Theodore W. Macri

Is the greatest gift

To those of us left behind.

We will hold on to our timeless bind

Here we honor my dad

May he rest in peace in Heaven, loved by God

He was a man of complexity who earned our love and tears

Son, brother, husband, father and grandfather through the years

Teddy and Ted and Lieutenant Junior Grade

Good men are not only born but just and self-made

Teddy, beloved by his sister and parents

Gift from God is what his name meant

For this healthy boy there had been a ten year wait

June 7, 1937 was the joyful date

A Bay Ridge boy, working hard in school

Stickball in the street, jumping to Buck, Buck, Horns are Up, and an occasional game of pool

Promise showed early, grades were skipped

Brooklyn Tech on the resume and perhaps some beer was sipped

Villanova meant the world to him, but not just for the degree

Friends for life, parties and maybe even some girls combine in a memory

Wide brown eyes always with a gleam

Officers’ Candidate School was part of the dream

Dress whites, a first car, and exotic girls on distant shores

But none could compare to Joan to whom he spoke behind the elevator doors

Husband of Blackie to whom he cleaved for life

Their own perfect fit for husband and wife

Father to Alicia and to Tod

Achieving dreams for his children meant others were foregone

Fiat Spider dreamed of but stuck behind the wheel of the sedan

Faith was central to his character and core

Passing this to his children was never a chore

Of all of these successes, his chest never swelled more than when fortune struck thrice

His proudest name was Papa to the grandchildren for whom he would make any sacrifice

A Life Well Lived

Glimpses

Brown eyes full of joy and twinkling

Sticks in the yard with grandchildren to help picking

Waltz in the living room, walks with Joan on the sand

Walking to Buckley holding his young son’s hand

Touches

A warm arm down the aisle on my wedding day

Holds my mom and to the music sways

A wide lap filled with adoring children

A hand wrapped around mine sharing affection

Images

Sleeves rolled up, hands full of turkey on Thanksgiving

An infant grandchild asleep on his stomach, his own eyes resting

Reading thick galleys or Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations

Spotting crabs in the sand and listening with patience

Slacks (not pants) and age-old tweed sport coats

Sweeping the porch, to-do lists and notes

Sounds

Toasts filled with love at each holiday dinner

Refrains of “I love you,” “I am proud of you” made us all feel like winners

Hearty laughs, parental lectures, and endless wisdom

Advice, aphorisms and reading Blueberries for Sal to the children

Loafers beat across a hardwood floor

V for Villanova sung en route to the store

Memories

Political flyers down the halls at 10 East End

A reunion photo with college friends

Boeuf a la Mode for festive occasions

In the Fiat to Disney for spring vacation

Travers’ Island in summer, tennis whites

A kiss and a hug before saying goodnight

Glimpses, touches, images, sounds, memories

We wish you could have lived to infinity

Written by

Alicia Lindgren

MACRI--Theodore William, on May 31. Beloved husband of Joan, loving father of Alicia Lindgren (Douglas) and Theodore William Macri, Jr., cherished grandfather of Liza and Benjamin Lindgren, Theodore William Macri, III, brother of Teresa Macri. Graduate of Villanova University, achieved his master's degree at New York University, served our country as a Naval Officer Lt. JG. Known for his work as a publisher, "Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant".

Eulogy

My name is Alexander Hoyt and I first met and learned to admire Ted in August of 1978 when I joined his Doubleday department of 17. For all of you to truly understand the man I met, let me take you back to the winter of that year. My best friend’s father had died and I felt about him the way I feel about Ted. At that funeral the officiating priest described the father with these words: ‘you will never meet a gentler gentleman nor a manlier man’. I have not forgotten those words and every now and then I have known someone to whom they apply. Ted was such a man.

The Doubleday of that era was the giant of publishing the way MGM was the giant of Hollywood in the 30s and 40s-it did everything the Doubleday way, it had its own rules and with over 400 employees the saying went everyone learned the business at Doubleday. For those of you old enough to remember Rona Jaffe’s wonderful novel of publishing The Best of Everything, the word was that she had zeroed in on the old Fawcet with a touch of Simon and Schuster thrown in…Jerry Wald turned it into the memorable movie with characters many of us swore we worked with. One character one did not recognize in that movie was Ted…he was much too decent, much too patient and much too unassuming for a Brian Aherne office lech or a Joan Crawford office egomaniac. The first thing that struck us as we worked with him was that he was a superb teacher. There were many who took one aside and said ‘here at DD we do it this way’ but Ted was Doubleday for much of the rest of the publishing business and he taught us what was happening outside of the walls. We learned about the basics such as the often confusing concept of ‘earn out’. He explained to us the seemingly inexplicable concept that a publisher could and did make money long before the author’s advance was earned out.

After he had explained the fine points to us Ted proudly introduced us to some of the major players in book land_and he did this without the slightest fear of one of us edging him out. Instead he’d say I ‘mreally glad Alex or Liv is with us as he took one to meet John Zinsser of the Reader’s digest or Al Silverman or the colorful Ed Fitzgeral of Book of the Month. And then there were the great paperback editors – Leona Nevler or Bill Grose or Bernie Shir cliff or Victor Temkin or Ted’s great friend Alan Barnard…

In the past days I’ve thought back on the great authors of the 70s and 80s that Ted helped immeasurably. There were the big books by Leon Uris or Arthur Hailey or Herman Wouk or later Bill Buckley, Peter Benchley and Stephen King. Often Ted’s deals were of such magnitude that important peole took notice. When Doubleday brought out Bill Safire’s Full Disclosure and Ted sold the reprint rights for a then huge six figure advance to Ballantine Safire’s lawyer, handling his publishing contract as a favor, decided there was serious money in the business. That lawyer’s name was Mort Janklow.

There was the time Herman Wouk tired of the Doubleday insistence on splitting the paperback money 50/50 and Ted would tell us with relish what happened next-Wouk and his agent made one of the first of the hard/soft deals-selling the hardcover rights to his current publisher Little, Brown and then making a separate deal with his old paperback publisher Pocket Books. Wouk was used to Ted’s great renewal negotiations once a license ran out and when seven years were up on Wouk’s new deal he and the agent went to Pocket for renewal negotiations ala Macri-‘Mr. Wouk, they were told, ‘you signed a life of copyright contract’. Now that’s the kind of mistake Ted never would have made and I’d like to think that any of us who trained under him never did. I’m certainly not going to ask for a show of hands to the contrary here.

Possibly Ted’s most prescient deal making concerned Steven King. At the time of Carrie and the Stand Ted saw in King a new giant of books…and he was wise enough to find an equally astute paperback editor in Elaine Koster…and from that moment on Stephen King was a made man, a veritable industry.

Of course Ted never stopped learning, he was always watching, listening ,observing. He tried his best to share what he’d learned with his colleagues but DD was a bastion and soon a fortress mentality set in and the company was on it s way to a record sale to Bertelsmann and the company we all knew and where we learned our lessons and so many of the people we grew to love was no more.

By the time we were going our separate ways we had become friends with Ted and the memories lingered on, the lessons were heeded, and the respect and affection lasted and we attest to them all here and now. Thank you