Film homage Murphy's Romance 1984 Strube's General Merchandise 1941-1986 Florence Arizona 1984-2008 #1 Acrylic Print

Strube's General Merchandise in Florence Arizona operated for two more years after the Hollywood crew for "Murphy's Romance" left in 1984.

The building had become known as the Florence General Store and was destroyed in a fire in 2011.

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...