Richard “Wendell” Cordtz died last year.  He was only in his fifties, about my age, so it came as a shock and still seems very strange.

He was one of the genuine characters I knew in New York for most of the years I lived there — an actor and stage director and singer.  I didn't know him well but I saw him fairly regularly because he did a cabaret act with another friend of mine, Hugh McCarten.  They billed themselves as Dr. Wendell and Mr. Hugh, Hugh providing piano accompaniment to Wendell's song styling.

Wendell had a wry and often very subtle sense of humor, characterized by a kind of sly irony hinting at the outrageous and delivered deadpan.  It was a kind of mask, which would fall away when he smiled his sweet smile and suddenly seemed like a child.  He was always very mysterious to me.

When musician friends visited from out of town there would sometimes be musical soirées at Wendell's loft.  The last time I saw him was at one of these, not long before I moved away from New York.  He sang a song I always associated with him, “Skylark” by Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael.  He sang it beautifully, without any irony at all.