A great loss...rdc



Studs Terkel Dies

     The author-radio host-actor-activist and Chicago
     symbol has died. "My epitaph? My epitaph will be
     'Curiosity did not kill this cat,'" he once said.

By Rick Kogan
Tribune staff reporter
3:44 PM CDT, October 31, 2008
<www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-studs-terkel-dead,0,2321576.story>

Louis Terkel arrived here as a child from New York City
and in Chicago found not only a new name but a place
that perfectly matched--in its energy, its swagger, its
charms, its heart--his own personality. They made a
perfect and enduring pair.

Author-radio host-actor-activist and Chicago symbol
Louis "Studs" Terkel died today at his Chicago home at
age 96.

At his bedside was a copy of his latest book, "P.S.
Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening,"
scheduled for a November release.

Beset in recent years by a variety of ailments and the
woes of age, which included being virtually deaf,
Terkel's health took a turn for the worse when he
suffered a fall in his home two weeks ago.

It is hard to imagine a fuller life.

A television institution for years, a radio staple for
decades, a literary lion since 1967, when he wrote his
first best-selling book at the age of 55, Louis Terkel
was born in New York City on May 16, 1912. "I came up
the year the Titanic went down," he would often say.

He moved with his family when they purchased the Wells-
Grand Hotel, a rooming house catering to a wide and
colorful variety of people. He supplemented the life
experiences there by visits to Bughouse Square, the park
across the street from the Newberry Library that was at
the time home to all manner of soap box orators.

"I doubt whether I learned very much [at the park],"
Terkel wrote. "One thing I know: I delighted in it.
Perhaps none of it made any sense, save one kind: sense
of life."

He attended the University of Chicago, where he obtained
a law degree and borrowed his nickname from the
character in the " Studs Lonigan" trilogy by Chicago
writer James T. Farrell. He never practiced law.
Instead, he took a job in a federally sponsored
statistical project with the Federal Emergency
Rehabilitation Administration, one of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's "New Deal'' agencies. Then he found a
spot in a writers project with the Works Progress
Administration, writing plays and developing his acting
skills.

Terkel worked on radio soap operas, in stage plays, as a
sportscaster and a disk jockey. His first radio program
was called "The Wax Museum," an eclectic gather of
whatever sort of music struck his fancy, including the
first recordings of Mahalia Jackson, who would become a
friend.

When television became a force in the American home in
the early 1950s, Terkel created and hosted "Studs'
Place," one of the major jewels in the legendary
"Chicago school" of television that also spawned Dave
Garroway and Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

It was on "Studs' Place," which was set in a tavern,
that large numbers of people discovered what Terkel did
best--talk and listen. Terkel, arms waving, words
exploding in bursts, leaning close to his talking
companions, didn't merely conduct interviews. He engaged
in conversations. He was interested in what he was
talking about and who he was talking to.

But his TV career did not last. Terkel later complained
that the commercialization of television forced his
show, and the others in the "Chicago school," from the
air. Also, at that time, McCarthyism was a potent force
and Terkel was outspoken politically, with a highly
liberal tone. "I was blacklisted because I took certain
positions on things and never retracted," Terkel once
said in an interview about those times. "I signed many
petitions that were for unfashionable causes and never
retracted."

He had a hard time finding work, subsisting on small
speaking fees and even smaller sums for writing book
reviews. His wife, Ida, made enough to keep the family
afloat.

"The first time I saw her she was wearing a maroon
dress," Terkel once recalled. "She made a lot more money
than I did. It was like dating a CEO. I borrowed 20
bucks from her for our first date. I never paid her
back."

They were married July 2, 1939. Their only child, Dan,
was born in 1949.

"It was her self-assurance and strength that helped
Studs accomplish as much as he has," said Sydney Lewis,
a writer who has been a friend and colleague of Terkel's
for 30 years. "She was, on every level, his most
important audience."

He found a larger audience when he was hired at a new
fine arts station, WFMT, where Terkel's brand of
chatter, jazz, folk music, and good conversation was a
perfect fit. His political views were more tolerated on
the station, and Terkel began his morning radio show in
1952.

In the mid-1960s, Terkel was in his mid-50s, a time when
most people are beginning to plan the end of their
careers. Terkel was about to start a new one.

A British actress he had interviewed was so impressed
with his technique that she told a friend, Andre
Schiffrin, a book publisher, about Terkel. Schiffrin
remembered reading transcripts of some of Terkel's radio
interviews in a WFMT publication and had been impressed.

He contacted Terkel--who had written a little known
book, "Giants of Jazz," in 1957--and, after much
convincing argument, coaxed the radio personality into
writing a book compiled from interviews with Chicagoans
from all walks of life. "I told him he must be out of
his mind," Terkel recalled about his first
confrontations with Schiffrin, but he relented.

The result was "Division Street: America," published in
1967 to rave reviews and best-selling success. It told
the stories, in their own words, of businessmen,
prostitutes, Hispanics, blacks, ordinary working people
who formed the unit of America and also the divisions in
society, using Chicago's Division Street as a prototype
of America.

It was a theme that Terkel would explore again and
again, in "Hard Times," his Depression era memoir in
1970; in "Working," his saga of the lives of ordinary
working people in 1974; in "American Dreams; Lost and
Found" in 1980; and "The Good War," remembrances of
World War II, published in 1985 and the winner of the
Pulitzer Prize.

Most of his books were written radio. Terkel asked
questions and then listened. He drew out of people
things they didn't know they had in them.

"I think of myself as an old-time craftsman," Terkel
said. "I've been doing this five days a week, for more
than 30 years. When I realize the work is slipping, I'll
quit. But I don't think I've reached that point yet. I
still have my enthusiasm. I still love what I do."

And he was far from finished doing it.

In 1986 he published "Chicago," a big title for a 144-
page book. He described it as a "rambling essay" but it
was more like a meditation, a distillation of much of
what Terkel had come to feel for a city that he was as
closely identified with as those other uniquely
compelling Chicago voices and among his dearest friends,
Nelson Algren and Mike Royko.

He captured the voices of the city: quoting the
recollections of Jessie Binford, an associate of Jane
Addams, or Tom Kearney, a police sergeant, to give a
human scale to history. His own voice was there too in
"Chicago," in anecdotes and reminiscences about his
family and growing up on Ashland Avenue and Flournoy
Street; a lovely little scene of Studs as a boy, in the
company of his sick father, passing the time together
listening to a crystal radio set.

His radio show remained vibrant, an 11 a.m. fixture for
decades before moving to 5:30 p.m. in the late 1980s.
The human drama was his great theme. Conversation was
his vocation and avocation. His brimming curiosity and
"feeling tone," as he called it, carried him into the
hearts of the world. He bent a listening ear in Europe,
South Africa, as well as all over the United States and,
of course, Chicago. Thousands of celebrated names
spilled from his interview tapes.

But just as important, Studs sought the daydreams and 3
a.m. truths of many a person who never made a headline.
They were all somebodies to him. Terkel looked down on
none of them.

"I become one of them, in a way," he said.

By being himself, Terkel put others at ease. A young
Marlon Brando was so intrigued during an hour long radio
session that he asked for a second hour and took over,
trying to find out what made Terkel tick.

As his celebrity grew, many gave Terkel the sort of
larger-than-life status that is one step away from
caricature.

"Studs is a character," said Scott Craig, the producer
of a 1989 WTTW-Ch. 11 documentary titled, simply,
"Studs." "But that doesn't make him a caricature. He's
been famous around here for so long that people take him
for granted, like he's some sort of landmark. One of the
things I discovered in making this documentary is that
Studs is now a lot more famous, and well known, outside
of Chicago than he is here."

He was well known for his wardrobe, almost a costume
that he chose many years ago: a red checked shirt, a
loosened red knit tie, gray trousers and a blue blazer.

His wife said Terkel once spotted a man at a party
wearing a red-checked shirt and said he had to have one
just like it. He did own a blue-checked shirt, but
rarely wore it. He always had a frazzled and rumpled
look, as if he might have been a boxing promoter. But he
might have looked even worse. As his wife said, "I have
to take him out to the store to buy clothes. Otherwise,
he would be dressed in rags."

He was indefatigable, juggling his daily radio shows and
his frequent public appearances with a steady stream of
books. (He also played newspaper reporter Hugh Fullerton
in the 1988 John Sayles Film "Eight Men Out," about the
Black Sox scandal of 1919).

In 1992 came "Race: What Blacks and Whites Think and
Feel About the American Obsession," followed by 1995's
"Coming of Age, The Story of Our Century by Those Who've
Lived It," and 1997's "My American Century."

Along with them came dozens of awards, which Terkel took
with typical lack of ego.

In honor of his 80th birthday the city named the
Division Street Bridge for him. Noting that at the time
only two other Chicagoans, columnist Irv Kupcinet and
broadcaster Paul Harvey, had been so honored, he said,
"Kup, Harvey and Studs ... sounds like a law firm."

In 1997 he went to the White House to receive the
National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts
with a group including Jason Robards, Angela Lansbury,
conductor James Levine, Chicago religion scholar Martin
Marty and Chicago arts patron Richard Franke. He was
stopped at the White House gate and asked for
identification. Studs, who had never driven a car, did
not have a driver's license. The only thing he could
come up with to appease the White House guards was his
CTA seniors pass. They let him in.

The medal?

"I've got it here at home, somewhere," he said years
later. "It's in a box, somewhere. I've got some cigars
and the medal in the box."

His radio career ended in 1998 with its traditional
sign-off ("Take it easy, but take it"), and he spent
much of his time at the Chicago Historical Society (now
Chicago History Museum), which had become the repository
for his 45 years of radio tapes and interviews from his
books. These 9,000-some hours were called "Vox Humana:
The Human Voice" and constituted what then CHS president
Douglas Greenberg called, "The collected memory of our
time."

But his life was shattered late the next year when his
wife died from complications after heart valve
replacement surgery. She and Studs had been married for
more than 60 years, and many felt that, given how much
Studs relied on Ida for, well, almost everything, Studs
was a goner.

"It's hard. It's very hard," he said the day she died.
"She was seven days older than me, and I would always
joke that I married an older woman. That's the thing:
Who's gonna laugh at my jokes? At those jokes I've told
a million times? That's the thing ... ...Who's gonna be
there to laugh?"

Without the laughter, there was work.

He did promotional events for his recently published
"The Spectator: Talk About Movies and Plays With Those
Who Made Them," a gathering of some of his best radio
interviews. He set to work on "Will the Circle Be
Unbroken: Reflections of Death, Rebirth and Hunger for
Faith," which was published in 2001, "Hope Dies Last:
Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times" (2003) and another
collection titled "And They All Sang: Reflections of an
Eclectic Disk Jockey" (2005). He appeared and spoke at
dozens of rallies for various causes and literary
events; sat for interviews with hundreds of reporters
and TV types.

In July 2004, he suffered a fall at his home. He
required neck surgery and an extended hospital stay
afterward. He also required full-time home care. And so,
as he kept up an active schedule, always at his side was
caretaker JR Millares. He spent more time with Terkel
than any one these last years: 84 hours a week, with his
son, Paul and Terkel's son, Dan, taking the rest.

"It has been very interesting and rewarding," says
Millares, who came to the U.S. from his native
Phillipines in 1996. "He is the only person I have ever
cared for who has no mental disabilities. He's as sharp
as a razor. I admire his interest in life. After him I
don't know if I would be able to care for anyone else.
This has been so lively, so filled with activity. I
think I may have to start a new career."

Millares was there in August 2005 when Terkel added
another item to his lengthy list of accomplishments,
undergoing a risky open-heart procedure to replace a
narrowed aortic valve and redo one of five coronary
bypasses he underwent nine years before.

"To my knowledge, Studs is the oldest patient to undergo
this complex redo," said Dr. Marshall Goldin, the
cardiovascular surgeon at Rush University Medical
Center, who operated on Terkel.

The surgery lasted six hours. When Terkel awoke, he
began to call friends and say, "I am a medical miracle.
A medical miracle."

Studs then asked the doctor, "How long do you give me?"

"I'll give you to 99," said the doctor.

"That's too long," said Terkel. "I think I want a nice
round figure, like 95."

After the operation, publisher Andre Schiffrin suggested
to Studs' longtime collaborator, Sydney Lewis, that she
fly to Chicago from her home in Massachusetts and start
working with Studs on a memoir. "He told me: If it
works, great; if not, it's a good way to keep Studs
company," says Lewis. "It was, on many levels, a labor
of love."

"Touch and Go" did work and even though Terkel said at
the time that this would be his last book, it is not.
"P.S.: Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening,"
to be published in November, grew out of the research
for the previous book. It is a collection of radio show
transcripts, short essays and others writing.

He mentioned this book at one of his last public
appearances, which came at the Printers Row Book Fair in
June where he charmed a packed auditorium with a 30-
minute monologue touching on everything from ancient
Greek mythology to the 2008 presidential election.

He seemed keenly aware, however, that the shadows were
closing in. To touch his arms was to feel a living
skeleton. He displayed a mind still sharp with its
ability to recall names and dates and places from his
lengthy and storied past. But he was facing the future
too.

"Remember those old Ivory soap commercials, 'Ivory Soap,
99.44 percent pure?' Well I am 99.44 percent dead," he
said, sitting in the sun-soaked living room of his
house. The place was, as always, a wonderful mess of
papers, tapes, books, letters, photos and visitors that
so pleasantly cluttered his life.

"The most fun I've ever had doing a story was
interviewing Studs in that living room," says WMAQ and
WTTW television anchor/reporter Carol Marin. "He was
unique."

He was in that living room last year when he said with
zest that when he "checked out"-- as a "hotel kid" he
rarely used the word "dying," preferring the euphemism
"checking out" and its variants--he wanted to be
cremated. He wanted his ashes mixed with those of his
wife, which sat in an urn in the living room of his
house, near the bed in which he slept and dreamed.

"My epitaph? My epitaph will be 'Curiosity did not kill
this cat,'" he said.

He then said that he wanted his and Ida's ashes to be
scattered in Bughouse Square, that patch of green park
that so informed his first years in his adopted city.

"Scatter us there," he said, a gleeful grin on his face.
"It's against the law. Let 'em sue us."

Terkel is survived by his son. A memorial service is
planned.

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