Tears, Laughter and Plenty of Music

Friends and family pay tribute to Warren Hellman, the financier and philanthropist who founded Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
By: Jane Ganahl and Matt Smith

Warren Hellman, the billionaire who loved bluegrass and giving away his money, would have been pleased with his memorial service Wednesday afternoon, which included plenty of jokes, music and a few lines from one of his favorite Monty Python songs.

“I think it was a good mixture of tears and laughter,” said his daughter, Dr. Tricia Hellman Gibbs.

A crowd of about 1,500 attendees came to pay their respects, some lining up hours ahead of time to get a seat inside Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.

“I’m a huge bluegrass fan, and he’s a hero to us all,” Georgia Frakes of Berkeley said as she stood in the “public” line that snaked around the block. The “friends and family” line was just as long. “I figured saying goodbye to him was worth taking a personal day off work. I hope there will be music!”

Indeed, the two-hour memorial service featured live performances by country great Emmylou Harris, Hellman’s band The Wronglers, and even Hellman’s 12 grandchildren, as well as tributes from a variety of Hellman friends — from senators to cowboys — all of whom adored the late financier, philanthropist and founder of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. Hellman, who was also the founder and chairman of The Bay Citizen, died Sunday at age 77 from complications of treatment for leukemia.

Outside the synagogue, members of the San Francisco Police Department’s mounted patrol stood in formation, a gesture of respect for Hellman’s generous support for the department’s horse stables, the Police Athletic League and other causes. San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr, who attended the service in uniform, said of Hellman, “There was not a cause, whether children, horses or other needs, that he would not help out with. He would always have time to take for me. And I wasn’t always the chief of police.”

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Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco), when asked to reflect on Hellman’s life, was silent for several moments. “It’s hard,” she finally said. “I had the privilege of memorializing him on the floor of the House yesterday. He was a great friend. He was a great American. He was a real Renaissance man, and a man of the future. We’ll all miss him very, very much.”

Rabbi Sydney Mintz opened the service, which followed a private burial in Colma Wednesday morning, by saying the congregation had “a difficult afternoon before us.” Yet the tone of most of the tributes was light and upbeat; more than once, uproarious laughter filled the sanctuary. During her eloquent tribute, Sen. Dianne Feinstein misspoke, extolling Hellman’s “zest for women.” As the congregation roared, she regrouped. “Correction: a zest for winning,” she said.

Feinstein noted that Hellman and her husband, Richard Blum, had known each other since they were both in military school in San Rafael. “They called it reform school,” she said dryly. “But clearly the ‘reform’ never took hold.” She concluded by saying that San Francisco is “much finer today because of Warren Hellman’s commitment.”

Arthur Rock, the famed venture capitalist and one of Hellman’s closest friends, said one thing that set Hellman apart was “his ability to laugh at himself. His jokes are legend — good, bad, indifferent or risqué.” Rock choked when he said, “He was my best friend. Oh, how I will miss him.”

Philip Hammarskjold, the CEO of Hellman & Friedman, the private equity firm that Hellman founded in 1984, spoke about Hellman’s work ethic and company policies — not all of which had to do with high finance. “He made a trip around the office every night, just to check in with people. He had a special relationship with the support staff. He was also the enforcer of our very strict ‘no jerks’ policy.”

After listening to Hellman’s business colleagues, attendees heard about another aspect of his life, far from the board room. Bluegrass musician and rancher Ron Thomason shared a story about horseback riding with Hellman. “I accepted an invitation to go for a casual ride with him, which turned out to be a 40-mile ride,” he said. “We rode like the wind. When we got back, he told me, ‘I’ll wash both the horses if you play the mandolin for me.’”

Thomason’s voice quavered with emotion. “My god, that man loved music.”

He said Hellman regularly poked self-deprecating fun at the differences in their backgrounds. After Thomason told him he was born in a home with no electricity, Hellman thought for a minute. “Then he joked, ‘Do you know that when I was young the cook sometimes wouldn’t make brownies for three days?’”

Despite his privilege, Thomason said, “I don’t think I ever heard him talk down to anyone. He respected the disenfranchised and wanted to bring them along.”

Hellman’s sister, Nancy Bechtle, the former president and CEO of the San Francisco Symphony, shared some never-before-told stories about her big brother. “He was a teenage hoodlum with a greased-back pompadour,” she smiled, and revealed that he had been arrested for drag racing and charged with three felonies. Their parents were so angry that they took away his house key, “but he persuaded me to sleep in front of the door so I could let him in.” Such, she noted, were Hellman’s powers of persuasion.

Harris, who traveled from Nashville to participate, had also been moved by Hellman’s requests. She said that when she visited Hellman recently, “He elicited a promise that I would play at his service, should it come to that.” She added that she was “lucky to know this extraordinary man” and then brought tears to many eyes with her lilting version of “Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia.”

Hellman’s oldest daughter, Frances, chairwoman of the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, held back tears as she took the microphone. “I want my father to be here, wearing this,” she said, touching the shoulder of Hellman’s famed “Rhinestone Jewboy” jacket that was on display next to his treasured Whyte Laydie banjo. “But I know you all do.”

Frances told a story of her own brush with the law. When she was a teenager, she broke into a golf shop with some of her friends and took some golf carts out for a spin. When police caught them and Frances had to call her father, she recalled, “He just started laughing.”

But, she said, Hellman was a demanding father. “When we went hiking as a family, he told us that if we were talking we weren’t going fast enough.”

Then Gibbs, the second eldest of Hellman’s children and the founder of the San Francisco Free Clinic, told the congregation about a recent discovery she made. When Hellman was dying, she learned that he always kept a letter she received in the 1970s inviting her to join the U.S. Ski Team. “Thirty-three years, he carried that thing in his pocket,” she marveled.

Hellman’s only son, Mick, also a successful investor as well as a champion cyclist, read a poem he penned about his famed father and played a few recorded verses of the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” by the comedy group Monty Python — one of his father’s favorites. The audience soon began singing along.

“For life is quite absurd

And death's the final word

You must always face the curtain with a bow

Forget about your sin — give the audience a grin

Enjoy it — it's your last chance anyhow.”

Mick cut the recording short before a profanity was broadcast, but the performance left congregants smiling.

Judith, the youngest of Hellman’s children, spoke about her parents' relationship, explaining that Chris Hellman, Warren’s wife of 56 years, was struggling with Alzheimer's disease and could not attend the service.

Judith recounted a story that her mother had told her about a flight she and Warren took early in their marriage. When the plane’s two engines died, Chris was terrified, but Warren comforted her, saying, “We’ve had a full life with no regrets. If this is it, that’s OK.”

Of course, it was not the end, and they went on to enjoy many years together.

Hellman’s 12 grandchildren then paid tribute to their “grandpa.” The eldest, Laurel Hellman, said, “We were lucky to spend so much time with someone who was already a San Francisco legend.” She introduced their band — the Go To Hell Man Clan, a reference to an anti-Hellman campaign at Mills College years before.

The Wronglers, Hellman’s bluegrass band, also sang a few tunes and reminisced. Fiddler Heidi Clare told about playing with Hellman in the hospital. “The doctors gave him some hard news,” she said. “He was sitting in a chair, banjo in hand. He listened patiently, and waited for them to stop talking. Then he said, ‘And now I have something for you.’ And we played this song.”

The song was “The Big Twang Theory,” written by Hellman and Colleen Browne. The Wronglers performed it as a sing-along with the audience, noting that Hellman had written the last few lines in the final days before his death:

One thing’s for certain

It’s been a cosmic trip

Riding through the ether

On this old-time music ship.