Jack Horkheimer, Star Hustler and Star Gazer, Dies

[Abe Sargent]

He died almost a month ago, but no story here, so:

Jack Horkheimer, a playwright turned amateur astronomer who inspired millions of people to look a little closer at the nighttime sky with his pioneering planetarium shows and long-running public television show, "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer," died Aug. 20 in Miami of a respiratory ailment. He was 72.

Mr. Horkheimer was perhaps most widely known as the ever-enthusiastic, slightly bug-eyed host of his television show, originally called "Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler," which ran for more than 30 years and offered naked-eye astronomy lessons in digestible doses.

He was still writing and hosting the weekly five-minute segment at the time of his death; prerecorded episodes scheduled to run through Sept. 5 are available on his Web site. Using plain language, cheesy animation and a trippy-spacey synthesized soundtrack, he deciphered constellations and explained everything from solar eclipses to the winter solstice.

"Greetings, greetings, fellow stargazers," was his signature introduction, delivered each week with caffeinated eagerness.

Often pictured perched on the cartoon rings of Saturn, Mr. Horkheimer also recounted age-old myths about the celestial realm. The constellation known as Lepus the hare, he reminded viewers in a 1986 episode, has been seen in the West as a "heavenly rabbit, huddled and cringing in fear in the grass beneath the feet of Orion the Hunter." Or, according to Chinese tradition, it is a rest stop in the sky -- in Mr. Horkheimer's terms, a "heavenly outhouse in the sweet bye and bye."

"If you've never heard this stuff before," he told Astronomy magazine in 2006, "it blows your little blue booties off because it's fun, fun, fun."

Millions of people each week watched the show, which aired on PBS and on the United States Information Agency's Worldnet. Mr. Horkheimer also organized stargazing parties and was a frequent commentator in the national media on comets, eclipses and other astronomical events. He called himself a science dramatist, not an astronomer, and was clear that his interest in outer space lay not so much in science as in more sweeping existential questions.

"Stargazing is all about where you are in time and space. The reason people get out their telescopes and attend star parties is because they are trying to peer out over the horizon to find their place in the universe," he told the Miami Herald in a 1982 profile. "If I can help them find that, that's all that matters."

Mr. Horkheimer served for 35 years as the director of the Space Transit Planetarium at the Miami Science Museum. He turned presentations there from academic lessons into whiz-bang shows that used music, metaphor and animation to explore the night sky and inspire curiosity about the heavens.

Tinkering with lasers and state-of-the-art projectors, he created images of floating, three-dimensional planets and other special effects. Among his award-winning presentations were "Child of the Universe," starring talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael as the voice of the solar system.

Mr. Horkheimer's early multimedia shows captured the imagination of young children and science-averse grown-ups alike, attracting wide audiences that helped make the planetarium a profit center for the Miami Science Museum. Planetarium directors around the world began to imitate his style.

"He changed the way that people thought about the use of planetaria," said Gillian Thomas, the museum's president and chief executive. "Jack was the first person to imagine it was an immersive experience that could take you beyond just what you see to look at the universe in a different way."

Jack Horkheimer was born Foley Arthur Horkheimer in Randolph, Wis., on June 11, 1938. He had a congenital degenerative lung disease that went undiagnosed until he was 18, leaving him with chronic pain and countless trips to the hospital.

His father, a wealthy publisher who served as mayor of Randolph, "wanted me to be an athlete and, because of my lungs, I could never hack it," Mr. Horkheimer told the Miami Herald in 1982. "I was always a failure in my father's eyes."

Mr. Horkheimer went to a Jesuit prep school, where he learned to play the organ, performing under the stage name "Horky." He later took the name Jack Foley and, eventually, Jack Horkheimer.

Through the years, Mr. Horkheimer struggled with depression, once spending five months in a mental hospital in Milwaukee and another time attempting to commit suicide by sitting out in the rain to catch pneumonia. He questioned his Catholic faith and eventually left the church.

He dropped out of two colleges before settling at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., where he studied drama and received a bachelor's degree in 1963.

His lungs had continued to deteriorate, and he moved to Miami in 1964 fully expecting, he said, to die. Instead, he met an astronomer who became a mentor and a father figure. It was because of that friendship that Mr. Horkheimer visited the planetarium and had an epiphany.

"I was in awe of the cosmos," he told the Miami Herald in 1978. He needed a substitute for the religion he'd lost, he said, and the stars provided it.

He began working for the planetarium in the 1960s and became director in 1973. He retired about two years ago. He was never married and had no immediate survivors.

In the mid-1970s, the local PBS affiliate approached him with an idea for a series of astronomy documentaries. Mr. Horkheimer agreed on the condition that he also produce a weekly five-minute segment. The first episode aired in 1976.

In early shows, Mr. Horkheimer was terribly professorial. When the show went national in 1985, the executive producer urged Mr. Horkheimer to lighten up and adopt a less-restrained character. Thus was born a more elated, more exaggerated version of Jack Horkheimer, Star Gazer, who ended each segment with an exhortation to viewers to "keep looking up!"

"I hated that character for two years. I wouldn't even watch my own TV show," he said in 2006. "Now, I like him. I realize that he is a character, that it's not me."

Professional astronomers often turned up their noses at Mr. Horkheimer's flashy tactics. He shrugged off such criticism.

"A planetarium is not for scientists. It's not for the PhD's," he said. "It's for the people."

[Abe Sargent]

I expect you folks to catch it when the cool people die.

[Abe Sargent]

The last Star Gazer, after 1500 of these from the 70's until today:

[Butter]

I used to watch him all the time in my youth. He made astronomy sound so FUN.

Then when I grew up I realized it was all math and equations and the joy wore off.

RIP, sir.

[JediKooter]

Damn, I always wondered what happened to him, but, I never knew his name to look him up. Big bummer.

[saldana]

he always had a 10 minute bit in between episodes of Star Trek on PBS...watched him every week for years...cant believe there was nothing in any of the mainstream media about him dying.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by saldana

cant believe there was nothing in any of the mainstream media about him dying.

Jack Horkheimer, 72, 'Star Gazer' and host of public TV astronomy show, dies
This one is from the Washington Post

Jack Horkheimer, 'Star Gazer' host on PBS, dies at 72 - Sun Sentinel

Jack Horkheimer dies at 72; amateur astronomer hosted 'Star Gazer' - Los Angeles Times

Jack Horkheimer, host of ‘Star Gazer’ on PBS; at age 72 - The Boston Globe

[saldana]

fine Jon, i will rephrase my thought....when britany murphys husband, who no one had ever heard of before she died, also died, and whose name was not even recognizable on sight, unlike Jack Horkheimer, it was front page news on msn.com and cnn.com, which is where i get 98% of my news.

this did not splash either of those locations.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by saldana

fine Jon, i will rephrase my thought....when britany murphys husband, who no one had ever heard of before she died, also died, and whose name was not even recognizable on sight, unlike Jack Horkheimer, it was front page news on msn.com and cnn.com, which is where i get 98% of my news. this did not splash either of those locations.

Because relatively few people know who Horkheimer was, compared to the number who knew who Murphy was (making her spouse notable by comparison).

Otherwise, it says more about where you're getting your news & what you consider "mainstream media" than it does about what all media chooses to cover.

[CrimsonFox]

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I totally grew up with him. Everytie I watched Doctor Who or Red Dwarf or Monty Python, he'd be at the end of it.

RIP
and keep looking up!