Arriving in May with her parents, the 22-year-old also came with a regiment of photographers for Paramount and Fox film studios.
Some doubting Thomas County residents suspected the whole affair was a publicity stunt and claimed to have been proven right as national magazines told of the diva’s desire to ‘learn to milk cows and feed chickens” on her Kansas farm.
In 1930 Miss Talley purchased more land, bringing her total Thomas County holdings to 1,600 acres. She returned for another photo op while overseeing the wheat harvest and announced plans to build a large farmhouse and retire from the opera world. However, in later years Kansas saw little of the coloratura soprano, as she decided to settle in California hoping for a movie career.
Colby continued to attract celebrities during the Depression Era of the1930s and their brief stopovers delighted the residents of Thomas County. Babe Didrikson, one of the world’s greatest women athletes and star of the 1932 Olympic Games, appeared in Colby as the featured player of a traveling baseball team. The O’Pelt Hotel Coffee Shop was host to actress Jean Harlow and her entourage. The platinum blonde star ordered a hot beef sandwich and a bottle of beer. And animal star Rin-Tin-Tin dined on a hamburger at Bergmans Café.
Returning to the world of opera, hometown boy and operatic bass, Samuel Ramey graduated from Colby High School in 1960 and in 1973 debuted at the New York City Opera. Audiences admired Ramey’s range and versatility in such great roles as Zuniga in Bizet’s Carmen, Gounod’s Faust, and Boito’s Mefistofele. Ramey’s work spanned the globe in notable European theaters such as Teatro alla Scala, Convent Garden, The Royal Opera House, and the Vienna State Opera, to name a few. Ramey debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1984, on the same stage once inhabited by Miss Marion Talley.
Thanks to the Prairie Museum of Art and History in Colby for contributing to this story.
For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Debra Bolton residing in Manhattan, Kansas.
