Click to enlarge.

My Most Unforgettable Senior

by Neil Earle

[Ed. Some time back I wrote an article and tribute to a 94-year-old man for a Church publication – Christian Odyssey. That man, Mr. Bill Adrian, finally passed on this March 26. I reprint this as a testimony to his life and to his wholesome impact on the lives of thousands of young teenage girls.]

Four years ago I met a 90-year old man who was still running his one man business enterprise which he had started in 1946 in Pasadena, California. A superb photographer, he had basically supplied wholesome, photogenic talent for the advertising, entertainment and Christian journalism industries on both coasts, from Life magazine to Seventeen.

If there is any one word that described Bill it was “entrepreneur.” He started his business at the recommendation of Cecil de Mille’s brother after working on a movie with John Wayne and ace director John Ford at the end of World War Two. A great judge of character and a fine photographer, one of his girls had a Life cover in 1970. Along the way, Bill would go on to help train countless Rose Parade Princesses, “Dallas” star Linda Gray and the pop musician Kim Carnes as well as interacting with such later megastars as Betty White, Regis Philbin and Marilyn Monroe as a young model.

In the months before his death Bill was being eagerly pursued by a Dutch film documentary on a film they were making about Marilyn but Bill’s health was not up to it though he was highly interested. One Sunday I was relaxing at home when I received a phone call from England – it was actress Carol Cleveland (pictured, left) who was the female lead in the Monty Python group for many years. She had trained as a model with Bill and wanted to mention him in her autobiography. His clout reached far and wide.

Bill came into my life when a mutual friend asked me to help him write his autobiography. That was in 2009 and the book has been duly written but, more than that, I developed a productive, beneficial friendship with one of the most interesting people I have met. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing but the relationship settled into twice-monthly meetings over lunch in some of our favorite eateries in Hollywood and Burbank, Bill’s old stomping grounds where he interacted with some of the early geniuses behind prime time television.

There have been a couple of times when Bill’s injuries from falling or a lack of proper nutrition put him “behind the eight ball.” But he kept bouncing back and I have derived great moral and morale benefits from seeing that he was interested – genuinely interested – in me, my wife, our life’s experiences and especially my 42 years as a minister.

Neil Earle (left) interviews William Adrian and model Ciara Pisa on an episode of "A Second Look" that aired on November 30, 2012.

Living in the Moment

There’s a good reason for that last. Bill was Head Usher at his local Roman Catholic Church for 37 years and showed up at 9:15 each Sunday come rain or come shine or even occasional cracked ribs. Bill was what the professional caregivers call a “fall-risk” patient and this complicated our jaunts downtown, but he soldiered on – even at age 94.

If Bill was often a “patient” then the operating word for yours truly is impatient. Over many forays with Bill to restaurants, diners, banks, AAA offices I have had to learn to slow down and live in the moment. “This is where we’re all headed,” I whisper to myself as I helped him navigate leaving the car, climb the steps to a diner, find a seat without a long wait, a situation which often sets off his fiery temper (pity the poor maitre-de). Still, his temper I was glad for because, in my reckoning from a lifetime working with seniors, it shows he is still engaged in life. Better a bang than a whimper, to rephrase T.S. Eliot.

A Spiritual Interest

Even as Head Usher in a fairly large church Bill didn’t get a chance to sit down with his parish priest that often, so we regularly got into conversations about the “process” of church, how ministers think, what they are really like in private, how they feel “called” to ministry. I often said to him, “Bill, you are asking questions no one else seems interested in or has the time for,” and I proceed to give him my take on life in the goldfish bowl known as ministry.

Being a history teacher I can vouch for the fact that Bill had really lived a vivid life across the turbulent 20th Century. He didn’t miss much. His experiences with the Great Depression and tales of how his mother scrimped and scrounged to keep food on the table, these tales of the 1930s flesh out for me what is a textbook assignment for history class. I encouraged him with the fact that his written account can be helpful for people facing today’s wonky economy. But it is his life career helping shape, mould, and motivate almost 1000 young girls without a hint or breath of scandal that was his premier life achievement. The way they feel about him is perhaps exemplified by the poems and cards they have sent him across the years.

You can see more of this at the William Adrian Modeling Agency web site.

Bill was clearly from another period, another time but his penetrating questions about life in the ministry have helped me to reflect on my own calling and life with God. “Ministers must have two things,” I tell him often. “A strong sense of calling and an almost inordinate love for the brethren.” As I say that I can’t help but reflect on how so few people in my own denomination have asked me these crystallizing, clarifying questions. They come instead from a 94-year-old devout Catholic who had become a steady friend and co-author and who was certainly my most unforgettable senior.

Bill my friend, we shall meet again.