(This piece first appeared on Medium)
The death of a celebrity brings out celebrity stories. The death of a magnanimous human being often brings out untold ones. I suspect there’ll be a lot of both in tribute to Jonathan Demme, a man who personified the word mensch. Here’s mine.
On November 1, 1997, I co-chaired the grand opening of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum with Bob Kendrick, now its Executive Director. We’d worked hard to entice entertainment and sports celebrities to come to Kansas City, shamelessly contacting them through distant relations, tenuous connections, and the magnificence of Buck O’Neil. Every “yes” felt like a surprise and every “no” a refused proposal, but at some point way too close to the event, we began to gather momentum. Danny Glover, in the midst of shooting Beloved, was one of our celebrity guests and a few weeks out, he let us know that Jonathan Demme and his young son Brooklyn “would also like to attend.”
We didn’t have to pay for travel or lodging, provide a driver or tell him the best barbecue place in Kansas City. Jonathan Demme (at the height of his career) didn’t need to be part of the program and he didn’t care about being introduced, but he was fine if we used him as the celebrity guest for a sponsor table since he knew it would help the cause. Mostly he just wanted to bring his child to bear witness to the men and women of the Negro Leagues and the fact that their story had finally found a home.
Since there were only three children in attendance, the Demmes were easy to spot. I can still see them coming out of the gift shop during the VIP cocktail party, souvenirs in hand, laughing together and delighting in one another’s presence. After introducing myself, I thanked Brooklyn in advance for being patient throughout night, and Jonathan for so graciously attending. We chatted briefly and then I waved to Ken Burns, whose film had put the museum on the map and was as good a friend to us as it was possible to be during our year of planning. Holding the hand of his young daughter Lilly, he approached and I got to make one of my favorite introductions ever, “Ken Burns, this is Jonathan Demme,” bearing witness to 20 seconds of mutual admiration before dashing off to check on the third child in attendance — my own son.
Our flight back to the east coast the next morning was much too early. Bleary-eyed, Daniel and I boarded the plane and felt surprise all around when our eyes met the cheerful passengers in the first row of first class — Jonathan and Brooklyn. With a half full plane our Coach seats would be plenty luxurious so we greeted them and happily moved on, reminded of the joy of the previous night. Fifteen minutes after takeoff the seat belt sign went off. A minute after that, the Demmes made their way back to Coach, sitting across from us for a couple of hours until a flight attendant sent them back to their assigned seats.
And though people who actually knew him will no doubt testify to his expansive nature, let me be the stranger who confirms that he was just as generous with a mother and son he’d never see again. Daniel and Brooklyn spent the flight quoting That Thing You Do to each other, an easy feat since we’d watched it no fewer than 100 times. Jonathan and I listened and laughed about his cameo in the film, though he neglected to mention that he was also a producer. We talked about ordinary things — kids, spouses, school. I confessed that I didn’t watch scary movies and had never seen The Silence of the Lambs, and his response is as clear as if it was yesterday, “Oh you definitely shouldn’t see it then.”
We said goodbye at the Newark Airport. I went back to making dinners and keeping track of five children and he went back to being an award winning movie director, but that encounter has stayed a living thing, not because I met a famous person, but because I met one who lived so easily in his skin and made room for others to do the same.
When my son Daniel, now an actor, texted this morning to tell me the news, tears came to my eyes. I had no idea Jonathan Demme had been ill and sensed immediately the magnitude of the loss to his wife, his children, his friends. But there is a larger loss when such a soul departs — a tear in the fabric of humanity and this is what I feel today as I hold them all in the light.