Bob Keiber in a scene from the movie, Trust Me I’m a Lifeguard
In Memorandum
Robert John Keiber January 21, 1944–October 18, 2021
B
ob Keiber passed away last month. Many remember Bob as a supportive, kind, and talented person, and yes, he was all that. Bob also had a great sense of humor and a unique approach to life.
Working closely with Bob on the Board of the Black Bear Film Festival, I saw that he was a creative soul who was never afraid to try something new. There were no boundaries for his ideas, and his tenacity saw him through to the end of any project. Bob was a renaissance man, whose creative muse spoke to him in all of his approaches to life. His prolific career included heading up the Media Communications Department at NY’s Rockefeller University, starting a theater company in the West Village, acting in over one hundred TV commercials, and playing the role of the original Kit on the soap All My Children. His love of art led him to curate the art galleries at Berkeley College, NYC, before settling in Milford, PA. Song writer, movie actor, and painter, too, Bob had vision and ran with it, always mixing in a sprinkle of charm and his own brand of wit. Bob loved to write and published quite a few books. Over the years, he often submitted articles with photographs, 22
poems, and haiku to The Journal. A favorite was his photo essay about his “Love Affair with His Lake” that we ran in August of 2019. His book, Urban Hykool, is a modern commentary about life in the Big Apple as seen through Bob’s eyes: Parcel driver throws boxes to back of the truckeach of them marked “fragile”. Bloomingdale’s beauty. I stare, she smiles and walks on. We had a moment. Seems out of place. tuxedo with cello rides Subway to the Met.
One of his books was called My Cancer Diary. As a seventeen-year cancer survivor, Bob gave back with advice and genuine concern. He handed his book freely to people in need and donated profits from the sale on Amazon to cancer research. People like Bob Keiber don’t come around too often. We were lucky to have had him in our corner of the world.
