THIS MAGAZINE would not exist were it not for Ellis L. Phillips III, known to the world as “Larry” but to me as “Lars,” which is how I’ll refer to him here, with your indulgence. It was Lars who recruited me to join an alumni organization and take over the editing of its quarterly newsletter, which became the incubator for The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, whose first issue was Winter 1994. Thus he was the critical connection that made it possible and was a major inspiration for the magazine’s early development.
He was also my best friend.
Ellis Laurimore (where “Larry” came from) was born on Groundhog Day, 1948, and left us on Halloween, 2018—two pagan holidays; I’ve no idea what this means. He made it to age seventy, which is pretty great for a person of his generation with Type 1 diabetes, that cruel chronic disease that science hasn’t quite been able to neutralize, though Lars himself was acutely aware of, and grateful for, the genius of modern medicine that made his survival possible (synthetic insulin!). The cruelty of Type 1 is that the damage from sugar highs and lows over a lifetime is cumulative and systemic, the loss of faculties slow but inexorable.
But let me go back to the alumni organization that I mentioned, which was the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus. While I was gallivanting (well, working) in Europe in the 1980s, Lars was involved in an effort that would forever change the lives of LGBT people at Harvard. He and a small cadre of faculty and alumni/æ had launched a campaign to get the university to officially ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The effort was successful in 1985 when Harvard became the first university in the U.S. to adopt such a policy (many others would follow). It was shortly after my return from Europe that Lars recruited me to join the Caucus, and he soon had me editing their dormant newsletter, even teaching me how to use a desktop publishing program called Ready,Set,Go. The first issue (in early 1987) was a joint effort, but I soon got the hang of it, and this is how I learned how to be an editor and publisher. As for Lars, gay activism and publishing were sidelines in a career that was all about music and philanthropy, in that order. When I met him in 1980, he was still doing harpsichord recitals around the country and was part of a Boston-based ensemble called Quantz. In his home he had three keyboards: a grand piano, a harpsichord, and a virginal, later replaced by a Yamaha, all of which he played expertly. He also played the organ, which became the basis for his later career as music director for a Unitarian-Universalist church near Boston. As a philanthropist, he served as president of the Phillips Foundation, succeeding his father in that role. Ellis the First had electrified Long Island in the early 20th century (literally, by building the power stations) and endowed the foundation. His mother’s maiden name was Grumman, as in the Grumman Corporation of military aircraft fame. His father had once been president of Ithaca College. Lars himself broke a family tradition by choosing Harvard over Cornell. In college he concentrated in music and later took a masters at New England Conservatory, on whose board of directors he later sat for many years. His role in the life of this magazine was ongoing. He was a charter member of our board of directors, but it was his unofficial role as consultant and confidant at our weekly lunches on Boylston Street—a tradition that lasted 25 years—that made all the difference. He had great ideas about editorial direction, but he was also a font of knowledge about things like the latest Apple product or software update. Other topics of conversation at the Saturday lunch included the latest issue of The New York Review of Books, which was an early model for The G&LR. This would lead inevitably to politics, which Lars discussed with relish. Like me, he had come from a conservative family but had done wonders with himself, adopting an eclectic politics that favored reason over ideology. An early boyfriend would accuse him of tending to “pontificate,” which was slightly accurate, but only in the sense that he spoke with the authority of someone who knew what he was talking about and saw through the whirl of current events to grasp the underlying historical significance. For example, he nailed the invasion of Iraq as an oil grab masterminded by Dick Cheney years before this was widely recognized. Indeed he was one of the few people I’ve known who was consistently guided by evidence and reason rather than convention or mere faith. He was a true agnostic in all matters, which is probably what brought us together. One time he was working on a piece of music that included the line “secure in faith completely,” to which I asked, Why not “secure in doubt completely”? This became a catchphrase of ours for years thereafter. We met in the summer of 1980, a few months before Ronald Reagan was elected president. What amazed us most was that America had elected a B actor as president. Lars was always intrigued and disturbed by the mingling of politics and entertainment, so it’s hard to imagine (well, not that hard) what he would have thought about the election of a TV reality show star with no political experience. I’m assuming—hoping, for his sake—that he was past being able to comprehend the fiasco of 2016. Basically, I think he would have been heartbroken. Oh, but he would have pontificated. Lars did contribute one article to the magazine. In the summer of 2003 we drove out to western Massachusetts to interview countertenor David Daniels, who was performing at Tanglewood. The interview, which appeared in the September-October 2003 issue, was conducted by Lars over a memorable breakfast in Pittsfield, just south of my alma matter, Williams College, which we visited later in the day. This was one of many field trips that we took over the years, though the others usually involved an ocean: a memorable holiday on Maui (with my partner Stephen), any number of stays in Key West (with Stephen and Lars’ partner David), and many in Provincetown (with various boyfriends in the early days), where we would spend the day at Herring Cove Beach and the evening at the A-House (early on) or the Gifford House Porch Bar (later in life). When you add up these elements, here is a man from a good family with a musical gift who was amazingly bright and went to Harvard, was happily gay, and—have I mentioned that he was incredibly good-looking?—and you might be describing the ultimate golden boy. Except for that one thing, which he referred to as “my disease” (said à la Katharine Hepburn from a line in a movie: “Tobias, I think there’s a disease in this household.”). He lived with it stoically, without complaint or self-pity. Cheerfulness would rule the day, even when he started to lose toes and eyesight and the ability to play the keyboards. How he remained so confidently upbeat I’ll never know, though I’m grateful to have had a chance to tell him that he was my hero before he lost the ability to communicate. Somehow he kept his sense of humor; in fact, he laughed quite loudly, and easily, and once said that he kept me around because I made him laugh. He leaves behind four sisters, many nieces and nephews, and his husband David Lloyd Brown, who cared for him heroically, at home, day and night, for many years during the slow decline. Lars’ wish to end his days at 233 Com. Ave. was fulfilled.
