John Starr, Deceased December 16, 2003

Steve Kovacs (’68) wrote:

I met John Starr in August 1964. Alumni put us together since we were the only two guys from San Francisco public schools accepted to Yale. He was handsome, polite, open to people, with a twinkle in his eye. A conservative Irish-American Catholic and a radical Hungarian Jew, we became best of friends. We made a point of seeing each other wherever in the world we might be.

Yale was a foreign place to both of us. John was a champion runner in high school and ran for Yale as a freshman. He made lots of friends. He had dashing good looks, an easy manner, great taste in clothes. He was a bursary boy in the library. We both went through the typical quest for meaning through our search for the right major.

Sophomore year we roomed together with three others. John heeled Yale Student Laundry. There was competition to see who could sell the most laundry contracts. John was superb. His easy manner won over everyone. He became number one and the head of student laundry. We were convinced that one day he would run General Motors.

John had a restless streak and a fascination with the exotic. He took off junior year to work as a tutor for an American family in Sitges, near Barcelona. That year solidified his wanderlust. When he returned he became a Spanish-Portuguese major. He proceeded to spend most of his adult life in Latin America and Spain, like a dashing 19th century colonial figure.

After Stanford Business School John joined Castle and Cook. He ran a banana plantation in San Pedro de Sula in Honduras, worked for a coffee company in Mexico City, and eventually bought an espresso machine firm that he ran in Barcelona. He loved the life of the ex-pat, enjoying the exotic milieu and the company of Americans who chose to wander the world.

When he arrived in Mexico City he went to look at an apartment. A stunning girl from Tennessee arrived at the same time with her mother. John got the apartment. And the girl. Weeks later we received glowing letters from him about the new love of his life. Christy would become his wife and the mother of their two bright, beautiful, talented daughters, Lauren and Carli.

John was a successful businessman. He was smart, focused, but he never took himself too seriously. He possessed an extraordinary command of the English language. His comments were insightful and fresh. He was a natural leader. He loved and respected people. Everyone he met felt that.

But business could not satisfy him completely. He often took time out to sketch and paint. His joy of life came through in everything he did. All of his many friends eagerly anticipated the Christmas season, in part because of the exquisite annual letters they would receive from John. They were gentle, humorous, wise, respectful, observant, uproarious.

To give you a sense of him, I want to quote from his last Christmas letter, the one that he sent out later than usual, calling it “Christmas 2002 or Valentine’s Day 2003 or St. Paddy’s Day 2003.” He began the following way: “While I was sitting on the upper deck of the Star Ferry staring through heavy fog, trying to see across to building-high Christmas lights blazing all along the ribbon of skyscrapers lining the Hong Kong side of the harbor, I was also trying to find a way of starting this letter. But then, after finally docking at Central and walking over the gangplank, I was side-stepping my way through the usual mélange of Sikhs, Chinese, Arabs and every other human kind when I found myself standing in front of a Malay wearing a Santa Claus hat hawking Rolex’s and sitting atop a boom box blaring ‘Jingle Bell Rock!’ It was one of those moments where I had to stop and laugh, and the kind of moment I wished that Sam were there. The same thing happens so often that to talk about this year without first saying something about Christy’s father who died last February would be the same as trying to describe Manhattan without explaining that the tallest feature on the landscapes is the one that isn’t there anymore.”

He went on to describe the workers at his house on Bonita Bay:

“’Outside Helpers’ are for the most part former Contras and Sandinistas who realized several years ago that using their machetes to chop each other into top sirloin for the sake of banana bragging rights was, you might say, fruitless.”

John was an original, witty, charming treasure of a man. All of us who knew him relished his presence and think back fondly of all the good times we spent together. He lit up the world around us. The way he remembered his father-in-law Sam fits his departure like the bespoke suits he wore: “Our lives will never be the same without him. He’s in a better place and we are not because he is not here.”

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