Raymond Louis Greenfield

My Friend Ray By Dean Paton

In this Digital Age, when hyper-specialization is celebrated and rewarded, Ray Greenfield was an anachronistic opposite: a Renaissance Man. He could bat around the philosophies of Sartre, Foucault, Ellul and others. He was an accomplished chef. He was blessed with that classic rapier wit common among so many gifted comics of the Hebrew persuasion (beware, dullard). He painted elegant watercolors. He created riotously funny, one-off greeting cards adorned with his idiosyncratic drawings for close friends and family. He liked gardening. He read actual books. All the way to the end. He followed politics like a racetrack tout follows the ponies. He was a walking encyclopedia of the world’s cinema and America’s theatre. Some friends called him “Encyclopedia Raytannica.”

Ray had hoped to live long enough to cast his vote for Kamala Harris – or, more precisely, against Donald Trump – so perhaps it was better that Ray left this realm on October 21, just 15 days before America voted, early in the morning and beside his beloved wife Barbara (and their much-coddled pooch, Lucy). Ray was suffering, ready to move on, and the last thing his soul needed was to endure another loss.

Ray had worked for decades in the motion-picture industry, first in New York, then in Los Angeles. His credits as a director and assistant director extend to no less than 46 features, documentaries and made- for-television productions – many of which are renowned: Shoot the Moon, Fame, Kramer vs. Kramer, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, King of the Gypsies, Baby It’s You, The Wanderers. And, as Ray might add, yada-yada-yada.

He wrote, directed, and produced, Red Shoe, ’An Urban Hip-Hop Fairy Tale,’ that debuted at the San Francisco Film Festival in 1984.

A-list directors that wanted Ray to work with them included Alan Parker, Paul Mazursky, John Sayles, Tim Burton, Alan Rudolph, Philip Kaufman, Frank Pierson, Brian di Palma and (still more yada-yadas).

Ray had earned a Master of Arts with a major in film from the University of Iowa in 1974. By 1976 he’d been one of six applicants – out of 2,500 – chosen for the Directors Guild of America Training Program.

He was particularly proud of a scene that he’d honchoed in Fame, when a massive wave of students floods from their Manhattan high school, clogs a traffic-filled street, and turns Midtown into a dance party, hopping happily across the roofs of stalled cars as angry horns honk and impatient drivers fume. “I love that scene,” Ray said.

He retained his membership in the Directors Guild of America as well as the Screen Actors Guild, and his creative energies also conjured up screenplays and directed deft shorts. His reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was called compelling and even brilliant, though, like so many scripts, it never made it out of his laptop and onto the screen.

In one prescient, funny (and cynical) short production that Ray wrote, directed and appeared in, the camera fades up on a concert-hall stage as a quartet of intent “musicians,” dressed in black tuxedos and formal gowns, enters and nestles into their seats for the performance. As they bring their instruments to the ready and their concert begins, the viewer realizes all four artists are in fact “playing” Apple iPads. Alas, it’s from these digital harbingers of a fast-approaching “culture” that the beautiful music emanates. And then…Fade to Black.

Ray would sometimes punctuate emails to friends by digging into his cinematic memory bank, recalling just the right scene from a Marx Brothers picture, or maybe a moment from a Buñuel masterpiece, grabbing it from YouTube, and then appending the short clip to his email as a bonus illustration or, just as often, as commentary on a society in decline.

He met the love of his life, Barbara Clare, on a side trip to Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1987.

It was such a Big Love that Ray and Barbara were married twice. Ray wanted a private ceremony, “And I wanted a wedding to honor all the people who, pretty much, made me who I am,” Barbara remembers: “My family and friends.” So, on April 13, 1992, they were married on a remote hilltop in Ojai, California, with only four friends present as witnesses, and then six months later, on October 18, they again exchanged vows, this time before about 80 friends and family members, overlooking a river in the countryside north of Durham.

Ray was always the cook in this household, which made him a familiar sight at the Chapel Hill Trader Joe’s, where his eye for the right cheese or the properly ripe fig to adorn one of his rule-breaking home-cooked pizzas was as discriminating as it was when he situated his camera for the perfect shot. Ray should, one hopes, be remembered for his not-insignificant contributions to American cinema.

Raymond Louis Greenfield was born September 3, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York, to Miriam and Samuel Greenfield. His younger brother, Ron, passed away in 2016.

Those who wish to celebrate Ray will have a chance come springtime: Barbara is planning an outdoor celebration, “Remembering Ray Day,” at their property in Chapel Hill on Saturday, April 19.

For information about the gathering, contact Barbara: [email protected] .

If you’d like to make a donation in Ray’s name: benevolencefarm.networkforgood.com .