One of the first things most people notice when they walk into Westport Cleaners
in Kansas City, MO, is the company’s impressive “Wall of Fame.”
A while back, plant owner Mike Sansone decided to collect photos of celebrities
and some of the personal items given to him by some of his more colorful
customers.
“I’ve got Bon Jovi’s bubblegum that I found in his pocket,” he said. “I’ve got Tim McGraw’s chapstick... Marilyn Manson’s lipstick. I’ve got The Police’s room key. I’ve got all kinds of guitar picks... Keith Urban, Journey, Cheap Trick.”
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“One time, Willie Nelson’s guy said, ‘Willie loved the way you did his clothes. This is from Willie to you.’ The guy told me to open my hand.”
Knowing the star’s reputation and history, Mike wasn’t sure what to expect. At first, he hesitated to accept, wondering if the man
had a joint in his hand.
“The guy said, ‘No, it’s not a joint, but it could be.’ It was a guitar pick,” Mike laughed. “It had Willie’s face on the front, and on the back of the guitar pick it had a pot leaf. It
said, ‘Willie: Still Smokin’.’“
Also on the wall are some treasured items from pop icon Tina Turner, including
her personal itinerary sheets and a set list for a concert she performed at the
Sprint Center.
Normally, Mike is too busy running the cleaners to attend some of the events
featuring the celebrities whose clothes he cleans, but he was able to make an
exception with Turner.
“It’s very hard for me to leave this cleaners without doing this production stuff
because it’s all very detailed,” he noted. “I did get to work the Tina Turner show, though. I drove her dancers from the
Inter Continental Hotel. Then, I ended up going to pick up a massage table for
her and some stereo equipment that I needed to get to the band.”
When Mike wasn’t running back and forth trying to help out, he hung around backstage and
enjoyed a few perks.
“Everything is catered,” he recalled. “They told me to make myself at home, eat whatever I wanted, from prime rib to
ice cream. So, I’m sitting there eating and I hear Tina Turner singing. It was four in the
afternoon at the Sprint Center.”
When Mike asked if it was actually Tina singing, he didn’t believe it when he was told “yes.” He assumed it was a CD playing during a sound check.
“So, we walked outside to have a cigarette and I come back in, and there she was
walking off the stage after her practice,” Mike added. “She winked at me. That was kind of cool.”
The experience became even cooler when Mike attended her concert later on. There
were 18,000 people seated altogether for the sold-out show. Mike just so
happened to sit next to a writer for the Kansas City Star.
Mike’s mother was with him and she was her usual social self.
“My mother kind of talks to everybody,” Mike noted. “Well, this man asks to borrow a pen. She teased and said, ‘Now, this is an expensive pen. I want it back.’ Somehow, my mom starts talking to this man’s wife. One thing lead to another and he said he was writing a review of the
show.”
During intermission, Mike agreed to an interview for a feature article in the
near future. The writer, Steve Penn, dubbed him as “Cleaner to the Stars” in his article. The moniker has undoubtedly helped Mike to gain even more
celebrity clients since then.
Westport Cleaners did not start off with its star-studded reputation. That is
something it has earned over its long lifetime.
Originally, the business was known as Rollins Cleaners. One family started it in
the late 1930s and sold it to the Sansones in 1982.
However, Mike’s immediate family have been in the industry since 1967 when his parents, Joe
and Joann, purchased Bellair Cleaners from her first cousin. Soon, they
expanded from the Old Italian neighborhood on Independence Ave. to include a
Bellair North location in North Brighton.
In 1978, they sold the original Bellair cleaners and bought Continental
Cleaners. Then, four years later, the Sansone family took over Westport.
Mike started off working at the family plants when he was old enough to
terrorize his sisters.
“My mom would say, ‘If you’re going to be mean to your sisters, then you’re going to work with your father’,” Mike laughed. “I can remember that I had to stand on the chair to cash people out of a cash
register. That’s how fast my father started me out.”
Clearly, the work suited Mike, as he has spent most of his life around the
family business. He takes his work quite seriously.
“I really enjoy being here,” he said. “Sometimes, I think that drycleaning is an art, and sometimes I think it’s going to be a lost art. When someone brings something in, I don’t care if It’s Cavalli, Dolce & Gabanna, Prada, or if it’s something from Jones New York or Ann Taylor or beneath that, like Banana
Republic or Gap — I still take pride in working on everybody’s clothes. They know they can bring it all to me.”
Since the beginning, Mike has learned that all customers want to be recognized
and appreciated, not just the famous ones.
“It’s a very personal relationship that I have with a lot of the customers,” he said. “We know everybody by name.”
Making friends and contacts has been a great strategy for success for the family
business. Back in the early 1980s, a personal acquaintance of Mike’s informed him how a TV movie called The Day After Tomorrow would be filming in
town.
Mike expressed interest in working on the production’s wardrobe, so she told him about another upcoming movie project in the Kansas
City area: Article 99 starring Keifer Sutherland.
“I did it and it worked great,” Mike recalled. “Then, I did the movie Truman with Gary Sinise. I did all of the war uniforms and
everything that came in. As a matter of fact, Warner Brothers even shipped all
of the war uniforms here and I had to clean them all. It was a big production.”
Other big productions soon followed, including work for the Robert Altman film,
Kansas City, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, starring Paul Newman.
With four movie productions under its belt, Westport gained a positive
reputation. Helping matters out, the company offered wash-n-fold services,
which helped boost the number of its big-name clients considerably.
“We wash, dry, fluff and fold. A lot of these entertainers, when they come to
town, have a lot of stagehands,” Mike explained. “Anything from the catering people with dirty towels to the guys who build the
stages and take them down to the dancers — all the wash and fold of their everyday clothes that they wear. I’m apt to do all of that.”
Over time, Westport’s celebrity clientele has steamrolled to staggering numbers. In fact, the “Wall of Fame” has about 200 star photos on it, and the list includes a veritable who’s who of famous music performers.
Some of the names of faces that adorn the wall include: Dolly Parton, Elton
John, Bruce Springsteen, Cher, Alisha Keys, Bonnie Tyler, Hannah Montana, Reba
McEntire, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Daltrey, James Taylor, Michael Bublé and Neil Diamond.
Before all the stars were aligned on the wall of Westport Cleaners, it was just
a simple family business. Mike believes that hasn’t changed at all.
“Basically, I like to come to work. I go home. I lead a pretty simple life,” he explained. “I owe it all to my mom and dad. They were the ones who started it all.
Sometimes, through the years, it does get difficult working with your parents,
but I live with them now. They are the light of my life and I don’t know what I would ever do without them.”
Of course, Mike’s “simple” life occasionally takes a complex and even surreal turn. Sometimes, it makes
for a funny story, like the time Westport was handling the wash-n-fold laundry
for pop singer Rod Stewart and some of his entourage and bandmates.
“There was so much laundry I decided to do it,” Mike said. “I grabbed one of our customer’s bags and ended up giving his personal laundry to Rod Stewart. The next day
when the customer came in to pick it up, I told the guy. He was very nice about
it.”
When he was informed that “Rod Stewart” had his laundry, the man did not even consider that it might be the same man
who sang “Maggie May” and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
Meanwhile, Mike tried desperately to get the clothes back. Unfortunately, most
performers leave the night of the concert or early the next day, so time
quickly ran out. Stewart had departed from Kemper Arena and was already on a
flight back to London.
Mike explained the situation and apologized for the mix-up. At that point, it
dawned on the customer who ended up with his garments.
“He said, ‘You lie! You’re telling me Rod Stewart has my underwear!’“ Mike said, knowing it could have been him or any of the band members. “I told him I was sorry, then he said, ‘Well, at least I know they went to a pop star’.”
