R.I.P. Ward Morehouse III

His name is misspelled in the lower third, an eloquent expression of the barbarism of our time vs. the classicism of his.

I just received the sad news that author, critic, and one-of-a-kind New York character Ward Morehouse III has passed away, at the age of 73. He was the kind of public figure who matters a great deal to me, one I was thrilled to get to know. In some ways, it seems impossible he even existed. His name was a monument, but one only few would recognize in this benighted age, like some sort of ruined temple in a city being reclaimed by vines and growth and hanging mosses. Animals pass it and are unaware of the grandeur. But to someone with my arcane predilections, his name meant a great deal. His father was the great Jazz Age figure Ward Morehouse II (better known as simply Ward Morehouse), who penned the “Broadway After Dark” column at the New York Sun for years. Morehouse pere had been married to Jean Dalrymple for five years, although Ward the Third’s mother was Broadway actress Joan Marlowe, co-publisher of the Theatre Information Bulletin. 

I first became aware of Morehouse III in the ’90s, when he published his first book The Waldorf Astoria: America’s Gilded Dream. I worked in the New Yorkiest of New York bookstores, Brentano’s, at the time, and this was a VERY New York book with a gorgeous cover, so we often gave it prominent display near the front of the store. Not long after that, he began a theatre column at the New York Post, which I followed, and I was even more excited when he launched a new version of his father’s “Broadway After Dark” column at the newly revived New York Sun in 2002. I was p.r. director at The New-York Historical Society at that time, and was thus immersed in all the New York periodicals on a daily basis, and was a huge fan of the Sun, a heart-breakingly Quixotic, but noble, heroic effort to revive the Golden Age — a perfect setting for Ward to move within. For he, too, seemed as though he had stepped out of another era, a man out of time.

I had the good fortune to meet him on several occasions in the new century, and to correspond with him several more. He was one of those people who you just can’t pin down, at least I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell if he was 50 or 70, gay or straight, rich or (like me) genteelly poor, moving amongst the rich. (When my ex-girlfriend dated him briefly, I learned that he was indeed straight). But he wore this old world elegance that has become rare among straight men in this barbaric age. He dressed and comported himself as though how he presented himself to the world were matters of importance. It’s startling to know he was a Baby Boomer, for he had NOTHING about him that would indicate it. He seemed like he stepped out of a time machine. He was maintaining something, a way of living, that had become almost completely extinct. In person, he was very reserved, humble, deferential, graceful, and kindly. He helped me in small ways on a couple of occasions on professional matters. In recent years, we shared the same publisher, Bear Manor Media. I am chagrined to realize that the last time I saw him may have been this Theatre Museum event eight years ago. That was the longest occasion I ever got to sit and talk to him. I didn’t realize at the time, that Ward had collaborated with the Theatre Museum’s chairs Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley on a play a decade earlier, called If It Was Easy. 

For the last several years he’s been married to actress Katherine Boynton, a fellow UTC#61 alum, who reports that Ward passed away on May 21 after a long illness. Ward wrote several more books and plays than I have mentioned here, and was a long time writer for the Christian Science Monitor (he was a follower of that faith). He had a public access tv show, and just generally lived a remarkable life. Read more about him at his website here.