Lewis Barlow

During my years at Boston University, I was fortunate enough to have many wonderful professors. Only a select few had a significance in my life, and Lewis Barlow was among those. He passed away on October 29th, but I just found out about it. To say I am saddened is an understatement. Prof. Barlow was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. It was through his encouragement that gave me the confidence to not only pursue a career a television, but also the faith that I would be successful.

It was ten years ago that I was a student in Prof. Barlow's Producing I class. My fondest memory of it was I project I did with my friends Meg and Jess. Prof. Barlow assigned us to come up with an idea for a documentary and pitch it to the class. We decided to to "the Rise and Fall of Theme Restaurants". During the heyday of theme restaurants, it seemed anything with the remotest of interests would become a theme restaurant, for example: The Model Cafe. The Model Cafe was a restaurant owned by supermodels Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell. I was saying how this was inevitably going to fail because are you really going to look at a photo of Kate Moss and then order a hamburger with the works, fries and a soda? Barlow let out this belly laugh which at first startled me, but after that moment passed, realized we did a good job.

I would often find myself in his office, talking about the television industry, but also other minutia, like trivia. He would have loved that I was working on Millionaire now. In the late 1980s he was a contestant on Jeopardy! (he was also an early producer on Sesame Street, which further endeared me to him). In his favorite story, he recounted how he started off slow, but Double Jeopardy was very good to him and was in the lead going into Final Jeopardy. The category was American Women. The answer: She died in New Salem, Illinois in 1825. That was it. Barlow connected Illinois to Lincoln and said Lincoln's Mother. He was wrong. The correct question: Who was Anne Rutledge, Lincoln's mistress. Since hearing that story I have never forgotten that fact.

I feel incredibly blessed to have had Prof. Barlow as a teacher and advisor. He was a good man who touched the lives of me and countless student. Thank you Lew Barlow. Thank you.

May 2001 with Liz (Newell) Modena and Jill (Unger) Gold


May 2000 with Jill (Unger) Gold and Bill Lawson


Quote of the Day:
"A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work more than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discoverers are amongst them, as comets amongst the stars". -Henry Brooks Adams