Don Keller Conquers London

In the late 70s Don was packed off to London for a couple of months of R&R after his wife died. At the  time it was rumored that a rival agency had Don at the top of their wish list. So getting him out of town and out of sight may have been doubly appealing to Leo Burnett’s creative head Carl Hixon.

At first everyone in London thought he was some kind of charming mid-western naif, an aw-shucks-just-shook-the-hay-from-his-hair innocent.  He was hip to critters, but in London critters were not hip.

But then he'd wander the creative department and slip into offices unnoticed, as ideas were being battered around but progress remained elusive. Frustration and voices rose. Then he would quietly say something.

"You could always try..."

Suddenly people stopped talking, looked at each other, then looked at him. Dan Parfitt, my art director and I looked at each other, looked at Don, and thought the same thing: “That’s…good!” The word got out. Don couldn't walk down the hall without being invited into every office with an open door and a creative team with a knotty problem

Everyone wanted a piece of him. It became a competitive game: Capture Don. Get him in the morning before anyone else does, put him to work, then take him down the pub. Think Lawrence of Arabia in the scene where Lawrence, having survived the terrible Nephood desert, “God’s Anvil”, goes back into it to rescue a bedouin warrior the other tribesmen had given up for dead. One by one each man offers Lawrence their blanket and saddle, their hospitality.

“Come into my office, Don.” “Don, in here---got a minute?” Everyone wanted his eye and nod of approval. I was no different. At one point he turned to me and said, “Gerry, I voted for Nixon twice, and you want my opinion?”

Of course that became the cover of his leaving card.

Unlike Lawrence of Arabia, and any creative director you can think of, Don was self-effacing. His talent was bigger than his ego.

Then we discovered he could draw.

That was something not many art directors in London would admit to, because it meant they would have to do their own storyboards and miss time at the pub, instead of sending them to a studio for the equivalent of £200+ a frame. Don did his own. And they were not just an outline of the story. Looking at Don’s boards you could see the movie.

He drew the frames with points-of-view and camera angles and movement indications he had already thought about, as if he had pre-screened the spot in his mind. Because he had. The only other person I ever knew who did boards like that was Tony Scott. 

Drawing and painting, of course, was what he really wanted to do, what he trained to do at the Art Institute with the likes of Leroy Neiman and Claes Oldenburg. His house was filled with his art: paintings and drawings. But like many artists, he either had trouble letting them go---as gifts or sales---or too much enjoyed teasing me and Jenness and a few others with the promise of one. On the other hand, he gave Florence, our youngest daughter, a painting and a bunch of drawings. This was the same daughter he had carried sleeping and exhausted out of a hamburger restaurant on Oak Street 30+ years ago when we first moved to Chicago. Rebecca, our older daughter, still has her drawing of Tony inscribed with Art Director Spelling, “Rebbeca, You’re Grrreat!”

With talent, charm and generosity, he nurtured the spirit and talent of all of us.

An innocent abroad? Ha!

Figure it out.

You want to know what tough is, try being born in one place, leaving all familiar things as a young man, and learn to survive and support yourself in an alien world. Then move to another place (and language) and learn how to support yourself again. And then move to another place and another language and not just learn the local ropes all over again but become a giant in your chosen profession.

You don’t need to see one of his 76 films to understand the genius of Billy Wilder.

Wilder was one of those mid-century mittel-Europeans who knew how to survive and succeed.  They walked across Russia, they walked out of Auschwitz, they walked away from trouble and if it ever found them again they knew what to do.

Wilder tells the story: “If you ever wake up in a strange hotel room with a strange woman at your side and she is dead, call Sam Spiegel. He will know what to do.”

If you want to survive, ask a survivor. If you want to know how to succeed, figure it out. The story could be the opening scene from a film noir, but in Wilder’s life and in Spiegel’s it is just a dramatization of the danger and uncertainty that lurked around every corner of it until they hit Hollywood. 

In a tight spot? Buddy, the Gestapo aren’t even on the train yet. The thing is, figure it out: be smart, resourceful and work like hell. In other words, be “creative”. Immigrants have a great advantage over the rest of us. They are continually called on to reinvent themselves, to figure it out. While most of us have them given to us from birth, they have to write their own parts. That’s why they are often so good at it and do so well. That’s not a Mexican gardener in front of your house, that’s someone inventing himself.

He’s in good company. Endre Friedmann left Budapest, taught himself to take photographs, went to Paris, fell in love with Gerda Taro, went to the Spanish Civil War, rehearsed for the Second World War, invaded Normandy with the first landing craft, partied with Hemingway, made love to Ingrid Bergman, founded Magnum with Cartier-Bresson, went to China, went to Russia, went to Utah, worked in New York, became an American, went to IndoChina and before he died there, stepping on a landmine, Robert Capa reminded all war photographers that if their pictures weren’t good enough they weren’t close enough.

Immigrants are the quintessential Americans. Or rather they have what we would like to think are American essentials. Risk-takers because they have nothing to lose, full of innovation and energy because that’s what’s in their bank, investors in the future because they have no past to return to. Entrepreneurs, they have the potential to reinvent themselves, and us.

And we are afraid of letting too many in. Go figure.