From Polaroid to Patrons of the Arts

The New York Times hasn't carried this obit as yet, but the Boston Globe did with the heading, Norma Jean Calderwood, 84, leading patron of Boston arts. Norma Jean Calderwood was an old friend whom I hadn't seen for more than 25 years. I remember Norma Jean's dinner parties and how well she could cook. Stan was usually pretty subdued (for him) hustling drinks and serving guests.

This is a portion of a photo my late wife, Ruth, took of NJ, as I was pouring Soviet champagne she had brought back from the U.S.S.R. to our digs in the maid's quarter of a villa on Lac Léman in Switzerland, just down the lake from Morges and Lausanne. NJ was a dynamo, Stan's equal and fearless. One night she chewed out Land who was in the habit of phoning his underlings at all hours. "Don't you dare ever phone here again at this hour!" she said, and hung up. It was 3 A.M. "I am woman. Hear me roar!"

Rest in peace, NJ.

An Unabashed Tribute to Stan Calderwood (1921-2003)

This is how I want to remember Stan. The year was 1973 and Stan had been three years away from Polaroid and his boss, Edwin H. Land. We were at my favorite Boston restaurant, Café Budapest. (Yes, I know the photo is out of focus but so probably was I.)

Upon leaving Polaroid Stan immediately took over as president of WGBH-TV in Boston. Within months he had consumated a fortuitous deal with the BBC to import Masterpiece Theatre; and then convinced Mobil Oil to fund the series. During the same brief period he arranged for Julia Child to introduce her series, The French Chef, to American television audiences. With this kind of phenomenal success, we were all sure that it wouldn’t be long before Stan Calderwood would be running the entire Public Broadcasting network.

Little did any of us know that before the summer’s end in 1970 that he would be embroiled in a no-win situation with activists in Boston’s black community. It was about the use of socially unacceptable profanity on prime time television.

The irony here is that PBS lost a good man who had done what he could to help recruit minorites, especially blacks, at Polaroid. Along with being insulted and jostled at confrontations, he began receiving death threats for cancelling the show. Responding to public pressure, WGBH reinstated Say Brother and called the prior cancellation a “mistake.” Stan quit in disgust.

In 1972 he joined a money management business controlled by Yale University and found his comfort level among kindred spirits in corporate management and the shepherding of institutional pension funds.

In 1981 he had accumulated enough personal wealth to buy control of Trinity Investment Management of Boston. By this time we rarely saw each other anymore, let alone socialize with our wives as we once did, so I have no first-hand knowledge of him or Norma Jean in the last two decades of his life.

I choose to remember Stan the cowboy from Chugwater, Wyoming, via Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and Boulder, Colorado. I’m sure he would prefer to be remembered as a Harvard Fellow and Brahmin benefactor who, with Norma Jean, has endowed more University chairs and museums than any of his philanthropic contemporaries.

Finally, it's my prejudiced opinion that if Edwin Land had not insisted that his successor be a fellow engineer and had encouraged and groomed Stan to run the company upon his retirement, Polaroid would never gone belly up into Chapter 11 as it did.

Stan departed this life on 10 May 2003 at Massachusetts General Hospital, where, typically, he was a significant benefactor.

Rest in Peace, Big Spender from Chugwater.

_________________________________________________________________________________________ I thought you might like to know that I'm running another printing of the book, shown here. It's 180 pages in black and white plus full color covers on coated stock, 7-3/8 x 9-1/8 inches (cm 18.8 x23.5) with square "perfect" binding and it contains a lot more information than is here on the web log. There are five pages of photos of my studio workshop and another six of designs that influenced me plus a full color sheet of the Iconography of the Polaroid mark from 1958 to 1977. The cost is only US$30.00 which includes $5.00 shipping within the USA or Canada, or US$35.00 which includes $10.00 for shipping elsewhere. Payment can be made to giam at aol.com via PayPal using your credit card or PayPal account. Or you can send a check or an international money order to PAUL GIAMBARBA, P.O. BOX 1795, Mashpee MA 02649-1795, USA. Allow three to four weeks for delivery. Please advise if you would like me to sign the book for you. Click on image to enlarge it.