It’s a sad fact that as we enjoy the great gift of living, the circle of old friends gets ever smaller. Another of my old friends died a few days ago-his name was Gil Cates-a man who had become a major figure in this town, but whom I knew as a boy at Syracuse University.
We’re all given two tickets on the bus that brings us here, and all our lives we attempt to wrest the return ticket from the possession of people we love. But inevitably, unexpectedly, the bus arrives to take them back and we are left, usually without having had the luck of saying goodbye.
Such was exactly the case with Gil, who had a supposedly successful bi-pass surgery only a few days before he crossed the street to the parking lot and collapsed beside his car. Unfair!
Gil came a very long way from the fellow I met as a Junior in college. He was a freshman then, and seemed to have difficulty acquiring close friends, but we got along. I don’t remember what circles (if any) he traveled in but I remember two things about him. The first is that he took fencing. I learned years later that he coached fencing to fellows who had to fence in Shakespearean productions in the drama department. But then I didn’t know he was interested in dramatics of any sort – and there’s the second thing – until he became stage manager of the Varsity show I wrote the score for that year.
Jerry Leider, the man who directed those college shows, hired Gil as his stage manager for two Broadway shows, “Shinbone Alley” and a one man show starring John Geilgud called “The Ages of Man.”
I had written a ballet for one of those college shows, and Gil married the ballerina. The pair moved to Scarsdale, N.Y., where he became a guest poker player at the inexpensive games we played for years.
Then there was Gil’s first Broadway flight. He bought a script for a show called “I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running,” and brought it to me to see what I thought. I cannot believe it to this day but he actually said, “Change anything you like.” I read it immediately and said to him, “Don’t touch it. Its perfect.” Gil followed that with “I Never Sang for my Father.”
Then Gil did movies and married happily for a second time. He became a dean at UCLA and the Producer of the Academy Award show, and later went on to do many other great things.
I’ve thought the world of him. Men of his stripe come along once, and if you’re very lucky, you know them. I knew him.
Lan O’Kun