Chapter 64 of the Dao Jing says “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Folks attribute the author to Confucius because Confucius is to Chinese wisdom what John Wayne is to Westerns.  However, Laozi is who first penned the concept.  What he didn’t go on to explain with any detail in his proverb is that the journey of a thousand miles can end with a kiss.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Blanca Rosa Henrietta Stella Welter Vorhauer was born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico on November 13, 1923 to Gerardus Welter and his wife, the former Blanca Rosa Vorhauer.  Gerardus was an oil executive with Royal Dutch Shell; Blanca was of Spanish, German, and French ancestry.  The combination of all those genes produced in their daughter a woman of staggering beauty.

The family reported vacationed at a Spanish styled hacienda outside Fort Stockton, though their ownership of the massive spread was never confirmed, the title being in the name of an LLC out of Montana for tax purposes.  There was no disputing the fact that their maid and housekeeper Consuelo, a large Hispanic woman known for her starched white uniform and ability to open Cuervo bottles with her teeth, would make the drive into town weekly driving a tan Packard Station Sedan while the family was in residence.  Stopping at the Piggly Wiggly first, then Stan’s Liquor, before heading back down Highway 10 for the 50 minute drive back to the ranchero.

There’d be the occasional reported sighting of young Blanca at the Dairy Twin, pulling up in the Packard and hopping out for a quick frozen treat in the heat of the blistering West Texas summer.  “I’d give anything to dip my frosty in the little pot of melted chocolate,” more than one of the local boys was known to say back in the day.  Of course, by that point she already been deflowered more times than the Fort Stockton Botanical Gardens in an early fall freeze.

Her desire to become a doctor took a quick turn after playing one with Errol Flynn in a chance meeting in Hollywood.  His reputation for consuming more cherries than a dozen of Lucinda’s homemade pies from The Grounds for Divorce proved to be understated, if anything.  Flynn changed a good many things for Blanca beyond her status as a virgin, starting with her name.  In a twist of irony, it was changed to Linda Christian.

Offering to foot the bill to have a couple crooked teeth fixed, Linda (as she was now known) jumped at Flynn’s offer and made an appointment with Dr. ‘Molar’ Miller over on Houston Street, right here in Fort Stockton, timed to coordinate with a family visit at the hacienda that summer.  Receiving the bill weeks later, Flynn nearly fell out of his Stickley leather armchair as he sat in his bungalow at the studio.  Seems Linda and Molar Miller conspired to get her a whole new smile as a result of full cosmetic reconstruction on Errol Flynn’s dime.  Years later when he ran into her again he told her, “Let me see those choppers!  The first bite they took was out of me!”

Tyrone Power, a ladies man known to rival even Errol Flynn, knew a good thing when he saw one and swept Linda off her feet.  It was never noted if it was the new smile that did it, but he made her an honest woman in 1949.  Her trips to Fort Stockton tapered off considerably after that.  Folks at the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store attributed it to the fact that Linda and Tyron had two children in rapid succession after their nuptials and spent an increasing amount of time across the pond in Europe Italy in particular.

In 1954 Linda achieved notoriety by becoming the first Bond Girl, though it was on the small screen, in Casino Royale.  Playing Valeri Mathis to Barry Nelson’s James Bond, her casting in the part is a testament to her beauty.  Most folks here in town think Ursula Andress (or Ursula ‘Undress’ as Brother Bob refers to her), but they’re the same ones who think Confucius is the author of every proverb not in the Bible, as well.

Meanwhile, while all this was going on Alfonso de Portago, a Spanish aristocrat, was developing a reputation for his skills as a pilot, bobsleigh driver, jockey, and automobile racer.  Born of wealth and nobility, ‘Fonso’ came from a long line of daredevil cads.  His grandfather, the 9th Marquess of Portago, had been Mayor of Madrid at one time.  His father, President of Puerta de Hierro was known to be a scratch golfer capable of taking money from fellow barons of business by sinking fifty foot putts while waving at a cocktail waitress in the clubhouse.  Equally talented at polo, he actually died of a heart attack while showering after a polo match, the cocktail waitress having toweled off and thrown on a robe to call the ambulance.

Fonso, following in his father’s foolish footsteps, won $500 by ‘borrowing’ a plane and flying underneath the London Tower Bridge at the age of 17 on a dare.  Truly a renaissance man, he was a “Gentleman Rider” at the Grand Nationals twice.  With his equally dashing and debonaire cousins Fonso formed the first Spanish Bobsleigh Team and finished in 4th place at the 1956 Olympics.

More important to the story, Fonso was welcomed into the famed Scuderia Ferrari racing team, fast cars being far more intoxicating than icy bobsleds.  He competed in the Carrera Panamerica, The 1000 KM Buenos Aires, and several Grand Prix.  The year 1956 was the apex of his efforts, Fonso taking 1st Place in the 1956 Tour de France Automobile and 2nd in the 1956 British Gran Prix.

A string of wives, lovers, and children, not all of them legitimate, by 1957 Fonso was thought to be the most rakish, rabble rousing playboy of Europe, possibly the world, JFK notwithstanding.  It was almost unavoidable that his path would cross with that of Linda Christian.

A month after divorcing Tyrone Power, Linda was seen cavorting around Europe with Alfonso.  The fact Alfonso was married at the time to American actress Carroll de Portago who was at home after just giving birth to Anthony, their second son two months earlier was duly noted in press clippings of the time.  “Just the kind of thing,” Brother Bob at Second Baptist Church mentioned repeatedly in sermons, “when the liberals are in charge.”

The sexual tension between Linda and Fonso was so thick you couldn’t cut it with a Ginsu knife, the relationship being in its early stages.  Love makes a person crazy, no matter the level of wealth and notoriety.  In fact, wealth and notoriety are to romance what cow manure is to tomato plants.  Attempting to contain nature in such circumstances is an exercise in futility.

It can only be speculated that Fonso was in just such a state when he and his co-driver Edmund Nelson strapped themselves into their Ferrari 335S at the 1957 Mille Miglia.  Reluctant to enter, Fonso worried about the race being too dangerous to even attempt.  But then someone who flies under the London Tower Bridge in a stolen plane and takes Linda Christian as a lover while having a wife and two kids at home can’t be too bothered with danger, can he?

On a straightaway between Cerlongo and Guidizzolo in the territory of Cavriana, Fonso pulled over to receive a kiss from Linda who was waiting for him in a crowd of cheering spectators.  Getting back onto the road and heading to full speed, a tire burst on the Ferrari at 150 MPH, sending Fonso and Nelson into the crowd of spectators.  Both were killed, as were nine in the cheering crowd, five of them children.

The bodies of Fonso and Nelson were trapped under the overturned Ferrari, Fonso cut in half.  Not even Bridges Funeral Parlor here in Fort Stockton (“We’re Your Bridge to the Other Side”) could have done enough to make that an open casket funeral.

Linda Christian later said in an interview reprinted in the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch, “I had a strange premonition with that kiss.  It was cold, and it caused me to look for the first time at Nelson seated beside him.  He seemed like a mummy, gray, ashen, as if memorized.  He had the eyes of someone who had suffered an enormous shock.”

LIFE magazine published the photograph that would become known as “The Kiss of Death” in its May, 1957 issue.  The title of the piece was “Death Finally Takes a Man Who Courted It.”