with owner Werner Kuster was that the contestants would keep it to a bare-top event.

At one point in the evening, a guy stood up in the crowd and yelled, A thousand dollars to the girl with the most moles on her left tit!

I said, Is that for real?

The guy repeated, Yeah�one thousand bucks for the girl with the most moles on her left breast.

Six women from the crowd hit the stage in a frenzy and flipped off their tops.

The next thing I knew, I was standing on stage in front of 500 skiers, counting moles on bare breasts.

Two... Two ... Sorry, hon, that one�s on your shoulder � outside the contest perimeter.

I made up the rules as I went along. I felt like an idiot standing up there with my head buried in tits, examining moles.

Finally I announced, Four moles, with one more on the fringe area. Do we have any more entries?

One guy in the audience was pushing his wife toward the stage, saying, Go on, honey, it�s worth a thousand bucks, but she sat down and refused to budge.

Four moles . . . goin once . .. twice . . . sold! The guy in back passed the grand forward. I gave it to Joan, who had a lot more going for her than just four moles.

The T-shirt contest resumed. The last contestant was Shirley Metz, a 22-year-old, thin-waisted blonde who danced her way into first place and won several thousand dollars in prizes. At the microphone she thanked everybody, including her husband, Dick. Then added that they were on their honeymoon.

Later that season Playboy sent a photographer to Mammoth Mountain for an additional contest. That event resulted in a full-color spread of the K2 T-shirt contests in Playboy.

When Chuck Ferries found out about the Playboy article, he had mixed emotions. It was big national exposure for his skis, but he had been contacted by the chairman of the board of his parent company, Cumins Diesel, who was not pleased with the Playboy photos. The chairman of Cumins was also the president of the American Council of Churches.

I was in the last stages of cutting the film when Chuck came to Dana Point to take a look at the rough cut. In the Aspen T-shirt sequence, Shirley wore a wet T-shirt cut off just below the nipple level. As she danced, the T-shirt flapped up just enough for the crowd to get a brief glimpse of her perfect 34Cs.

To remove her from the film was unthinkable, but Chuck took one look at the sequence and axed it.

We then had one of our big fights over creative control. In the end we compromised.

Ferries made his position clear at the airport before getting on the plane to Seattle.

Remember, Barrymore, if I see one nipple in that film, you�ll never see your final payment. ��

I went back to the studio and carefully snipped each frame that flashed a nipple out of the sequence. The scene played the same but without exposing a single Ferries no-no.

When Chuck saw the first copy of the film, he looked real close, but agreed that I had lived up to my promise. He also declared that the film would be a K2 promotional disaster.

When the film went before the public Ferries changed his mind.

The Performers became the all-time most popular film that K2 or Dick Barrymore ever produced.

I made a total of ten films for Chuck, five when he was with K2 and five more when he was president of Pre-Skis and Scott USA. The Performers still reigns as the best of the lot.

The joke still goes around that if you want to know if a promotional film is going to be good or not, show it to Ferries. If he doesn�t like it, print it. It�s going to be a winner.

As a result of staging the T-shirt contests and the Playboy article, I was voted Male Chauvinist of the Year by Student Skier magazine. It was a was historic year. The Performers is still popular; and I kicked myself for years for not saving a copy of the Playboy issue with the T-shirt article.