To Our Readers

By James M. Gaines Managing Editor

After finishing a major story on the gay-rights movement two weeks ago, TIME senior writer William A. Henry III confessed to his editor that he was a bit worn down. He was walking with difficulty and, as he said, "feeling very mortal." It was a tragically prophetic remark. Last week, while in England to cover the London theater for us, Bill died of a massive heart attack. He was 44.

Those of us who were his colleagues and friends (and one was virtually synonymous with the other) are just beginning to realize the extent of our loss. Bill did an extraordinary number of things extraordinarily well. He was TIME's drama critic, but while vigorously filling that post, he also wrote extensively about politics, social issues, the media, books (especially the mysteries he devoured) and the handful of nonteam sports of which he was an armchair savant -- tennis, in particular. Between stories he appeared frequently on TV panels -- you name the subject, he always seemed ready to express provocative but well-thought-out opinions -- he lectured, wrote books and free-lanced for other publications. After all that, he still had time for his amazingly wide and varied circles of friends -- people at every level of our company, journalists, theater folk, New Jersey neighbors, Yale classmates.

Part of Bill's secret was that he rarely did fewer than two things at once. In meetings he opened his mail while discoursing on story ideas. When he went to lunch with a co-worker, he often took a book, so as to utilize any precious moments when his companion might be away from the table. Magnificently rumpled, intensely convivial though a teetotaler, flamboyant ("He always spoke ex cathedra," says a senior editor), Bill was a vivid personality in an era when journalists tend to be a bland, earnest bunch. Everything he did was distinguished by a first-class intellect, which showed in his polished prose, his ability to organize complex material, and his ceaseless flow of ideas. But from his newspaper days he retained, along with two Pulitzer Prizes, a bracing professionalism. He never turned down an assignment, and he attacked even the most mundane task as if another Pulitzer depended on it.

Bill's final book is In Defense of Elitism, which will be published in September. In it he insists on "the simple fact that some people are better than others -- smarter, harder working, more learned, more productive, harder to replace." Bill was pre-eminently one of those people, but with a crucial difference: he will be impossible to replace.