Peter LoPilato, the man behind city's eclectic movie scene and Ryder magazine, has died
The picture Peter LoPilato’s son sent for use with this story sums up his dad pretty well. It was taken in the summer of 2022 at the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Museum in Jamestown, New York.
“He was a big fan of ‘I Love Lucy’ and the picture is a reference to the ‘Vitameatavegamin’ episode," Ben Lopilato said.
He’s talking about the 30th episode of the 1950s sitcom, called “Lucy Does a TV Commercial.” It’s pretty funny, the kind of humor his dad appreciated.
If you haven’t heard, Peter LoPilato died on Thursday, March 7, at the age of 71.
“He was ‘the Ryder guy’ to many of you,” his wife, Katheen Mills, wrote on Facebook the day after his death. “To me and Nora and Ben, he was the funniest and sweetest goofball of a husband and dad. We remember him inventing elaborate stories for the kids, wiping the floor with us at backgammon, convincing us to watch cheesy Columbo episodes.”
And traveling, she said, “with a certain élan that no one else could match." On a trip this past December, a Eurostar train conductor asked for LoPilato’s ticket. "Billet s’il vous plaît,"
"No thank you," LoPilato replied. "I don’t want a sandwich.”
If this doesn’t make you smile, you didn’t know Peter. Whoever writes the screenplay for the movie must include this line.
Movies. He immersed himself in the nuances and magic of stories and film and plots sometimes not so clean cut and clear. How many thousands of movies did he watch? How many subtitled films did he project onto screens all around Bloomington?
When he started The Ryder more than 40 years ago, before the era of cable TV and movie streaming, LoPilato set out to find, and share, “the interesting foreign, art house and off-beat films he grew up watching in New York City,” Mills said. Then he was unsure if he could draw an audience.
He published the first edition of The Ryder, an alternative arts-heavy magazine, in 1979. He started showing movies around that time, at the old Time Out Bar, Bear’s Place, IU’s fine arts building, even under the stars at Bryan Park.
The films ranged from the 1978 French romantic comedy "Préparez Vos Mouchoirs" more than 40 years ago to the more recent "Rare Exports," a Scandinavian Christmas myth brought to life that was shown in December. Over four decades, LoPilato curated Bloomington's movie scene.
“He came to love the Bloomington vibe, especially hanging out at the Uptown and Soma, playing on city parks and rec softball teams, and playing backgammon while drinking endless cups of coffee,” Mills said.
They met when she was the arts reporter at The Herald-Times in the 1990s. “He came by the H-T every week to tell me about the latest films he was showing. He was witty and erudite and so easy-going.”
They married and had two kids, born when LoPilato was in his 50s. He loved baseball − the Yankees but also the Mets −and listened to games on the radio over the years on the back porch with the family’s various animal shelter mutts.
He was known, around town and in the film world. “Random people would email him asking about showing a Polish film or meeting for coffee or driving to a small town in Indiana to see if it could also set up a film program,” Mills said. “He was always happy to do it.”
The family traveled to the Netherlands, Germany and France in December, meeting up with LoPilato’s sister in Strasbourg for a few days. Then, on to Paris.
“Peter loved the European coffee shops and fresh bread and delighted in spending New Year's Eve arm in arm with us on the Champs-Élysées watching fireworks,” Mills recalled.
“But the best part of that trip was just wandering into little French bistros and having long lunches, laughing with the kids.”
LoPilato was living with Parkinson’s Disease and had heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in January. A medical emergency this month resulted in his death at IU Health Bloomington Hospital.
He faced difficult health challenges the past two years "with absurd levels of optimism,” Mills said.
Sylvia Aronson collaborated with LoPilato on some Ryder magazine projects and other events when she lived in Bloomington years ago. A lifelong friendship formed.
From her home in New York, she sent these words of remembrance, a poem of sorts.
"Coffee was the main juice when talking with Peter.
Just bits & pieces of life rolled into our conversations.
Peter was like the covenant of Bloomington.
All somehow tied in with his film, magazine, and other endeavors.
He was the string bow tied around many of us in different years that lit our day and lives up."
A celebration of life will be 3 to 5 p.m. March 24 at the FAR Center for Contemporary Arts on South Rogers Street.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Peter LoPilato, curator of Bloomington's movie and arts scene, dies
