Actor and former Boston University professor James Spruill was remembered as a father figure, a dedicated civil rights activist and an inspirational patriarch at his memorial service yesterday afternoon at the Boston Center for the Arts.
Spruill retired as an associate professor of theatre arts from BU’s College of Fine Arts in 2006 and died of pancreatic cancer on Dec. 31 at the age of 73.
“Jim will always be remembered, and his presence will always be felt as if he is still with us,” said Kay Bourne, Spruill’s colleague at the New African Company, a Boston black theatre troupe.
Spruill was not only a talented actor, but also a trustworthy friend and colleague, said Gustave Johnson, a co-founder of the New African Company.
“When Jim and I started the NAC, he told me ‘I gotchya back, man,’ and he always did have it,” Johnson said.
While working on the radio show of WGBH’s “Say Brother,” now called “Basic Black,” Spruill focused his time on civil equality and was fun to have on set, said Sarah-Anne Shaw, a colleague from the show.
In a letter, actor Paul Guilfoyle of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” says he remembers fondly his days of acting with Spruill at the Theater Company of Boston.
“Jim was a great friend of mine, and I remember sitting in his home having irreplaceable conversations,” he wrote.
Other speakers at the memorial remembered him as a great professor who encouraged them to think.
“I remember being on stage at a rehearsal with Jim way in the back . . . and he shouted, ‘How you gon’ see with the sun in your eyes?’” said Sean-Michael Bowles, CFA ‘03.
“I thought about it for years, and now I finally realized he was trying to tell me to relax.”
Ben Posnera, CFA ‘04, explained that Spruill’s class was thought provoking.
“I left Spruill’s class not understanding at least one thing each day and went back to my room to think about it,” Posnera said. Many of his students are professional artists today and were inspired by Spruill, said Ryan Purcell, CFA ‘04.
“Jim reminded us that being an artist was not about acting like an artist, but acting like yourself,” Purcell said.
The distinction between Spruill’s students and family has been blurred, said Morgan James Peters, an artist who records under the name Mwalim, College of Communication ‘93.
“He was a father to me, so much that I’ve been calling him ‘dad’ since 1990,” Peters said. “From [Spruill] and Lynda Patton, I learned every aspect of theatre production—acting, directing, playwriting, lights, sound, set design, etc.”
Spruill’s son Robert Patton-Spruill, COM ’94, wore his dad’s red and white Palestinian scarf in remembrance.
While sick in the hospital, Spruill could not wait for his granddaughter Alejandra to visit. She was going to re-enact a school performance of a Frederick Douglass speech, said family member and activist Nancy Murray. “When [Alejandra] spoke, Jim’s eyes lit up as he watched his granddaughter’s voice become Frederick Douglass’, and he knew it was alright to die,” Murray said. “His job was complete.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
