555 California is the location for the 1974 film, The Towering Inferno. My brother was a tiller driver on an SFFD truck that appeared in the opening scenes, while I was a Bank of America employee on the 9th floor, not in the film. In the news video you will see a tiller and Mr. Ortiz, a witness who shot video of the falling glass. He is interviewed at the exact location where I often parked my patrol car.
I recommend the movie if you like the disaster genre or movies set in San Francisco. This one gets five out of five stars, and one of them is Steve McQueen. Spoiler alert: here is the fire engine scene and more, but my brother, Tom, age 27 at the time, was not a member of the screen actor’s union, so his face could not be on screen. You can see his back at about 6:20 and his blurred face a few seconds later.
His son, age 10, faced the same problem when he did a commercial with Reggie Jackson, so a fictitious name was used, my brother’s name! I think his son was paid $600.
I recommend the movie if you like the disaster genre or movies set in San Francisco. This one gets five out of five stars, and one of them is Steve McQueen. Spoiler alert: here is the fire engine scene and more, but my brother, Tom, age 27 at the time, was not a member of the screen actor’s union, so his face could not be on screen. You can see his back at about 6:20 and his blurred face a few seconds later.
His son, age 10, faced the same problem when he did a commercial with Reggie Jackson, so a fictitious name was used, my brother’s name! I think his son was paid $600.
Thomas George Dunn 1946-2017
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