Longtime entertainment critic Willard dies at 86

Monday, Jan. 31, 2000 | 10:37 a.m.

Bill Willard knew how to critique the arts because, first and foremost, he was an artist.

In an Oct. 26, 1980, Sun story, Willard, the Sun's first entertainment columnist, said a critic should first be a performer.

"My opinions and critiques stem from the knowledge of having been there -- I know how it feels to be on stage in a cold sweat," said Willard, a longtime show reviewer for Daily Variety and one of Las Vegas' earliest and staunchest advocates for the arts.

"Since I am an artist, I'm able to comprehend the visual forces in the presentation of an act. ... (Comedian) Buddy Hackett said that a person should never be a critic unless he has been 15 feet onstage, behind the spotlight. I agree with that."

Willard, a journalist, painter, sculptor, entertainer, producer, disc jockey and businessman who served as the first executive director of the Nevada State Council on the Arts, died Thursday of heart failure at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. He was 86.

Services were private for the Las Vegas resident of 51 years.

"Bill was from the old school -- he thought that if you were going to open a show and charge the regular price, then the show should be ready to be reviewed," longtime Las Vegas entertainment columnist Joe Delaney said.

"If you weren't ready, shame on you. Yet he criticized in a constructive manner. He criticized the performer's performance, not the performer personally. And he didn't hang out with the performers because he felt it would be harder to criticize friends."

Delaney long worked with Willard and music publisher and author Arnold Shaw, gathering interviews with entertainers for UNLV's Arnold Shaw Popular Music Research Center. In May 1990 Willard was appointed director of the center following Shaw's death. A facility housing the interviews is scheduled to open this year.

During his journalism career, Willard also wrote entertainment columns for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in the early 1980s and the Las Vegas Israelite from the 1980s to the '90s. As a columnist he covered all of the show business greats of the last half of the 20th century.

Willard panned Elvis Presley's 1956 Las Vegas debut. The show closed after a brief run. It would be many years before Presley, who became perhaps Las Vegas' top drawing act of all time, returned to town and headlined at the Las Vegas International, now the Las Vegas Hilton.

As an artist, Willard's works included "El Toro," a huge wood carving that was displayed at the old Hacienda hotel, and the historic painting "City Hall 1960," which was destroyed in a fire at Nevada Southern Title Co., where it had been exhibited.

Willard also created "The Four Seasons," his first major commissioned sculpture, which stood in Saks Fifth Avenue on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

As an actor, Willard performed with and directed the Las Vegas Community Players at the old War Memorial building, where Las Vegas City Hall now stands, and appeared at the Meadows Playhouse in roles that included Dr. Bradman in "Blythe Spirit."

Willard performed as the villain in the melodrama "M' Liss" in 1951 at the Birdcage Theatre of the Last Frontier on the Strip. So convincing was he in the role that the audience hissed at his evil character and pelted him with peanuts.

Willard also performed as a straight man to one of Burlesque's top bananas, Hank Henry, after Henry moved to Las Vegas to work at the Silver Slipper next to the Last Frontier.

Willard appeared in the television shows "Vegas" and "Quincy."

As a disc jockey, Willard introduced the first jazz radio show to Las Vegas on KRAM and the first classical request show on KENO. Willard also was host of KENO's "The Green Room" talk show.

In 1966 Gov. Grant Sawyer appointed Willard executive director of the newly created Nevada State Council on the Arts.

Born April 27, 1913, in Terre Haute, Ind., Willard graduated from Muir Tech High School in Pasadena, Calif. In a May 15, 1990, Sun story, Willard said he went to New York to "gain a hard knocks diploma (instead of) ruining a perfectly decent college."

For five years Willard studied at the Arts Students League in New York before becoming interior display artist for the Lord & Taylor department store. He returned to Los Angeles to manage window displays for Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills and perform at the acclaimed Pasadena Playhouse.

While in the military during World War II, Willard began writing, producing and hosting radio shows for the Armed Forces Radio Network in Hollywood and produced V-Disc recordings of popular artists of that time. After the war, he wrote and produced early television pilots.

Willard came to Las Vegas in 1949 to write and produce a network radio show, "Honeymoon Hotel" from the Last Frontier. That same year, Willard wrote, directed and produced the first Las Vegas Press Club "Branding Irons," at the old Thunderbird Hotel on the Strip.

For five years in the 1950s he worked as a writer and performer at the Silver Slipper.

All the while, Willard penned his Sun column and was appointed in the early 1950s as the paper's first entertainment editor.

Later Willard ran his own Las Vegas public relations firm.

Willard taught at the Las Vegas Arts League and was an instructor in advertising art at UNLV.

In the early 1970s he served as chairman of the Las Vegas Planning Commission.

Willard took great pride in being Variety's man in Las Vegas from the 1960s to the '90s. Although he wrote stories under his regular byline, his reviews were signed simply "Will."

In a 1980 Sun story Willard said that reviewers for the Los Angeles-based entertainment trade journal were instructed not to write cute reviews or pan acts without using constructive criticism.

"I learned the hard way how to review for Variety," Willard said. "It has its own method and approach to show business. It's the bible of show business, and it takes its own opinions seriously."

Willard was a member of Actors Equity and the Screen Actors Guild.

He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Lucy Willard, who performed as one of the June Taylor Dancers on the Strip in the 1950s; a brother, Betram Willard, of California; and a sister, Frances Willard, of England.

The family requests donations in Willard's name to Nathan Adelson Hospice.