William Lonon Smith, a longtime San Franciscan who was arguably the city’s most devoted arts patron, died Sept. 23 of kidney disease and heart failure. He was 75.
Smith was tireless in his enthusiasms — passionate about opera, ballet, classical music, modern dance, movies and theater. Every afternoon and every evening he was taking in a movie, live performance or museum exhibition. At the San Francisco International Film Festival, he once saw 43 movies in 10 days.
“When people introduce me,” Smith said in a2014 interviewwith the Chronicle, “they always say, ‘This is my friend William. He sees everything.’ Well, that kind of bugs me because it’s not everything. I’d have to split myself into 20 parts and go all over the world to do that.”
Smith was such a familiar presence at the War Memorial Opera House and Davies Symphony Hall that ushers and box-office staff knew him by name. He was upbeat and curious, quick with a smile and easily identified by his signature beret, turtleneck sweater and painter’s brush mustache.
“He was a true gentleman in every sense of the word,” said veteran San Francisco film publicist Karen Larsen.
“如果已经装上了窗帘或房子灯回答e going down somewhere, William wanted to be there,” said Peter Stein, a filmmaker and programmer for Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival. “But it wasn’t simply to be a ‘fan’ — he was a discriminating connoisseur.” Smith said he never walked out of a movie or a performance and never fell asleep. “If I need a shot of adrenaline, I’ll have an espresso.”
Four times a year, he made theater pilgrimages to New York and saw up to 11 Broadway shows in seven days. He went twice each summer to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and claimed to have seen all of Shakespeare’s canon performed, as well as Stephen Sondheim’s. One year, Smith flew to Seattle for Wagner’s four-part opera, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” and broke his wrist by tripping on the sidewalk. He had surgery that afternoon, was discharged at 5 p.m., and had tickets for “The Valkyrie,” the second in the Ring Cycle, at 6 p.m.
“My arm was in a cast and I had to hold it up, above my heart,” he recalled. “But we got in a cab, and we made it to theopera housewith four minutes to spare.”
William Lonon Smith was born Nov. 4, 1947 to Earl, an interior decorator, and Elizabeth, a legal secretary. He grew up in Salinas and Sunnyvale, an only child, and developed a sense of independence early on. As a teenager, he rode the bus from Sunnyvale to San Francisco to see movies and stage musicals.
His love for the arts began when his parents took him to the Ice Follies at the long-gone Winterland Ballroom.
“I loved it because it was spectacle, you know. They had music, these beautiful dancers. Then my parents took me to see ‘The Music Man’ in San Francisco. I thought, ‘If people could live like this, expressing themselves through song and dance.’ … Those two events got me hooked.”
Smith attended the University of Utah and wrote his dissertation on choreographer Bob Fosse at San Jose State. He moved to San Francisco in 1976 and remained in the same one-bedroom apartment on Sacramento Street for 47 years. He never owned a computer or a cellphone, “one of his maddening eccentricities,” according to friend Cass Brayton.
For decades, Smith kept a daily log of the movies and performances he attended. “His taste was eclectic, refined and most of all, generous,” Stein said. “You rarely heard him bad-mouthing anyone or anything, even if it wasn’t to his taste. He was the most appreciative, kind and ubiquitous arts patron I have ever met.”
Few could afford such an avocation. Although Smith once worked as a decorator at W. & J. Sloane, a high-end furniture store, he lived most of his life on benefits from his parents’ and grandparents’ investments. “I’m extremely lucky,” he said.
He had a long-term partner, Rodney Lipp, but after Lipp’s death from AIDS in 1988, Smith remained single. “He was a very devoted and loyal friend,” said his best friend Alan Oakley. “He had an incredibly infectious laugh and an ability and ease in talking to almost anyone.”
In 2019, Smith became ill with kidney disease and started weekly dialysis treatments that lasted until his death in September. He was survived by his cousins Ramona Phillips and Lonon F. Smith, and by a circle of longtime friends. A private memorial service for family and friends will be held on Nov. 25.
Edward Guthmann is a freelance writer.