Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“I'm supporting Iraq,” Billy said.
He understood wit, verbal nuance, intonation. He knew how to deliver a zinger or
make a comic declaration without landing on it too hard. A few years ago, I was visit-
ing, and Sharon was in an especially, shall we say, acquisitive phase.
“My daughter likes money,” he said, in front of her. “That's her main interest.”
More recently I was out here, and Andy had a couple of bad games, especially at the
plate, and Billy delivered his judgment: “Andy, I think it's time for you to give up base-
ball.”
I knew Billy for almost fifty years and the image that comes to me first when I think
of him now—actually it's always come to me first—is Billy playing basketball on the
pavement at the Eugene Field School in Teaneck. He was almost always one of the smal-
lest guys on the court, and one of the least disciplined, and when you passed him the ball
you didn't get it back. He liked the ball. He liked shooting it. He'd make a wild, frantic
drive toward the hoop, seemingly determined to find a seam and hit a layup, but at the
first sign of trouble, the first defender in his path, he'd veer suddenly, take a quick step
back, and fire a jump shot like a lightning bolt—bang! with almost no arc at all—at the
basket. Sometimes it went in.
Not to make too elaborate a metaphor out of this, but this was the Billy I knew for
the rest of his life. He was a guy who had incredible optimism. At the moment he got the
ball, he thought he could score on anybody.
He had enormous enthusiasms, a huge desire to participate in the world, a fabulous
sense of what should be but what was probably not possible, and a gigantic, lovable,
hilarious bravado. Before he went to work for Canon, he drove to Hollywood, convinced
he would become a movie star. After he went to work for Canon, he became, in his own
words, “the world's greatest copier salesman.”
He was, in many ways, a lot like the character he played so well onstage in high
school and in college, Nathan Detroit. They were both scamps, both dreamers, both
pushers against authority. They were both reliable, both had friends who looked up to
them. They were both sentimentalists.
People like that, optimists of Nathan's and Billy's magnitude, tend to live roller-
coaster lives, with big satisfactions and big disappointments. On the satisfaction side,
Billy had a fine career at Canon and, obviously, he had many devoted friends. He had
love affairs that, while the relationships ultimately didn't work out, were so meaning-
ful and significant that Sophia, his former wife, stepped back into his life and took ex-
traordinary care of him during the last ten months, and two former girlfriends traveled
great distances to be here today in Los Angeles.
And, of course, he had a loving family, his sisters, Margie and Laurie, and his chil-
dren, Andy and Sharon, who were his greatest satisfaction, his greatest joy. And I want
