OBITUARY: Tony Savage, R.I.P.

The news came as a bolt, in mid morning. Tony Savage had been taken to the hospital the day before and there suffered a humiliating day and night of seizures and hemorrhages of different kinds and died early the next morning. His fianc?e had tried hard to get him to go off to be treated for his alcoholism. She failed, and he failed.

Tony was born on March 11, 1944, attended Rock Springs (Wyoming) High School, and graduated from the Journalism School at the University of Missouri. He came to New York as an aspirant actor, and as most actors did and do, took part-time work; after a few years, this became full- time, with only occasional appearances on screen.

I knew him since the late Sixties when he came to National Review as a typist and archivist. His files of his boss's material were copious, stored with infinite attention to detail -- at which he excelled -- on his computer, and using his palette he produced imaginative and colorful sketches, which he several times exhibited in book shops and art galleries.

His twin passions were softball and people. He could not do enough for his friends, whom he appreciated, egged on, and poured out his affection for in memorandum after memorandum. He referred to me, always, as "Godfather," a formality that recorded an avuncular relationship (he was, always, "Godson" in my replies). He prided himself, justifiably, on his mastery of his godfather's idiosyncratic script, plowing through book manuscript after book manuscript, successfully transcribing editorial material that defied the resources even of Frances Bronson. Beginning very early on spring Wednesdays he would captain the National Review softball team, taking on all comers, and encouraging his teammates to extravagant prowess.

He won a lot of editorial challenges and a lot of softball games but failed, finally, to win against the principal challenger, daemon rum. In our last conversation over the telephone he advised that he would set forth before the end of the week for a 28-day cure in a facility with a high record of success. "If I don't do that, Godfather, my doctor said I'd be dead in six months." I told him that alternative was unthinkable, and we smiled confidently together over the phone, and three days later I had the call. Dead, at 2 a.m. in a hospital in the Bronx, close by to where he lived, the exuberant alcohol in triumphant control of his entire body.

What a cursed affliction. The words of George Ade posted on his club bulletin board come to mind after a bereavement that touched him: "It's always the wrong person who dies." Tony Savage was beloved at National Review, a gentle man who loved his friends, loved his work, gone now to other pastures. We will miss him, and are free of any illusion that he is replaceable.

-- WFB