The Wall

People Who Died -- February, 2025

February, the month I like the least, is mercifully short, and this month, the list of luminaries, we have lost, has also been mercifully short. That is luminaries as defined by me, because my buddy Vinnie, and I suspect any number of Yankee fans, will not be happy that Al Trautwig, who died at 68 (way too young by the way), only gets this mention. Just a note that I wrote the preceding statements before the last week of the month where there was a serious uptick in the number of deaths, which was regrettable. Let’s get to it.

You know it’s a slow month when I start off with the death of the former Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent at 86. Mr. Vincent only got the Commissioner’s gig because of the death of his boss, A. Bartlett Giamatti, at 51, after serving only four months in the job he coveted. Mr. Vincent was elected to fill out his five year term. No ball of fire, Mr. Vincent, a Yale trained lawyer, held a number of high profile jobs in which he maintained a low profile. He was hired by Allen & Company after a short stint with the S.E.C. because Allen & Co, had purchased Columbia pictures. Mr. Allen wanted Vincent to run the company, not because he had Hollywood experience, but rather because, Allen told him: “you are not the most exciting guy in the world, but you are predictable.” Hey, he got the job. When Columbia bought Coca Cola, he rose to be the vice chairman of the soft drink company. Mr. Vincent would have given it all up to play football, but a college injury dashed any such possibility. In a prank that today would get kids incarcerated, he was locked in his dorm room. Needing to go to the bathroom, he decided to climb out of the fourth floor window to scoot along a ledge, and climb into an adjacent room that he hoped would give him egress. He didn’t count on slipping on the icy ledge and falling to the ground. He hit a railing on the second floor which partially broke his fall and probably saved his life. So much for football. He was told he would probably never walk again but he did, albeit with the help of a cane. His tenure as baseball commissioner was sort of trial by fire, or at least seismic event, when about four weeks into the job, an earthquake hit San Francisco during the World Series in which the Giants were playing their Bay area neighbors the Oakland Athletics. Vincent did not immediately cancel the Series and even though 67 people lost their lives, the area recovered enough in a week to permit the Fall Classic to resume. Oakland won it. Later, Vincent oversaw a lockout of the players which postponed Spring Training in 1990, but thankfully not the season. In what I view to be the high point of his entire career, he famously suspended George Steinbrenner, the Yankees owner (who’s no facial hair policy went by the boards this month), for paying $40,000 to the gambler, Howard Spira, for negative information about Dave Winfield. On the other end of that spectrum, it was he who negotiated Pete Rose’s exit from baseball, although Giamatti was still the Commissioner. Vincent, sensing the forthcoming Steroid era, issued a mandate against illegal drug use. However, because the collective bargaining agreement with the players did not permit testing, and because the union president, Don Fehr, would not permit it, we got unnaturally huge players with unnaturally huge heads garnering unnaturally huge stats. Can’t blame that on him. Ultimately, the owners tired of him and pushed him out in favor of one of their own, Bud Seelig, an owner who would do as ownership wanted. Vincent loved sports and served as commissioner of the New England Collegiate Baseball League and wrote a memoir, “The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine.” Quite a charmed life.

Alright, maybe it is not so boring. Gene Hackman, who seemed to be in every great movie in the 70’s and 80’s, save for a few Al Pacino was in, died this month at 95 under odd circumstances that are being investigated as I write. That said, 95 is a good life, so no matter how he met his end, he really doesn’t have room to complain. He started his acting career on Broadway, made his way to television in shows like “Route 66,” and “Naked City,” and then to the big screen in such blockbusters as “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Superman,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” “ The Royal Tenenbaums,” Hoosiers,” “Mississippi Burning,” “Postcards from the Edge,” and, of course, “The French Connection,” where he played the role of Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, for which he got an Oscar for best actor. His second Oscar was for best supporting actor in Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven.” Aside from being an incredible “character” actor, he could be incredibly comedic, as he was in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein, where he portrayed a blind hermit with no connection whatsoever to the Popeye Doyle character. Before he was an actor, he was a marine for five years. After the marines, he wanted to work as an actor and while he waited for his break, he worked at whatever job he could get; one of which, for a time, was being a doorman at a Howard Johnson’s convention held at their restaurant on 49^th and Broadway. He was dressed in a white uniform with green piping and as he stood outside the door, he saw coming down the street, a Marine in his dress blues. As the Officer got closer, Hackman saw that it was his old drill sergeant. At about 30 feet away, the drill sergeant saw Hackman. As he walked by, without making eye contact, the Marine said, “Hackman, you’re a sorry son-of-a-bitch.” I wonder what he thought of him as he accepted one of his Oscars. To learn acting, he joined the Pasadena Playhouse, where he befriended Dustin Hoffman. The two of them were deemed most likely not to succeed by their peers, who obviously were not talent scouts. Hackman was certainly not a matinée idol. He was more an everyman and that is how he made his living. He played his characters to a tee and was constantly working. Some years, he had four movies out. He went back to Broadway and while he never formally retired he just worked less and less. He painted and wrote some historical fiction novels with the undersea archeologist, Daniel Lenihan. He was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award by the golden Globes for his “outstanding contribution to the entertainment world.” A more full life I could not imagine. His death engendered an outpouring of accolades from all of the best entertainers there are. In particular, Clint Eastwood wrote: “There was no finer actor than Gene. Intense and instinctive. Never a false note. He was also a dear friend I will miss very much.” I’d happily die today if I could get Clint Eastwood to say anything like that about me.

Roberta Flack, whose soulful voice gave us tunes such as “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and “Feel Like Making Love,” died this month at 88. Classically trained at the piano at a young age, she also sang in her church choir. Bright and well-read as a child, she entered College at 15 and graduated from Howard (where she had a full scholarship), at 19. She wanted to be an opera singer but in just what a college professor shouldn’t do, she was convinced to abandon her dream and teach school, a more stable way of making a living. So she taught school in Farmville, North Carolina, and ultimately Washington, D.C. While teaching, she played piano and sang in the clubs around D.C., especially, Mr. Henry’s. Her shows attracted celebrity guests such as Burt Bacharach and Liberace (did I mention it was a Gay club?), who played a piano duet with her on the piano. All this led to being signed by Atlantic records. She put out her first album which included “The First Time… ” Critics liked the album, and the one that followed it, but not much happened since she lacked a hit. A few years later, Clint Eastwood used “The First Time…” in the movie “Play Misty For Me,” and she had her hit. She did an album of duets with Donny Hathaway which rose to number 3 on the Billboard Album Charts. The album featured their cover of the Carol King tune “You’ve Got A Friend.” She also successfully paired with Peabo Bryson. She was a four-time Grammy winner (She was the first person to win back-to-back Grammy’s for Best Album in 1973 and 74); sang at Jackie Robinson’s funeral; toured with Miles Davis; and, in the 1970’s, was the first person of Color to purchase an apartment in the Dakota, becoming fast friends with John and Yoko (“farming beef raising protein quota” – see if you get that reference). Her voice paved the way for Sade, Luther Vandross, and Lauryn Hill, who with the Fugees, did a great cover of “Killing Me Softly.” Flack was a spokesperson for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and funded a program at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx named the Roberta Flack School of Music. In short, she was a brilliant woman, a superb talent, a philanthropist and a socially conscious citizen, putting her time and money where her mouth was. Singing my life with her words.

Hal Sperlich, who brought us through highs and lows in the auto industry, by designing both the Ford Mustang and the minivan, died at 95. At Ford in the late 50’s, Sperlich pushed the company to get behind a stylishly smaller and affordable, sporty car. Ford had, at the time, the Falcon, which Sperlich believed to be “the most boring car on the planet.” The Falcon was the brainchild of Robert McNamara (as was the bombing of Cambodia). Sperlich told David Halberstam that McNamara “had those granny glasses and made a granny car.” Lee Iacocca, then at Ford, was a Sperlich supporter. Sperlich was a brash, self-centered guy who didn’t often back down. According to a co-worker: “At first he’d tell you you were wrong, then he’d tell you why you were wrong, and then he’d tell you why you should know you were wrong.” This hardly endeared him to those around him, especially, Henry Ford, the grandson of the master. Eventually, Henry Ford begrudgingly capitulated, telling Sperlich and Iacocca that “you’ve got your goddamn car. It better work.” Work it did. Introduced at the 1963 World’s Fair in New York, the Mustang became wildly successful. Sperlich believed that you can get an old person to buy a car that young people buy, but you can’t get a young person to buy a car that old people buy. That is what the Mustang was. A car for the young that older people also wanted. After the success of the Mustang, Sperlich became convinced that the minivan would be a whole segment of the car business to itself. Henry Ford, who by this time came to despise Sperlich, was not going for it and at meetings, he forbade Iacocca to sit next to Sperlich because, Ford told Iacocca, “he’s always pissing in your ear.” Eventually Ford fired Sperlich, and he went to Chrysler where Iacocca also eventually wound up. Chrysler, desperate for something to jumpstart the company, went for the idea of the minivan and it saved the company. Now, I have to say, I am no minivan fan (although my first car was a full-sized van which I loved). I believe that buying a minivan is surrendering to a life of ruin. In my late 30’s and 40’s, when I met someone who was depressed, I asked if they had a minivan, and the answer was invariably yes. If you are buying a minivan, you may as well just buy a shotgun and blow your brains out. They are similar except one takes longer to reach full effect. I was somewhat shocked when I heard that the guy who brought us a car as perfect as the Mustang, also brought us a car that began the decline of Western civilization. That said, for many it had its utility. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was at Chrysler through the era of the K-car which even he must have realized made the Falcon look like the Shelby GT 500 in comparison. When he was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, he dwelled more on the minivan stating, “20 million satisfied soccer moms, that’s why I’m in the hall of fame.” I beg to differ.

When I was young, when you exhausted all of the Kurt Vonnegut books (including Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout – which had its genesis as a Vonnegut piece although written by Phillip Jose Farmer), you moved on to Tom Robbins, who died this month at 92. With books such as “Still Live with Woodpecker,” “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” and my personal favorite, “Another Roadside Attraction,” about folks who find the body of Jesus in the Catacombs and ship it to a hot dog stand outside Seattle, he satiated an adolescent’s search for counterculture literature which in itself may be oxymoronic. When I exhausted Robbins books, I headed to Richard Brautigan until I aged out of the genre. Critics often referred to his works as cartoonish which he took as a compliment. He was certainly meandering, and comedically irreverent, which was the part I liked the most. Wanting to be a writer, he attended Washington & Lee University where he wrote for the school newspaper, having his articles edited by Tom Wolfe. He left college after his second year and joined the Air Force where he said that most of his time was spent fencing black market goods in Korea. The South, I expect. He eventually found his way to Seattle and LSD which he said was life changing. The LSD, not Seattle. He wrote his novels longhand, often agonizing for hours over sentences, and never knew where his novels were going when he started. He once said that he didn’t know how to write a novel. He just wrote until he was done. I’ll end with a quote of his. “Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible and we could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously.” Perhaps I’ll drop some acid now.

Later in life I read the “Onion Field,” by Joseph Wambaugh, who died this month at 88. Wambaugh was one of the first writers to provide readers with the real gritty work that police do every day. They work in an ugly world, constantly dealing with crime, death, and destruction and it can be debilitating as a career to continuously deal with the underbelly of society. I can’t recall which book it was, but he was describing how cops at highway accident scene’s hate rubberneckers and people who roll down their windows at an obvious tragedy asking what happened. In the scene he constructed, there was a violent highway accident, leaving only a lane to get by, and a family from, I think, Ohio, slowly inched by and the driver rolled down his window and asked the cop if everyone was alright. The cop leaned down, picked up a disembodied head, showed it to the driver and his horrified family, and said something like “this guy didn’t make out too well.” Last time that guy ever slowed down at an accident scene. Wambaugh’s realism came from the fact that for 14 years he was an L.A.P.D. police officer. In addition, his father had been the Police chief of East Pittsburgh, where the writer was born. He was a uniform officer during the Watts riots and eventually was promoted to detective. He once said that the “Onion Field,” made him a real writer, “and then I knew it was over, I couldn’t be a cop anymore.” He wrote 21 books, 16 of them fiction, a few of which were made into movies. He was not a fan of federal oversight of police departments, devoting themes in his last five novels to the perils of outside oversight. He was a loner who shunned the spotlight, was cynical in the way only a cop can be (although I try), had few friends (other than cops), and even played golf alone. Of Hollywood he once said, “[a]s a cop, I dealt with every type of bum and criminal. They all have more integrity than some Hollywood people.” 10-7 Mr. Wambaugh.

Boris Spassky, who along with Bobby Fischer, became pawns in the cold war, died this month at 88. Spassky was born in Leningrad (Now St. Petersburg) and was certainly one of the best chess player there was, excluding IBM’s Deep Blue (just kidding). He was probably better than Bobby Fischer, who played him in what was billed the Match of the Century. It was held at the height of the Cold War in 1972. Although in America, Spassky was portrayed as the enemy, he was actually a nice and gentle guy, while Fischer was pretty much the John McEnroe of the chess world. Fischer was irascible, held out for more money for the match, demanded that the television cameras be removed, forfeited a game and threatened not to play, requiring Henry Kissinger to intercede. He also was the winner which caused Spassky to suffer at home. He was not permitted to travel for two years which, was the death knell for a competitive chess player. The Russians also cut some of his funding. In 1975, he married a French woman, moved to France and became a French citizen in 1978. Strangely, in 2012, he was back in Russia, claiming to have been held against his will in France. He remained in Moscow the rest of his life. In 1992, a bank owner in Belgrade offered a $5 million purse if Spassky and Fischer would play a in Serbia and Montenegro, two countries under U.N. Sanctions for warring with Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Putting aside the sanctions, they played, and Fischer won again. This time, however, the two were friendly towards one another and even though the chess left something to be desired, they had clearly come to enjoy one another. Some years later, Fisher, who had not lived in the U. S. for some time, was arrested in Japan and threatened with deportation to the U. S. where he faced charges for violating those U.N. sanctions, Spassky wrote a letter to President George W. Bush seeking clemency for his friend. He wrote that if Fischer broke the law than so too did he, and for that the President could put them both in a cell. He just asked that they include a chess board in the deal. Of Fischer, he once said, when you play him, “it’s not a question of whether you win or lose. It’s a question if you survive.” Not without humor, he was once asked which he preferred more, sex or chess, to which he answered, “it depends on the position.” I’ll end it there.

Tony Roberts, who had a long and successful career as a Broadway and screen actor, but who was most closely associated with Woody Allen as the secure, self-assured counterpoint to Mr. Allen’s characters who were riddled with insecurity, died this month at 85. Wanting to act from a young age, he attended the High School of Music and Arts in New York and, on the recommendation of a family friend, Lee Strasburg, he attended Northwestern University where his classmates were Karen Black, Paula Prentiss and Richard Benjamin. After college he acted on Broadway, appearing in “Something About A Soldier,” and replaced Robert Redford in Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park.” He continued on Broadway but was also in movies such as “Serpico,” and “Taking of Pelham One Two Three.” Allen cast him in “Play It Again Sam,” which started as a Broadway play with himself, Mr. Allen, and Diane Keeton. It later became a film and Woody just kept writing him into his films, so he appeared in most of them, including “Annie Hall,” “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy,” and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” amongst others. While Mr. Roberts loved it, he did say he became typecast by the roles. That didn’t stunt his Broadway career (He was twice nominated for Tony’s), where he was in many productions including “Arsenic and old Lace,” “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife,” and, alongside Julie Andrews in “Victor/Victoria,” amongst others. His last Broadway appearance was in the 2009 production of “The Royal Family,” and his last film was the television version of “Dirty Dancing.” This guy was always busy, and busy with what I would look upon as quality projects. Somewhat like Hal Sperlich designing the minivan, Roberts did make an appearance on “The Love Boat,” something I would have thought beneath him. I’ll blame it on his agent. That said, on the episode he was in, he had a fling with the cruise director, Juli McCoy, played by Cynthia Tewes. If you are going to be on the Love Boat, hooking up with Julie might be the thing to do. Notwithstanding her girl-next-door demeanor, she actually lost the job on the show due to a coke addiction. Back to Roberts, in his memoir, “Do you know me,” he wrote: “I have never been particularly lucky at card games. I’ve never hit the jackpot. But I have been extremely lucky in life.” I suspect that while luck had some role in it, as it does in all our lives, he worked hard on his craft and reaped the rewards of excellence.

Jerry Butler, who died this month at 85, would make this blog just for his song “Only the Strong Survive,” recently covered by The Boss, but he did much more. He started his singing career with the Impressions, where he teamed with, Curtis Mayfield (as well as Sam Gooden and Fred Cash) who is a giant in my estimation. It was friction with Mr. Mayfield that caused Butler to leave the Impressions and embark on a solo career that spawned many a hit record. A Philadelphia disc jockey nicknamed him the Iceman because he was cool on stage. He also co-wrote “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” with Otis Redding, who in my book, would have been Elvis if he were white. There is, was, and will be, no one better than “The Big O.” Butler has said, “I receive more royalties from Otis’ one recording of that song than I get from everything I ever recorded.” That is the stratosphere in which Mr. Butler operated. The Impressions first hit was “For Your Precious Love,” started as a poem Mr. Butler wrote when he was 16. With cowriters Richard and Arthur Brooks, it became arguably the first “soul” record. Mr. Butler was also the first to put “Moon River” on the charts. In all, Mr. Butler made the Billboard Pop or R&B Charts 55 times. Not just a Singer, Mr. Butler earned a degree in political science and music history from Governors State University in Illinois and earned a masters in public administration. He was the Chairman of the Board of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and although it means little to me, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with the Impressions. Many believe he should also have been inducted as a solo performer. In politics, Butler served on the Cook County Board of Commissioners from 1986 to 2018. Perhaps his greatest achievement, then, was not being Indicted.

When I worked for the Government, when we wanted to disparage the Secret Service Agents, we would joke that their one job in life was to take a bullet for the President. No one really thought about that but this month, Clint Hill, a member of the Secret Service who took his oath seriously and was willing to end his life far short of the 93 years he spent on this earth, when he draped his body over that of the mortally wounded John F. Kennedy. The image of Mr. Hill on the back of the limousine, keeping the President’s wife, Jacqueline, (Jackie O to those of us who knew her), from falling out of the car, quite possibly saving her life, is a haunting image in American history. Agent Hill was on the left front running board of the car following the President’s and he heard the first shot and saw the President grab his neck. He ran to the President’s car as the second shot rang out and heard and saw the damage the third short made as he jumped up on the back of the President’s limo. He secured the First Lady and literally draped his body over the back seat shielding the President and his wife as they sped to the hospital. At the hospital, he wrapped his suit coat over the President’s head, to not reveal the grave damage to the reporters’ cameras. He then stayed with the First Lady for the next four days. For his efforts, he was awarded the highest honor the Treasury Department could bestow upon an Agent. None of that alleviated the torment he felt for the rest of his life over not being able to act more quickly to save the President’s life. After the assassination, Hill said he fell into depression, not talking to anyone and living on two packs of cigarettes and a bottle of scotch each day. He was asked on 60 Minutes whether there was anyone to blame for not saving the President that day, and he answered directly - yes - that he was to blame. That had he acted more quickly, it would have been him who was dead and not the President, which he would have been fine with. Not trying to be kind to him here, no one could have saved the President from the assassin’s bullet and his heroism that day was truly something that is oh so rare an attribute. It is unfortunate that he never believed himself to be the selfless hero he was.

Finally, a friend of mine lost his wife this month at far too young an age. She was vibrant, joyful, and the center of her husband and son’s lives. She left a mark on this world, and a void in hearts of those who knew her.

That is a wrap for February. In March the clocks spring ahead which, in and of itself, is reason to rejoice. Then there is baseball, and warmth, and life starts to get joyful again. Looking forward to it, and I hope you all are as well.