Edward Francis Mitchell, III, December 21, 2020 [updated]

On December 21, 2020, Ed Mitchell, who began his Yale career with our class, passed away at his home in San Francisco, after a long battle with liver cancer.  He died peacefully in his bed, set up with a view out his bay window to a distant Golden Gate Bridge, as his longtime partner, Alan Montelibano, held his hand, breaking the hearts, it seems, of every person who ever knew him.

During the weeks of his last decline, a group of his friends, spanning his years from high school at San Carlos High, south of San Francisco, through Yale, law school at Boston College, and the years of his law practice, first in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, then in his native California, kept a daily watch, exchanging emails and text messages, renewing old friendships, making new acquaintances, and trading photographs and memories.

Ed came to Yale in 1965 with his buddy from San Carlos, Marc Klein.  Ed was senior-class president and had started a scholarship fund in memory of JFK that provided assistance to needy college-bound students.  They were assigned to Davenport College.  To me, Ed was someone whom everyone wanted as a friend—among other reasons because he could be hysterically funny.  His gift for mimicry was amazing—he was great at repeating Firesign Theater routines, but my personal favorite was Ed doing Dame Edith Evans playing Lady Bracknell, stretching out the line “Found?? In a Handbag??” with quivering indignation.

Ed dropped out after sophomore year and joined Vista.  He was assigned to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and spent a year in a cabin in Cannonball, North Dakota.  I visited him there, as did others of his friends and some family members, and learned that, among other things, he had cajoled the Army Corps. of Engineers into bringing in some heavy equipment to grade and create a ballfield.

Ed returned to Yale, and, in my senior year, roomed with Marc, Chris Thomas, and me.

After he graduated in 1971, he spent several years working in nonprofits, first in Connecticut and then in New York City.  While he was in New York, working for the Fund for the City of New York, he had a stroke of luck.  His girlfriend was working at an ad agency, and they were unhappy with the voiceover tagline for some commercials.  They thought the speaker’s accent sounded too “New Yorky.”  The girlfriend decided Ed might have the perfect not-from-anywhere-in-particular accent and suggested he audition.  Ed got the gig, and recorded his one line. As luck would have it, the line was “Paid for by the Gerald R. Ford for President Committee” and it was used on every radio and TV ad across the country during the campaign. Ed told me that the residuals largely paid for his law-school education.

Ed graduated from BC Law in 1980, a few years after I and Eliot Norman, another Davenporter, had traveled that route (not to mention John Kerry), and began his legal career at a firm in Santa Fe.  A lawyer from that firm whom I met in the texting group at the end told me that he would read Ed’s legal briefs for pleasure, the writing was so good.  He also told me that he and Ed each thought the other was the funniest guy ever, and, even after Ed had returned to San Francisco, they would speak a couple of times a month on the phone, just to crack each other up.

Back home, Ed established a successful civil-litigation practice, first with a firm, and then on his own.  Meanwhile, he put his baritone voice to use singing in the chorus of the San Francisco Symphony.

Ed’s sister, Sally, reminded me of a litigation adventure Ed had while working for the San Francisco firm.  He handled a six-month jury trial in San Diego for Shell Oil, which had manufactured a widely-used PVC pipe alleged to be faulty (Ed got them off—it was the sealant that was bad!).  During the trial, Ed flew back to San Francisco on weekends.  One weekend, after pulling an all-nighter Saturday night on a brief the judge had requested on Friday for Monday delivery, Ed fell asleep at his office desk on Sunday afternoon and awoke early Monday morning—too late to go home.  He finished the brief, went to the airport and took an early-morning flight to San Diego wearing sweats, and without his wallet.  Somehow convincing a Men’s Wearhouse across the street from the courthouse to open early, he bought some clothes, and arrived on time for court, neatly dressed, brief in hand. (Sally said she didn’t know if the brief was successful.)

Just a year ago, Eliot prodded me to join him on a trip to San Francisco to spend a few days with Ed. Although it was clear that Ed was struggling physically, he had not lost his capacity for mirth.  Eliot dubbed us the “Three Amigos.” Here’s a photo of Eliot, Ed, and me, having dinner at John’s Grill (a Raymond Chandler landmark).

Among the photos exchanged by the texting group, these are my favorites, a triptych showing Ed deeply engrossed in an animated conversation with Maya, the eight-year-old daughter of a friend, cracking her up.

One of the other texters added later: “How many of us have felt just like Maya does in the second picture?”

Towards the end, some of Ed’s buddies stood ready to donate a part of their liver as a transplant if that would save him, but his doctors decided that that would not work.

One of Ed’s high-school buddies in the group texted this: “It’s been a beautiful and entertaining adventure to have Ed in my life.  He has ever so gently made me a better person.”

Another long-time friend responded: “My quiet and warm congratulations to all of us for having the good fortune to have Eddie in our lives.”

Harry Wise

David Howorth:

Ed was one of the first classmates I met, since he and I arrived a couple of days before orientation and had rooms across the hall from each other in Farnam. We were both fascinated with the inexplicable success of Sonny Bono, a fascination that manifested itself in faux fandom. Bono’s whining (literally and figuratively), self-pitying “Laugh at Me” was climbing the charts when we began freshman year, and after a sufficient amount of alcohol—occasionally no alcohol at all—Ed and I would sing it at the top of our lungs on the Old Campus. Now I’m afraid that I’ll cry if I ever hear that song again.

Others have mentioned Ed’s talent for mimicry, but they haven’t mentioned his Bill Buckley. In addition to the voice, Ed would do the sudden widening of the eyes and the little flicking of the tongue. He could also recite the entirety of Andy Griffin’s “What It Was Was Football” in Andy Griffin’s voice.

In the summer of 1975, Ed was working for the Fund for the City of New York. When I came to New York to study for the bar exam, I spent two months sleeping on Ed’s couch in Chelsea. When I began working, my wife and I rented an apartment on Horatio Street in Greenwich Village, only a few blocks from Ed’s place in Chelsea, so we saw Ed often in those days.

Harry has told part of the story of Ed’s tagline for the Gerald Ford commercials. I was a witness to the first part of that story “in real time,” so I want to add a couple of details. When Ed’s girlfriend recruited him for the tagline, he put up some resistance. He didn’t want to take the time away from work to go to the recording studio. He would also have to join the union. But his girlfriend was persistent: “It’ll only take about an hour. As for the union hassle, you’ll just sign your name to a couple of things, and we’ll walk the papers through with no further involvement from you.”

So Ed showed up at the studio, signed the papers, and then spent eight hours saying “Paid for by the Gerald R. Ford for President Committee, Daniel P. Smith, Chairman” hundreds of times, stressing different words differently time after time until the agency people were happy.

The next day his girlfriend called with a bit of bad news. “Um, we made a little mistake with the tagline, the chairman of the committee to elect Ford is not Daniel P. Smith. He’s Daniel B. Smith.” And so a reluctant Ed went back to the studio the next day and spent another eight hours saying “Paid for by the Gerald R. Ford for President Committee, Daniel B. Smith, Chairman” a thousand different ways. Finally, the ad was finished.

That’s where the story ended while Ed was still my neighbor in New York. Like any story, this one was much funnier when told by Ed, with Ed reenacting his exasperation at having to spend two days on what he thought was a remuneration-free job on behalf of a candidate he didn’t much like. Ed didn’t realize until a year or so later, when a union representative tracked him down at law school, that he was entitled to residuals—residuals that were enough to pay all of his law school tuition.

Ed continued to do voiceover work for public service announcements during his time practicing law in New Mexico.

After Ed left the East Coast, we’d still see each other when he came to New York or when I was in San Francisco. Even after I left New York, we managed once or twice to make overlapping trips there. We’d spend hours at what Ed called his New York club, the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill on University Place in Greenwich Village, crying with laughter over anything and everything. Ed never stopped being funny.

I think the last time I saw Ed was 15 or 20 years ago, but a few times a year we’d speak by phone. As a rule, I’m not much for talking on the phone, but Ed and I would talk for hours. Lots of laughter, but serious things as well. When my wife died, the first person I called was Ed. The morning after the 2016 election, it was Ed that I called in an effort to find some consolation. I think that was the only time Ed could find nothing funny to say about a situation.

He was one of my dearest friends, and now he’s gone.

From Len Richards:

I was lucky to have kept in touch with Ed on a semi-regular basis over the years, spurred by visits to San Francisco or other events that brought us together. We were bunk mates in 1338 Davenport in sophomore year for the first semester. He then took a year off and went to VISTA in Cannon Ball, ND, which is in the Standing Rock Reservation. Charlie and I visited him in the summer of 1967 and ate him out of house and home. (I will never forget our keeping track of his grades for that semester of sophomore year. We posted them on the wall. His goal was to leave for a year off without any academic blemish, but alas, a stubborn English teacher couldn’t see her way through to a lousy 60 in her course.)

We started talking more regularly in April/May of 2019 when I called him to make sure that he was going to come to our 50th reunion. It was then that he told me that he had liver cancer and that his attendance would depend on his health status at the time of reunion. We continued to talk over the following months.
Ed felt hopeful about his outcome but was realistic. He was being cared for at UCSF in the hepatology department where they were working on securing a liver to transplant. Because of his age, he had to wait for a transplant from a deceased person that matched. This was not to be and he transferred to the oncology department at UCSF for therapy. Clearly, the therapy was not successful. He loved the care and effort that he received at UCSF. The people and their expertise, he thought, were nonpareil.

I have been trying to connect with Ed for the past month. His voice mailbox is full and he did not respond to texts.

Ed was one of the great spirits I have met. He was unfailing in seeing the bright (or funny) side of any situation and meeting any predicament with good humor. He told me that he felt at peace with where he was.

Then we would proceed to bash Trump or reminisce about Yale and our lives after college. Please be assured that he was in a “good place” as he approached the end stage of life. He had found love and peace. Sounds trite but it is true.

Steve Dixon:

No one could tell a story better than Ed. He liked to laugh and he made people laugh. He liked the Inspector Clouseau movies and he hated to be asked (begged?) to “do Walter Cronkite”, whose voice he could mimic perfectly.

Michael Keeling:

To Davenport colleagues: What a “thing” to learn about Ed being on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1968. I was on the Pine Ridge Reservation as part of a summer job in ’68, reviewing the War on Poverty, as part of visits to 8 reservations across the nation. On some, not Pine Ridge, I actually visited with men/women of Vista to get their views of the well being of those living on the reservation, and efforts to improve their living conditions, etc.

So, today, for the first time in 52 years, learned path could have crossed with Ed when visiting reservations in the Dakotas. Do recall his living across from me, Kim Morsman, and Jerry Sprole sophomore year.

Ironic did not know Ed was working at Vista, and nobody’s fault but mine.

Charlie Sheldon:

Ed was my room mate freshman year with Marc Klein, they were childhood friends from California, and Ed and I stayed in touch after college. Len Richards and I drove around the US in the summer of 1967 and we visited Ed at Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, where he was a Vista volunteer. That was a dose of real reality, let me tell you. Ed worked for a few years in New Haven for the police department there after law school, and later went to San Francisco. I visited with him a few times there in recent years, and had the good fortune to talk with him this fall twice just before he passed away. Ed had a shock of bright red hair, a great booming laugh, a terrific sense of humor, and a great love of singing and opera. When I last spoke with him, a long long talk, he sounded exactly the same, as if he was 19 again, despite being really ill.

Michael Wood:

Sad to hear. He was our sophomore (and junior?) year roommate in 1338. Roomed with Len Richards while Steve Dixon and I shared the other bunk. Can’t remember where he went after that, unless that was when he joined Vista and worked on the Indian reservation in South Dakota.