I'm not sure when I wrote this, but I thought that on this, Gilbert Russak's birthday, I should print it again.
Let me write about my special friendship with Gilbert Russak, musical director for the Lamplighters, a Gilbert & Sullivan company in San Francisco.
Walt and I went to Lamplighters shows for many years, ushering for many of them, and I had a crush on Gilbert Russak, who played the patter roles. I particularly liked him as KoKo, in The Mikado and Jack Point in Yeomen of the Guard.
In 1970, I received a note from the Lamplighters that a woman was looking for people who wanted to help write a book about the 25 year history of the company. I volunteered, as did one other woman. All three of us were about the same age, all had kids the same age and had lots in common. We worked on interviews and writing the book for two years. I never got to interview Gilbert, but I did transcribe his interview. The experience changed my life.
After the book was published, I was offered the chance to volunteer to move all the card information of subscribers to the new computer they had just purchased. That’s when I started to learn computers. It’s also when I started to become friends with Gilbert. He had stopped performing by this time, but had taken over as musical director and conductor of the new orchestra.
I worked in the office two days a week (commuting from my home, 80 miles away) and got to staying late and having dinner with Gilbert each night. We became close friends, going to many San Francisco restaurants, having cocktails and wine and then, if I had too much to drink, I would spend the night at his house–he lived in a downstairs apartment and I slept on the couch in the upstairs apartment.
He taught me so much about music and he was one of the most intelligent people I knew. He could discuss anything and he was an expert on San Francisco history. He was a fanatic about the Titanic and built a big model of the ship.
He and I wrote four musicals as fund raisers for the Lamplighters and started a monthly newsletter, which is still going to day, 40 years later.
In July of 1986 he was scheduled for minor surgery and during the surgery he had a heart attack and died. It was the biggest loss I’d ever had. I spent a whole year reading about death and grief . He had family in Oklahoma, but his sister wasn’t too interested in the things of her gay brother so they planned to have an open house and sell whatever they could of his things. I knew he would hate that, so I bought it all for $2,000 and gave away special things to friends of his.
On the first anniversary of his death, three friends and I went out to dinner and that evolved into an annual dinner for about 20 of his best friends. We had dinner every July 14 until COVID came along. We haven’t had dinner since, because some people have died and others have moved away.
All these years later (37 years), Gilbert is still my most special friend and I am so glad for the years that we had together.
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