From the Archives: A Fistful of French Fries

Do you hear that iconic Ennio Morricone movie music from those classic Sergio Leone westerns sounding on the streets of Fort Lee? The music gets louder as you approach the Fort Lee Museum on Palisade Avenue and it will continue to sound through January 29th when our exhibit Palisades Amusement Park Our Last Summer in the Sun closes. What is the connection to these films and music to Fort Lee and Palisades Amusement Park? Simply put: The man with no name then but known throughout the world now - Clint Eastwood.

In order to understand this story we have to travel back to those pre spaghetti western days when Clint was starring as Rowdy Yates in the CBS Television western Rawhide from 1959 - 1965. For those of you too young to recall Rawhide you might remember the classic theme of this TV series as sung by John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. You can compare the two by listening here for the Rawhide theme song and here for the Blues Brothers.

This is Americana at its best my friends!

In 1964 Clint Eastwood was Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone’s choice to star in A Fistful of Dollars. This film became part of a Leone/Eastwood trilogy that included For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Eastwood’s character, the man with no name, made him an international star.  

That brings us back to the Fort Lee of the early 60s – a summer day in Fort Lee to be exact. At the time summers in Fort Lee resounded with the sounds and smells of one of the classic American amusement parks of all time, Palisades Amusement Park. The sweetest smell of many summers came from Fred Nasif’s French fry stand. For decades the Nasif family sold us those wonderful vinegar fries in the iconic pointed Dixie like cups. This stand in one of America’s most prominent East Coast parks would soon be the place were America’s rising laconic Western star would make a pilgrimage to on a summer’s day. Palisades Amusement Park’s mastermind of public relations Sol Abrams would engineer many special park visits by celebrities. Sol had contracts across the nation and he brought in many big names to the park and these events always led to national press and news reel coverage making this Fort Lee/Cliffside Park Amusement Park one of the most celebrated in America. CBS Television saw the value of such a visit so they sent Clint and his Rawhide co-star, Paul Brinegar (who played the character G.W. Wishbone) to the park. Pictured here is one of the most famous stills in the park’s history, Clint with Paul Brinegar holding a cup of those famous fries. 

We thank the Nasif family, particularly Fred Nasif’s daughter, Janice Senackerib, for their donation to the Fort Lee Museum of such historical artifacts as a French fry cup and scooper from the stand, both which appear in the photo with Clint Eastwood. They also donated photos from the Circus Restaurant, which their family operated, and the wooden dolly, which their father used to wheel sacks of potatoes to the stand every day. Janice promises to release the recipe for those vinegar fries to us for safe keeping in the museum. So that’s the story of the man with no name coming east to Fort Lee on a long ago but well remembered day at Palisades Amusement Park.