“The Misfits,” an 1961 film set in and around Reno, stars Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe in their final performances, alongside Montgomery Clift. The film, which premiered in Reno on Jan. 31, 1961, checks nearly all the boxes of midcentury Reno references: quickie divorce, ranching, wild mustangs, casinos and rodeo.
Near the beginning of the film, Monroe’s character, Roslyn Tabor, files for divorce at the Washoe County Courthouse, walks to the nearby Virginia Street Bridge and throws her wedding ring into the Truckee River.
But did divorcées really throw their rings into the river, or was the scene just Hollywood fiction? Former Nevada state archivist Guy Rocha looked into the origins of the myth in a column originally published in the Reno Gazette Journal in 2001.
Truckee River ring toss dates back to at least 1929
Rocha wrote:…