My 4 amazing 80-something friends became my 4 amazing 90-something friends. Now there is one left

[DFW]

13. Except for Helen Thomas, whom I had known since my age was in single digits

I met these people knowing I was about to meet a legend. And whaddya know, they are just people like the rest of us. That made it really easy to get along with them and become friends with them. Obviously, they are not people you run into at your local Chinese restaurant and hang with, but fate has chosen my path to cross with them, and I am richer for having enjoyed their friendship. I just think of them as Helen, Theo and Stan. Theo's wife, Tamara (now also gone), once told me that being married to Theodore Bikel was two different things. At home or in private, or with friends, he was just her husband, Theo. As soon as he had a performance, he was "the legendary Theodore Bikel."

Stan was a prince of a guy, loved being out with normal mortals (wrote me an email once to say hi to my "fabulous females," meaning my wife and daughter, who garnered almost as many "who are those two?" stares at lunch in BH as he did). He even tolerated, the first time I met him, my asking him how he came up with the idea for Spider-Man. I had to have been the 1 millionth person who had asked him that. But at heart, he remained the wise-cracking jovial Jewish boy from Brooklyn that he always must have been.