Former Leverett House Master Passes Away

Richard T. Gill ’48, an influential economist, late-blooming opera singer, and former Master of Leverett House, died on Oct. 25 in Providence, RI. He was 82.

Gill became an assistant dean of Harvard College at the age of 21, rising through various administrative positions before assuming the post of Leverett House Master. Gill also taught Economics 1—the predecessor to today’s Social Analysis 10.

“He was obviously an outstanding teacher and everyone wanted to be in his section,” Professor of Economics Stephen A. Marglin ’59, a freshman when Gill was teaching a section, wrote in an e-mail. “I didn’t get in.”

His students remember him as “an engaging lecturer” with an “enthusiastic” and “exuberant” teaching style, according to Benjamin M. Friedman ’66.

Entering Harvard at the age of 16, Gill served in the occupation force in Japan before graduating summa cum laude in economics in 1948.

But those outside Harvard remember him as more than just an academic or an administrator.

While at Harvard, Gill began singing lessons as a way to curb his heavy smoking habit. Despite having had little experience with opera, he improved at an astonishing speed as a low bass. He subsequently played Count Almaviva in a 1967 Leverett House Opera production of “Marriage of Figaro,” co-directed by John C. Adams ’69—now a noted composer—and John A. Lithgow ’67—now a Hollywood actor.

“His voice is as majestic as his bearing”, a 1967 Crimson review of the opera noted.

Four years later, Gill drew national media attention by announcing that he was giving up his tenured position at Harvard to become an opera singer with the New York City Opera. His contract enabled him to sing two shows for $75 each.

“It took a lot of courage to make such a large and what seemed to me at least very risky career change”, wrote Emeritus Economics Professor Dwight H. Perkins in an e-mail. “I was even more impressed when he clearly made a success of it.”

Gill eventually sang with the Metropolitan Opera 86 times and toured internationally, in an opera career that spanned 14 years.

“If I failed, there was no way to return to Harvard,” Gill told The Crimson in 1998.

Yet Gill did not stop exploring. In the late 1980s, he helped to launch “Economics USA,” a telecourse for college and high school students, serving as its writer and on-air analyst in all 28 episodes of the series.

In addition to a large collection of published research, Gill also wrote fiction. Marglin remembers stumbling across a story called “The Code” in a 1957 edition of the New Yorker and being “so impressed” that he checked who the author was, only to find that it was Gill.

“Now there’s a multi-talent, I thought,” Marglin said.