Part One: Ray Shepardson makes a video about his life in the theater, a video that turned out to be his stunning farewell.

WHEATON, Ill. – April 13, Ray Shepardson’s video:
From the time of his first efforts in Cleveland’s Playhouse Square, Ray Shepardson was known for his remarkable gift for restoring America’s grand movie and vaudeville theaters from the early 20^thcentury.

But as he conducts a tour of his memorabilia-filled house in his final video, it becomes apparent that most of his photos and mementos – and his fondest memories – focus not on the theaters that he restored, but on the celebrities who performed on their stages. Among all the photos, only one is of a theater.

He does point out a chandelier from a theater here, a table from another theater there. With a few, he mentions offhandedly that he took them from theaters he was restoring “after our parting of the ways,” or “after our dispute.”

This would prove to be a recurring theme in Ray Shepardson’s career.

As he pursued that career, Shepardson moved from town to town: St. Louis, Missouri. San Antonio, Texas. Seattle. Los Angeles. Chicago. Detroit. And more.

But, though he grew up on a dairy farm outside Seattle, Cleveland was his true home.

A spectacular entrance, a painful exit

He started his career here in 1970, when he worked for the Cleveland schools and was looking for a venue for speakers. He discovered the abandoned theaters of Playhouse Square, and in them discovered his passion and his future.

He was young and enthusiastic, and he had a kind of hip charisma that stood out in the deeply depressed Cleveland of the 1970s. He attracted a core group of believers, crucially Elaine “Lainie” Hadden, the incoming president of the Junior League of Cleveland, and Oliver “Pudge” Henkel, a Jones Day lawyer.

“He was the Pied Piper,” said Joe Garry, who was a professor of theater at Cleveland State University when they met. Garry had directed a production of “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” at CSU, and his longtime partner, David O. Frazier, was one of its stars.

The story of how the huge success of “Jacques Brel” planted the seed for the flourishing complex of theaters and real estate that is Playhouse Square today has been told in countless stories. The story of Shepardson’s exit from Cleveland at the end of 1979 is less well known, though the documentary “Staging Success: The Playhouse Square Story” tells much of it.

In that documentary, Shepardson said he had been thinking of leaving anyway. At the time of the departure, he told a Plain Dealer reporter that he was not bitter and had no regrets, and gave the impression that the parting of ways was a mutual decision.

Garry remembers that time much differently. “It was a very painful exit, his exit from Cleveland,” he said. “For all of us. I mean, how do you drive out the prophet from his land?”

Henkel, then the chairman of the Playhouse Square Foundation, said he was the one who had to tell Shepardson of the board’s decision.

“It was very difficult,” Henkel said. “He was the visionary who was able to imagine what the theaters could be, and not only that, but what they could mean for the rest of downtown.”

But, Henkel went on, “Ray had the dream, but we needed the practicality, not just on the business things, but also the organizational things. The organization had reached a point, frankly, that it just had to move on.”

As Forbes magazine explained in 1984: “It did not help [Shepardson’s] reputation that his foundation ran up a $1 million deficit during the 1970s. When he bowed out … the Cleveland Foundation gave over $1 million.”

‘A bull in a china shop’

It was not just the spending and disorganization, though. It was also Ray’s personality. Even the people who loved and admired Shepardson say that he could be moody and stubborn, and that he had an explosive temper.

“He got into disputes with people all the time,” said his wife, Nanette. “He just did. Ray was like a bull in a china shop.”

Garry put it this way: “People asked, ‘When did Raymond become so difficult?’ And I said, ‘Become? He was always difficult.’ “

After leaving Cleveland, Shepardson went on to lead, or consult on, restorations in many other cities. Often, he had plans to stay and run the theater, but it never seemed to work out.

He met Nanette, his third wife, in Detroit. He restored the enormous Fox Theatre there and, later, began programming cabaret – his first love – in the Gem Theatre. She went to work for him, doing group sales and some marketing.

“He loved operating the theater,” she said. “It showed what could happen when Ray gets his way with programming. That place just hummed.”

Ray’s way with programming had a guiding populist philosophy: Theaters are not just for the elite. Bring everyone in by booking as many nights as you can and offering a variety of shows each season – a theatrical show, a singer, a magician, a comedian. Offer ticket deals to subscribers: Buy Two, Get Two Free.

By 1993, Shepardson didn’t like the direction the owner of the Gem was taking. “There was a dispute, but the parting of the ways was eventually amicable,” Nanette said.

A return to Cleveland

So Shepardson returned to Cleveland for what he hoped was his last stop.

He began raising money and planning to turn the Hanna Theatre – which had been closed since 1985 – into a cabaret. Unlike the nonprofit Playhouse Square, it would be a for-profit venture, with five principal investors. By the end, he raised $4 million in investments and bank loans.

Before it opened, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported that Shepardson planned to operate the theater for the next 42 years, the length of his lease with the owner of the Hanna Building.

“If this doesn’t work, I am the one who goes into the woods to drink the hemlock,” he told the Crain’s reporter.

It did not work.

The Hanna Theatre Cabaret opened in September 1997. In an only-in-Cleveland case of bad timing, it opened during a rare moment when one of its teams was actually winning. The entire city was transfixed by the Indians’ amazing run-up to the World Series.

The cabaret opening tanked. Shepardson went back to his investors for more money, but in August 1998, the cabaret closed.

“That was the beginning of the downfall,” said Garry.

Shepardson often joked about killing himself. He had taken out a very large life insurance policy and often said, “I’m worth more dead than I am alive.” Everyone interviewed for this story heard him say it, many times, but they always took it as one of Ray’s self-deprecating jokes.

When the Hanna failed, Garry wondered for the first time if he meant it.

“I was very worried,” he said. “We were watching someone really flail and suffer, and I thought he was in great pain.”

Shepardson stayed in Cleveland and joined an architecture firm as a consultant on theater restoration projects. “I be broke,” he joked in a Crain’s story.

That gig led him to Waukegan, Ill., and the restoration of the Genesee Theatre. The grand old theater brought back the old, enthusiastic Ray, the man who climbed scaffolding and worked round the clock.