| With great sadness ... Talkin' Broadway reviewer and ATC contributor Bob Rendell has passed away | |
| Last Edit: Ann 08:12 pm EDT 07/01/24 | |
| Posted by: Ann (annm@talkinbroadway.com) 07:52 pm EDT 07/01/24 | |
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| Bob's daughter Rebecca (also a reviewer here) contacted me on Friday to let me know that her father Bob had passed away that evening. She said he "was talking about how much he loved reviewing shows right up to the end." The family had a small funeral for him on Sunday. For me, over the 21 years I knew Bob, he was a colleague, a friend, an advisor, and an enthusiastic conversationalist. He loved the Talkin' Broadway parties. I'm sure many of you know him from those events. He was a real sweetheart and a joy to know. I will miss him greatly. Bob's last review was Beautiful, posted a week before he died. The first review he wrote for us was published on March 31, 2003. It was for a play at George Street titled The Last Bridge. --- Here is what Rebecca and her siblings wrote at their father's passing, which details his incredible life journey: Robert Barry Rendell was above all else devoted to Ruth, his wife of nearly sixty years, his three children and ten grandchildren. He needed little other company than theirs and strove everyday to create for them the childhoods and life in general that he did not have as a child for them. Robert loved life and told all who would listen how lucky he felt to have gotten to be close to his grandchildren— and how much he wished he could continue to be with them to see them grow into the adults they would become. He was also passionate about theater, film, politics, the news, Chinese buffets, family trips to New Hampshire, reading and watching tennis and other sports— for many years his favorite teams the Boston Celtics andYankees— on TV. He was proud of his Judaism and was a strong supporter of Israel. ?Born in 1939 in Brooklyn, NY, he did not have the easiest childhood, his parents Rose and Charlie divorced when he was 10 and Charlie, who lost his jewelry business in the Great Depression, died when he was only 10. His beloved older brother, Albert, who was a decade older, both supported the family and often took care of Robert, bringing him along with him to make money (and to root for the Brooklyn Dodgers) by selling pennants outside of Ebbets Field. Robert began taking himself on the subway to museums and to the theater — and developed his lifelong passion for he arts. He attended Erasmus High School with the likes of Laney Kazan and Barbra Streisand), and Brooklyn College where he was President of the Brooklyn College Democrats. He attended NYU Law School for a year, but didn't find it particularly fulfilling, and thus left to join the army. He served in San Antonio Texas, where he spent much of his free time attending sit-ins at lunch counters as part of desegregation protests of the civil rights era. Robert met the love of his life, Ruth, a junior high school teacher, in 1964 when they found themselves on a car trip to Canada together with mutual friends. Their first date was row-boating in Central Park and their second to see Mary Poppins at Radio City Music Hall. He then impressed her with outings to see the original Broadway productions of"Brigadoon", "Where's Charley", and "How to Succeed…." Robert began working with the NY Supreme Court probation department and he and Ruth were married in 1965, and moved in together near their parents in Brooklyn. Robert was crazy about Ruth's father Reuven, who became like a second father to him. Ruth and Robert eventually moved to Staten Island where they had their three children— to whom they gave everything- foregoing treating themselves to things so they could send them to private Hebrew day schools and theater camp- never missing a performance they were in — and whom Robert would take into the city several weekends each month to go see theater and to see classic movie revivals—Pat and Mike, Abbot Costello and old MGM movie musicals. Before the advent of digital photo New Years card he'd set up his tripod each year— once even in Shubert Alley and glue family photos into dozens of cards they had printed for Jewish new year. They moved to Short Hills, NJ in 1984, (after his brother Albert died and left them the money to do so), where they would live for almost twenty years. Robert was so proud to send his kids to private colleges— Harvard and University of Pennsylvania. After his youngest graduated from high school, Robert and Ruth sold their home and moved to Springfield NJ, where Robert turned his passion for theater into a second second career, embracing the Internet, as an online theater critic for Talking Broadway where he reviewed shows for over twenty years for dozens of NJ regional theaters. Robert wrote his last review of the Papermill Playhouse's production of "Beautiful" just last week. Robert loved life and was so grateful to be alive and to have lived into his 80s, particularly as his father and brother had died so young, and for the past nearly two decades was the most devoted grandfather to his ten grandchildren whom loved him right back in return. He introduced them to countless film classics, to studio Ghibli movies and to countless musicals. Family— both immediate and extended (he loved and was close to so many cousins relatives)— was everything to him and he loved presiding over Seders and other holiday celebrations. He said that he has has a good life. Had lived much longer than he expected to.. yet given how good he had felt in the last few year had dared to hope that he actually might live long enough to see his grandkids grow up and get a sense of the lives they would lead and perhaps advise them. |
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