Llewellyn
King
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February 5, 2009
Grant Stockdale: The
Last Boulevardier
When the great actor
David Garrick died in 1779, Samuel Johnson said of his friend and pupil,
“I am disappointed by that stroke of death that has eclipsed the gaiety
of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.”
When Winston
Churchill died in 1965, William Connor, the great columnist for The
Daily Mirror, wrote that “a petal has fallen from the English rose.”
Both great
evocations of loss come to my mind as I mourn the recent death of my
great friend and collaborator Grant Stockdale. He was an adventurer, an
artist, a boulevardier, a businessman, a comedian, a musician, a
novelist, a sailor and an intense family man. Together we raged around
the world on and off for more than 30 years. We partied in Washington,
New York, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, London, Paris, Helsinki and Doha.
You did not meet
Grant. He burst into your life. They say his line with women, by whom he
was adored, was “You haven’t met me yet.”
I first became aware
of Grant’s talents when he followed me across Dupont Circle in
Washington, making me laugh so hard I had to sit on a bench, which gave
him a further chance to press the case he wished to make: I should hire
him. I refused to do so.
The next morning, as
I walked to my office in the National Press Building, Grant was lying in
wait at the circle and we went through the same routine. I had just
started an energy newsletter, but Grant was not a reporter. He had
worked as a salesman and had moved from his native Miami, via Hollywood,
to Washington. I do not remember how such a charismatic and entertaining
a figure as Grant had settled on Washington – a company town, if ever
there was one. Happily, on the fourth day, I succumbed.
Grant looked like no
one else I have ever met. Enormously attractive, he had a round face and
a compelling smile. He was in his mid-20s and his hair was bright white;
it looked as though it had been stripped of its color, but it had always
been white.
Grant’s sister,
Susan, said that when he was a teenager, it was “cool” to hang out with
him. I thought it was pretty cool for 35 years. He was the best company.
And Grant was so
funny – funny as a raconteur, funny as a mimic and sometimes wordlessly
funny. One day, in the lounge of a club, he started wrestling with his
tie as though it were a bewitched, unruly serpent. He mimed for minutes.
A crowd gathered. People asked me whether he was a professional. No.
Just a funny man.
His way with words
was funny, too. Dawn, a friend of mine from South Africa, instantly
became “Daybreak.” A Cuba Libre made with Diet Coke was a “thin Cuban,”
a Manhattan was a “skyscraper.” Champagne was the “French friend,”
Bordeaux was the “French tribute.”
We adored the movie
Becket and its stars, Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton. We went
often to Downey's Steak House in New York in the hope of watching the
two great thespians drink together. They were never there when we were
there, so we did the drinking for them. One night, this was going so
well for us, reciting Shakespeare and parts of Becket to one
another and many bystanders, that I turned to Grant and said, “Have you
booked the bridal suite at The Plaza?”
“Twenty minutes
ago,” he replied.
So he had. In the
morning I awoke to find a large man, Grant, lying in bed beside me. I
protested. Grant opened one eye and gave me a look that might have
passed for disdain. “I think you forgot that bridal suites only have one
bed,” he said.
In the 1970s, we
played hard and worked even harder. We sold newsletter subscriptions,
held conferences and tried many things, which were not always
successful.
Grant started many
businesses of his own. Always the ideas were wonderful, but they
required too much capital. One was The Sergeant's Program, a physical
fitness business that he sold. Another was Ocean Television, in which
remote cameras watched interesting oceans, producing a kind of white
noise for the eyes. There was a fashion publication for which he would
photograph well-dressed, ordinary women, walking in parks or boarding
buses and would list what they were wearing, where they had bought their
clothes and how much they had paid for them. His final business venture
was the online EnergyPolicyTV, a kind of C-SPAN for energy.
Maybe Grant was too
much of a multi-talent to succeed at just one thing.
He worked with
President Clinton to make it possible for District of Columbia children
to go to college and benefit from in-state tuition rates at universities
across the country. The program compensates for the restricted choices
for students in Washington. They met at the Sidwell Friends School,
where Grant’s children and Chelsea Clinton were students.
Grant shared a gift
with Clinton. He would find and comfort those hurting. He was the best
friend in adversity; the big shoulders thrown back, the big smile
holding fear at bay.
His last email to
me, shortly before colon cancer carried him away at 61, said, “Damnit, I
miss you.” Aye.
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