A classy curtain call for theater titan Binger

F unerals don't just give me the blues; they also cause painful headaches. Yet I left Monday's memorial service for Jim Binger not just sad, as expected, but inspired.

Binger lived a fabulous, enviable life -- three intertwined lives, in fact. He was a successful businessman who rose to the chairmanship of Honeywell. He was a breeder of champion racehorses. And, most importantly to me, he was a theater titan with the elegance of a cool, confident character scripted by Tennessee Williams without any of the china-shop bombast.

His feats make nearly all of us seem like underachievers. Yet Binger, who died Nov. 3 at 88, handled himself with a grace and aplomb that overshadowed his résumé achievements. What mattered more were his treatment of others and his philanthropy to a community shaped by his family's giving; his wife and partner of 65 years was 3M heiress Virginia McKnight Binger, who died in December 2002.

There are countless stories of his personal philanthropy; he nourished theater talent with a genteel privacy and discretion. "We would have embarrassed him to tell the world how much he helped us," said Lou Bellamy, founding artistic director of Penumbra Theatre.

He was a most happy, if undemonstrative and unassuming, fellow; his actions spoke for him.

I first met Binger not long after I became theater critic at the Star Tribune a little over six years ago. He had heard that I was a fellow Yale alumnus and had wanted to talk with me about the school he loved. Of course, I had known about him because of his position as the third-largest theater landlord on Broadway. His company, Jujamcyn, owned five Broadway playhouses, and he and Jujamcyn president Rocco Landesman had a legendary partnership. Binger and I had lunches and many lobby conversations at theater openings -- he had an insatiable appetite for plays. He was curious about my work, but he was reluctant to become the subject of a newspaper article.

I would have intriguing conversations with him about theater, and he would offer some titillating bits of history, such as how his love of theater was cemented in 1935 when he took a train from New Haven to New York to see Ethel Merman star in a new Cole Porter musical called "Anything Goes."She was a knock-out," he told me.

Theater stories over lunch

Sixty-plus years later, he would own some of those theaters. After "The Producers," which was housed at Binger's St. James, won a sedan's worth of Tonys in June 2001, I pursued Binger in earnest. He took me to lunch and continued to regale me with theater stories but eventually demurred. There were other subjects much more worthy, he said.

But he had grown accustomed to me. Three years after the entreaties began, he finally relented to letting himself be profiled. He let me track him. I became a fly on the wall to a most amazing man, following him to business meetings in New York, to the Tony Award ceremonies in 2002, and on trips to and from the Wayzata home he shared with his wife, for whom he had renamed one of their New York theaters.

Researching that story gave me enormous respect for Binger.

He had a tremendous civic sense, which he shared with his wife. When the new Guthrie-on-the-River is finished, let it be known that Binger, who was a lifetime trustee of the nation's largest regional theater, contributed to its erection -- and not just financially. When then-Gov. Jesse Ventura vetoed funding for the Guthrie project, Binger, a lifetime Republican, got on the phone to lobby elected officials. As someone later quipped, "when he spoke, they didn't hear words; they heard cash registers." No matter; he used his influence for civic good.

"One of the things that he said he wanted to do over the last few months was to take in a show at the Guthrie," but he couldn't because of his failing health, said Ted Staryk, his grandson-in-law.

Elegance of character is not something obtainable, like a new spring line. Binger, a St. Paul doctor's son, had the breeding to be a leading man, but there are lots of inelegant rich people. He became the way he was by meticulous attention to details, by the sharpness of his mind, and by attention to such things as posture.

Of course, it helped that he was born beautiful and that he was dashing and dapper into his dotage.

At the funeral service Monday, Landesman, who is in the process of buying Binger's New York theaters, said that he knew he and Binger would have a long partnership from the first time he flew to Minneapolis from New York nearly 20 years ago. He was told he was going to be picked up with a car and driver.

"The car was a Honda, and the driver was Jim Binger," Landesman said. "Jim was a straight shooter -- text, not subtext. He had a great level of integrity and trust."

Also at the funeral Monday at St. Martin's by-the-Lake Episcopal Church in Minnetonka Beach, Rev. Leonard Freeman parsed the word "charity," explaining that it comes from "caritas," which means a deep love. Jim Binger, like his wife, embodied that, giving quietly, with a great sense of civic value, with a communitarian ethos, and with dignity. His life remains an inspiration.

Rohan Preston is at rpreston@startribune.com.