Around the late 1960s, he was on location at Salton Sea shooting a commercial for Chevron Oil. The theme was the Chevron Islands, normally referring to the gas pump islands at their gas stations. So the plan was to create a tropical island with some palm trees in the middle of the Salton Sea lagoon. It took a whole day to create the island - that night, the desert winds came howling up and blew everything to shambles. The 2nd day, the crew remade the island. That night the winds blew and repeated the scenario. Day 3, the producer said the heck (or related) with it and had anything salvageable put into the trucks for the trip back to Hollywood. The commercial ended up on a sound stage at the General Service Studios, now known as the Hollywood Studios.