The Billionaire Who Loved Bluegrass
Financier and philanthropist spread around his millions so "good things will grow"
F. Warren Hellman, a banjo-picking billionaire whose life followed such an extraordinary and eccentric arc it perhaps could only have taken place in San Francisco, died Sunday evening at UCSF Medical Center. He was 77.
The cause was complications from treatment he had been receiving for leukemia. Doctors had told Hellman that the illness could be neutralized, and he postponed chemotherapy treatments this fall to appear with his band The Wronglers at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, his lavish annual gift to the city, and to tour with one of his idols, Jimmie Dale Gilmore. With typical humor, Hellman joked in recent weeks that he had changed his name to Luke Emia. He referred to his dreaded chemo medication as Retuxif-ck.
A rugged iconoclast whose views on life rarely failed to surprise, Hellman was a lifelong Republican who supported labor unions, an investment banker whose greatest joy was playing songs of the working class in a bluegrass band, and a billionaire who wanted to pay more taxes and preferred the company of crooners and horsemen who shared his love of music and cross-country “ride and tie” racing.
Lanky and angular, an endurance runner and skier, Hellman had a penchant for politically incorrect humor and little tolerance for phonies. He was a ragged dresser, an apologetic capitalist and one of the most beloved figures in San Francisco history.
Hellman acquired the nickname “Hurricane Hellman” early in his business career. At 26, he became the youngest-ever partner at Lehman Brothers, the now-defunct financial services firm; in 1973, at 39, he was named president and head of investment banking. In 1977, he co-founded the venture capital firm Matrix Partners, an early investor in Apple, Continental Cable (now Comcast) and Stratus Computer. In 1984, Hellman launched Hellman & Friedman LLC, a private equity firm that has raised over $25 billion in capital.
Hellman spent as much energy distributing his wealth as he did acquiring it.
His causes were endless — pension reform, the UC Berkeley aquatics program, the Mills College cross-country team, the Jewish Community Endowment Fund — and he frequently wrote songs about them. His passion for journalism led him in 2010 to found The Bay Citizen, where he served as chairman.
“Jesus Christ, I'm a frenetic busybody,” Hellman joked in a 2001 interview.
Phil Bronstein, the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and a friend of Hellman’s for more than a decade, said: “Warren was San Francisco, and his passion for the city ran deep. His philanthropy and quiet leadership were unparalleled.”
Jonathan Nelson, the founder of Organic, Inc. and a longtime Hellman friend who, while riding on a ski lift one day, encouraged Hellman’s fantasy to stage a free bluegrass festival, said Hellman left his mark on the world in numerous ways.
There is a “crazy Zelig thing” about Warren, Nelson said. “Not only did he have three full careers in finance but he founded a newspaper and he went to Burning Man with me.” Nelson said he took Hellman to the desert art festival for his 70th birthday. “It was so amazing that he went back the next year.”
Born in New York City in 1934, Hellman was the son of investment banker Marco “Mick” Hellman and the great-grandson of Isaias W. Hellman, a Jewish immigrant from Bavaria who launched one of California’s first banks out of a Los Angeles dry goods store and went on to earn millions in banking, transportation, real estate and oil.
Hellman never met Isaias, but had been enthralled with him since childhood. “I was asked once, ‘If you could meet someone who went before...’ I didn’t hesitate: It would be I.W.,” he said in February during an interview at the Throckmorton Theater in Mill Valley. “He was a remarkable human being, with a fantastic ability to see over the horizon.”
To the audience's delight, Hellman then sang two verses of a song had written for his great-grandfather:
I.W. Hellman, he was a pioneer / came to California in his 16th year / he crossed the isthmus to come here / and become California’s greatest financier.
He went to work in a dry goods store / and said this is not what I came here for / so I’ll put me a safe right here by the door / because I am probably a banker at my core!
In this video, Hellman sings about his great-grandfather with The Wronglers:
During World War II, when his father was sent overseas, Hellman moved to the Central Valley, near Vacaville, with his mother, Ruth Koshland Hellman, and his sister Nancy — now Nancy Bechtle, herself a San Francisco philanthropist and community activist.
Even as a child, Hellman showed evidence of having a profound disrespect for rules. Chris Hellman, his wife of 56 years, once said she traced his drive to an incident when one of his arms was severely burned at age 9 in a kerosene lamp fire. It seems he was sneaking into his mother’s bedroom with plans of making off with a toy that didn’t belong to him. “I never really liked authority,” Hellman later acknowledged in an interview.
An avid horseman, Hellman would escape for long rides — a practice that so unnerved his mother that she enrolled him in the San Rafael Military Academy to give him discipline. When his father returned at the end of the war, the family relocated to San Francisco, where Hellman enrolled in Lowell High School. He went on to the University of California, Berkeley, where he triple-majored in economics, political science and history, graduating in 1955.
Hellman served two years in the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany, before enrolling at Harvard Business School. He then spent 15 years at Lehman Brothers in New York. Often described as “deal-driven and aggressive,” Hellman achieved extraordinary financial success independent of his wealthy family legacy.
Hellman met Chris, a former ballet dancer, on the deck of the Queen Elizabeth, in what his daughter, Dr. Tricia Hellman Gibbs, described as “the most romantic story ever.”
“My mother was in the London Festival Ballet; she was traveling to New York from Southampton, England by ocean liner,” she said. “And my dad was returning home to New York from England. My father saw this group of beautiful young dancers at a table and asked to be introduced. So they met on the Queen Elizabeth, and were together from that day on. I feel extremely fortunate to have had that in my life: parents whose love story I look up to.”
In recent years, as Chris became stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, and Hellman cared for her, “that love has continued,” Tricia said. “He still sees her as the beautiful dancer he met on the deck of the Queen Elizabeth.”
Tricia, a former member of the U.S. ski team and the founder, along with her husband Richard Gibbs, of the San Francisco Free Clinic, said she spent much of her childhood doubled over at her father’s jokes. In a statement, Hellman's four children said their father possessed "the deepest repertoire of mildly inappropriate jokes of anyone we ever met, wrote some truly humorous bluegrass songs, and once made (his daughter) Frances laugh until milk came out her nose. You could always crack him up with a Monty Python line (“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition”)."
“We laughed so much; he was the funniest father,” Tricia said.
Hellman in his early years at Lehman was hard-charging and, by his own accounts, occasionally out of control. One evening, while vacationing on Cape Cod, he and a friend were arrested when their partying got out of hand and they drove across neighbors’ lawns.
“We got to Bill’s house, and Bill decided to go up on his roof while I got sick under a bush,” Hellman recalled. “And this police car pulls in and the cop said, ‘Boys, have you been out driving?’ And I said ‘Oh no, officer.’ But he put his hand on my hood and felt it was warm and took us down to the Falmouth jail.”
Caroline Bruderer
Great article, Jane! RIP Warren.
Susan Nielsen
An incredible loss- will miss him so much. Love you Warren.
Though I only knew him for several years, Warren Hellman became one of my top 10 favorite people. Funny, smart and kind. No pretense or flash. My Husband Ken and I had great times playing music with him- Many laughs, great conversations/debates over meals.
R Sheng
As the architect who had the great privilege of helping Drs. Tricia and Richard Gibbs make the SF Free Clinic a reality, I was lucky enough to have also met Warren Hellman and had the chance to have a couple of brief chats with him. Learning that I am a cyclist and a pianist, we talked about his love of Ride and Tie and the banjo. The conversations would always start out friendly but somewhat serious until I would suddenly realize that he was on some funny riff about something entirely unrelated but completely engrossing.
Lori Sparrow
I will miss my dear friend Warren. I worked with and for him and Chris for the past 20 years--first on the capital campaign for San Francisco Ballet and then co-founding VoiceofDance.com. Warren was a huge supporter of the underdog. Warren loved his wife Chris (a former ballet dancer) and was fueled by the fact that dance always seemed to be the underdog of the arts. He would take macho business men to to the SF Ballet and ask them to watch carefully and answer if they could do what the dancers could do- even for 10 minutes.
When we were running the capital campaign for SF Ballet, there was a critic at the SF Chronicle who was giving the Ballet terrible reviews--meantime they were getting incredible reviews in New York, Paris, and London. We would be in meetings asking civic minding people for large sums of money, and they would say "the Ballet is no good--it says it right here in the Chronicle" . Steam would start pouring out of Warren's ears. We even went to the Chronicle and made an ill fated presentation to them stating our case--they sternly escorted us to the elevator. At that point, we decided it was either time to buy the Chronicle or start a new news source of our own. We brought many dance groups together in the city--ODC, SF Ballet, Margaret Jenkins and many more and formed a plan to create a people's site for dance, where people could read reviews from all over the world and write reviews of their own. We named it Voice Of Dance.
With all of the admiration I have of Warren and what he did philanthropically, the things that most impressed me are what he did personally. No matter what was going on--he always took the time to go for his cherished run in the morning. Someone told me once he was on a dive trip with Warren and he made them dock at an sticker filled island so he could get his run in. Since he usually woke up at 4:00am to go on these runs, it meant that he had to go to bed early. And that meant he left countless dinners and performances (even if they were in his honor) at 9:00 to get home to bed.
He always told the truth--even if it was hard to hear. I have never met someone who was truly "the same" with whoever he was with. If he didn't like what you were up to--he would tell you to your face. This of course made for a rocky road sometimes--but you always knew where he stood--that was a true gift.
He was fiercely loyal to friends and family and once you were part of his circle he would fight for you and what you wanted in life.
He raised amazing kids and had an incredible marriage. He also told me he read the Torah every morning. And lastly he never let money get in the way of having fun in life.
You are a good man, Warren Hellman. You did good!
C.M. L
Enormous gratitude to Warren Hellman for visionary leadership and the finest concept of money as manure.
I've always pointed to Warren Hellman as proof that wealth can be used for good, and that he was one of the leaders of business and culture who could be trusted in both areas. He was wealthy, but spent his care on the music and the good of others in a beautiful, inspiring model.
I don't know who can give the same thoughtful guidance on business an politics because his "politics" were humanist, and he was capable of changing his views given more information, but most of all he seemed brutally honest about the power of money in political issues.
And thank you Bay Citizen, for continuing the journalism work that he cared about. And we care about even though we don't always send money.
Montgomery Powell
Warren will not be missed by most people on the planet (Bay Citizen staff excepted). He was a financial pirate and junk bond trader who cheerfully leveraged public money for private profit. He raided and destroyed healthy companies as a matter of course. His ill thought-out scheme to merge UCSF and Stanford ended up costing the public about $100 million. But one can hardly expect a fair or balanced story on their sugar daddy by Bay Citizenites. It will be nteresting to see how it shakes out, tough, with all of the BC founders leaving one way or ... another.
Green Bean
why don't you leave your comments for people who haven't recently passed away you heartless piece of monkey poo
George Smith
He or she is right! Why don't you NOT call names!
KLASJDLK ASLJFHDHYGRUIY
Montgomery Powell you have no heart. Warren is my grandfather and I find your response to his death absolutely outrageous. My grandfather was caring and had a big heart. Weather or not he made good decisions or bad ones his heart was in it for good reasons. It is extremely disrespectful for you to comment negatively right after his death. You show no respect for his family or close ones who are suffering because of our loss.
Howard Lebowitz
Unfortunately I never met Warren, but I am an avid music fan (big bluegrass fan) who has come out from NY the last four years for Hardly Strictly. It is an amazing scene and an incredible present to the Bay Area, and I hope it never ends!! R.I.P. Mr Hellman.
Howard Lebowitz
Saratoga Springs, NY
George Smith
What's this about "his lavish annual gift to the city"?
Seems to me as if he got the best seats for he and his friends, a terrific tax write-off, business opportunities (through contacts) galore, and a lot of
Also, he worked with union elites to destroy pension rights for workers. That does not make him "pro union."!
Green Bean
You are uneducated on the subject of the fabulous Warren Hellman. Its too bad you feel the need to tear him down the day after he passes away. Clearly Sir, you have little empathy.
R T
I know this is going to get negative responses- but does anyone else think that the Bay Citizen is going a little overboard on their coverage of Hellman's passing? Sure he was generous and influential and certainly merits a story or two, but as of the time of my posting, there are no less than 6 stories on the Bay Citizen's front page. There has to be something else to write about.
Green Bean
Nope. RT, you are wrong. He put his life into this city and should be heralded in any way possible.
Lori Sparrow
If there was no Warren Hellman there would be no Bay Citizen--or many other amazing non-profits in our fine city. I only wish there were more stories on him. He will be truly missed!
Matt Horns
I agree. And it has nothing to do with politics (mine or Hellman's), but with journalism. I like the BC so I'm gonna be hard on it. Its front page does a disservice to its credibility today. An obituary (even a passionate and emotional one) is fine, but the paper now looks like a cult of personality. The BC is first and foremost a journalistic enterprise, which means it will often need to put aside its personal investments in a story to do what is right and appropriate. Democracy, etc.
Indy Swain
People are complex. Warren Hellman was complex. No matter what is said about him, he deeply, deeply loved this city and the Bay Area and very few have done more than he has to create a legacy that benefits many and not just a few. This man defined philanthropy at its highest levels. He would've happily sat down with the mean spirited nay sayers on this comment thread, if they could have an intelligent conversation with him about why they disagree. Instead, we have this silly vilification of a man who simply does not deserve it. Warren deserves to be lauded. He is no saint, but he certainly ain't no sinner.
Rob Jackson
Hello Warren - can you hear me? I hope so! Some crappy comments made about you; don't know why. Seems you did so much for so many. Oh well.
We parted ways years ago- and I don't know...
I just remember you sitting along side me in eighth grade class at San Rafael Military Academy in 1947. You always came up with the right answers, and I was impressed. You always had a friendly smile and a good word. I am not surprised you did so well in later life - humanitarian and concerned American.
I wish you well on your travels and send best wishes to your family.
S/F Rj
"Michelle Kohlhaas"
First, condolences to the family of Warren Hellman.
Second, the notion that any criticism of a recently deceased modern-day robber baron is somehow beyond the pale is not only naive, but patently un-American.
We Americans are not here to kiss the arse of the passing baronial overlords (and may God have mercy on their souls, too.) That arse-kissing should have gone out the window in 1776. Hellman was a guy who, let's be frank, as an ex-Lehmaneister, took a hell of a lot more than he gave. And when he gave, he did so with great publicity, while his thievery was shrouded in "discretion."
I actually agreed with Hellman on the issue of pension reform for SF's overpaid PD.
But why did his pension reform thrust go after underpaid teachers and librarians? These are necessary questions that real Americans will ask. Spare us the "vive le roi" crap for this robber baron.
Green Bean
As a family member of Warrens, I find it disgraceful that you would first give us condolences and then follow them with a negative list. Please, this is no the time to be tearing him down and you should know that your words are incredibly hurtful to those who were close to him. Please respect the family and keep your negativity to yourself.
"Michelle Kohlhaas"
Sorry, but while I clearly expressed condolences to the family, I maintain the right as an American to ask questions about a man who profited grossly from the capital gains tax, and who then went on to try to deny pensions to others.
Further, if you're a family member, why on earth are you reading public postings about such a controversial figure in a purported news venue?
It's not "negativity" to ask reasonable questions about Hellman's wealth and business dealings - it's only "negative" to try to shame Americans into NOT asking reasonable questions.
There are millions of Americans going to bed hungry and homeless this cold December night - a decade or two of free music concerts doesn't buy you sainthood. If the Hellman legacy were as good as you claim, you'd be outraged about the cold and hungry men, women and children in the U.S. - not the vainglory of the Helllman "legacy."
Lori Sparrow
Warren loved people speaking their minds and welcomed controversy. However, he would never have been so mean-spirited as to criticize someone's character when the person could not defend themselves and their family is mourning.
I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish?
Focus on yourself man. Change begins within.
"Michelle Kohlhaas"
"I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish?"
The truth, madam, is what I am "trying to accomplish."
Someone has to cut through the attempted media hagiography that is trying make a saint of a born-on-3rd-base robber baron who tried to rob librarians and hardworking minority bus drivers of their pensions.
Warren Hellman was no saint, and it is both our right and our obligation to counter the mainstream media bull that obscures the gross profits that Hellman made off the taxpayer.
He was richly born, fair enough, but he then robbed other Americans of jobs and services by NEVER paying fair taxes. His later "philanthropy" bought him even more tax breaks and enormous - and undeserved - political influence here and in DC.
I can certainly understand missing a departed friend. But Hellman was no real friend to San Francisco - nor to what remains of the middle class.
deborah Evenich
I am reading this quite some time after his death, but I have to say the first time I heard that Warren Hellman had died it gave me goosebumps. I only knew of him as the person who brought Hardly Strictly Bluegrass to San Francisco. When he spoke this year the applause was enormous-it is such a wonderful gift to so many people. I enjoyed reading the article about him, and how he has raised his children and grandchildren to also be givers. He sounded like a very enjoyable person, even if he was at one time a Republican! I appreciated that he appeared to pay attention to issues rather than party lines, which is how it should be. Thank you for a very interesting article. I understand there will be a memorial for all the music lovers at Speedway Meadows, which I look forward to.