32 N THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIESSUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020In 1988, James A. Johnson, a
Democratic operative, was help-
ing Senator Lloyd Bentsen, the
Democratic vice-presidential
nominee, prepare for his debate
with Senator Dan Quayle, his Re-
publican opponent. In reviewing
the research, Mr. Johnson noticed
that Mr. Quayle had frequently
compared himself to John F. Ken-
nedy and told Mr. Bentsen and his
team to expect him to do so again
at the debate.
When Mr. Quayle said onstage
that he had as much experience in
Congress as Kennedy had when
he sought the presidency, Mr.
Bentsen pounced, producing one
of the most memorable debate
moments in American political
history. “Senator,” Mr. Bentsen
said, “I served with Jack Kennedy.
I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Ken-
nedy was a friend of mine. Sena-
tor, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
“Jim Johnson was clearly the
reason the senator was prepared
for that exchange,” Jack Martin, a
longtime Bentsen aide who was in
the room at the time, said in an in-
terview.
A pillar of the Washington es-
tablishment, Mr. Johnson would
parlay his extensive political
skills into a second career in fi-
nance and emerge as a major
power broker who simultaneously
led three prominent institutions:
Fannie Mae, the Kennedy Center
and the Brookings Institution.
He died on Oct. 18 at his home in
Washington. He was 76. His son,
Alfred, said the cause was compli-
cations of a neurological disease.
Mr. Johnson was so well con-
nected and held so many powerful
posts that Harold M. Ickes, also a
Democratic operative and Presi-
dent Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of
staff, told The Washington Post in
1998 that he was “the chairman of
the universe.”
Even Mr. Johnson had a hard
time describing what he did for a
living. When people would ask, he
said in a 2016 oral history, he
would say, “I do some kind of com-
bination of public policy, politics,
government, philanthropy and
business.”
At another juncture, he ex-
plained his work this way: “I talk.”
But never out of school.
In April 2004, as he declined to
divulge details of the vice-presi-
dential search he was leading for
the soon-to-be Democratic presi-
dential nominee, Senator John
Kerry, he told The New York
Times, “I would discreetly charac-
terize myself as discreet.”
Still, he ran some of the most in-
fluential institutions in the na-
tion’s capital. The most conse-
quential was Fannie Mae, the gov-
ernment-sponsored mortgage-fi-
nance giant that he helped build
into one of the dominant financial
institutions in the world.
As chairman and chief execu-
tive, he led Fannie Mae to record
profits; its net income more than
tripled to $3.91 billion in 1999, the
year after he retired. Mr. Johnson
himself made an estimated $100
million in eight years with the
company.
He proved an aggressive lobby-
ist for Fannie Mae — making stra-
tegic financial donations to con-
gressional regulators, hiring for-
mer public officials from both par-
ties and paying for academic
studies that blunted criticism of
some of the company’s riskier fi-
nancial practices. He was longgone before the subprime mort-
gage crisis hit, but he was faulted
for encouraging practices that
contributed to the 2008 housing
meltdown.
Mr. Johnson was the “anony-
mous architect of the public-pri-
vate homeownership drive that al-
most destroyed the economy in
2008,” Gretchen Morgenson, thena business journalist at The New
York Times, and Joshua Rosner, a
financial analyst, wrote in “Reck-
less Endangerment” (2011),
which explored the origins of the
financial crisis.
They added that Mr. Johnson
was “especially adept at manipu-
lating lawmakers” and “eviscerat-
ing regulators.”In the oral history, Mr. Johnson
skirted the controversies of his
tenure at Fannie Mae. Instead he
focused on the company’s goals of
helping low-income families, im-
migrants and young people obtain
mortgages and own their own
homes, which he said was part of
the American dream.
He also shared a piece of advice
that he had received while run-
ning Fannie Mae: “Never say
you’re in the secondary mortgage
market; say you’re in the Ameri-
can dream business.”
Indeed, throughout his career
Mr. Johnson supported racial and
economic equality, starting with
his participation in the 1965 civil
rights march from Selma to Mont-
gomery, Ala., while he was in col-
lege.
Later, when he was chairman of
the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, he and his wife
at the time, Maxine Isaacs, creat-
ed and underwrote the Millen-
nium Stage, which provides free
concerts and other performances
365 days a year, making the center
more accessible to the public.
And as chairman of the Brook-
ings Institution, the liberal re-
search group, he recruited schol-
ars and writers to study demo-
graphic trends in urban areas and
the intersection of race and public
policy. With funding from the Fan-
nie Mae Foundation, he started
the think tank’s Center on Urban
and Metropolitan Policy, now the
Metropolitan Policy Program.James Arthur Johnson was
born on Dec. 24, 1943, in Benson,
Minn., a small town along the
Chippewa River where his Norwe-
gian grandparents had settled.
Within two blocks, there were 14
houses filled with his aunts, un-
cles and cousins.
His mother, Adeline (Ras-
mussen) Johnson, taught Latin
and German at the local high
school. His father, Alfred Ingvald
Johnson, owned a grocery store
and was a real estate broker. A
member of the Democratic-
Farmer-Labor Party, the elder Mr.
Johnson was elected to the state
legislature and became speaker of
the House in the late 1950s.
Jim attended the University of
Minnesota, where he was elected
student body president in his
sophomore year. He graduated in
1966 with a degree in political sci-
ence.
After earning his master’s de-
gree in public policy at Princeton
in 1968, he signed on with Eugene
J. McCarthy’s antiwar presiden-
tial campaign. He would go on to
work for several other Democrat-
ic presidential hopefuls over the
next four decades, including Ed-
mund Muskie, George McGovern,
Walter Mondale and Al Gore, in
addition to Mr. Kerry.
None became president, but Mr.
Johnson maintained a reputation
as a pragmatic, shrewd and
trusted insider.
When Mr. Mondale was elected
vice president in 1976, Mr. John-son became his executive assist-
ant.
“He and I both were from Min-
nesota,” Mr. Mondale recalled in a
phone interview, “and we spoke
the same language.”
After Mr. Mondale’s term ended
in 1981 with President Jimmy
Carter’s re-election defeat, Mr.
Johnson formed Public Strat-
egies, a political consulting firm,
with Richard C. Holbrooke, who
became a top diplomat in several
Democratic administrations.
Mr. Johnson returned to politics
to manage Mr. Mondale’s ill-fated
campaign for president in 1984.
Mr. Mondale said in the interview
that his landslide loss of 49 states
to President Ronald Reagan was
no reflection on Mr. Johnson. “I
wasn’t a very good candidate,” he
said.
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Holbrooke
sold Public Strategies in 1985 to
Shearson Lehman Brothers,
where they both became manag-
ing directors in the investment
banking division. Mr. Johnson left
in 1990 to join Fannie Mae as vice
chairman; he became chairman
and chief executive in 1991.
He stayed out of presidential
politics while at Fannie Mae but
returned to it after leaving the
company, helping Democratic
candidates with their vice-presi-
dential selection, debate negotia-
tions and transition planning.
Mr. Johnson briefly led the vice-
presidential selection process for
Senator Barack Obama in 2008,
but he stepped down after The
Wall Street Journal reported that
he had received preferential loan
rates from Countrywide Finan-
cial, the mortgage company at the
center of the subprime lending
crisis.
In addition to his son, Mr. John-
son is survived by his wife,
Heather Muir Kirby, a managing
director at Deutsche Bank; a sis-
ter, Marilyn LaMourea; and a
grandson. His marriages to Kath-
erine Marshall and Ms. Isaacs
ended in divorce.
After leaving Fannie Mae, Mr.
Johnson joined the boards of sev-
eral companies, including Gold-
man Sachs and Target. Since 2011,
he had been chairman of the advi-
sory council of the Stanford Cen-
ter on Longevity, which seeks to
implement technological ad-
vances to help older people live
healthy and rewarding lives.James A. Johnson, Power Broker Plugged Into Democratic Politics, Dies at 76
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYEJames A. Johnson, above in 1983, was a Washington insider who
worked for several White House hopefuls and ran former Vice
President Walter Mondale’s campaign. Mr. Johnson, left in 2004,
oversaw the search for Senator John Kerry’s running mate.DAVID HUME KENNERLY/GETTYIMAGESCalled the ‘chairman
of the universe,’ he ran
the Kennedy Center
and Fannie Mae.
DIANA WALKERRobert DeMora, a witty cos-
tume designer and art director
whose fantastical, mischievous
creations embellished Bette Mid-
ler on stage and screen, as well as
the casts of “Risky Business” and
“The Birdcage,” among other
films, died on Sept. 21 at his home
in Jeffersonville, N.Y., in Sullivan
County. He was 85.
The cause was heart failure,
said Rick Miller, a technical
producer and concert road man-
ager who was a longtime friend
and collaborator.
For more than four decades, Mr.
DeMora amplified and often art
directed Ms. Midler’s ever more
elaborate stage extravaganzas
with rigor, scholarship and a Da-
daist’s sense of the absurd. He
was responsible for, among the
other things, the ruched pink se-
quin gown of her “Divine Miss M”
days and the sparkly spangled tail
and sheathe of Delores DeLago,
Ms. Midler’s bawdy, wheelchair-
riding mermaid.
“She wears costumes that
Busby Berkeley would have found
excessive,” Roger Ebert once
wrote about her 1980 concert film,
“Divine Madness.” (He meant it in
a good way.)
Mr. DeMora and Ms. Midler met
in the early 1970s in New York
when she was just starting out
and “he was already part of a cer-
tain coterie of people all living in
the Village and trying to have a
big effect for very little money,”
Ms. Midler said in a phone inter-
view.
“The first thing he did that re-
ally knocked me out were these
waitress costumes that opened up
and became the American flag,”
she said. “Every bead had a mean-
ing and a history behind it. His eye
was impeccable, and he was a
genius at doing things on a shoe-
string.”
One bit of economizing came in
the form a volcano that was part of
the set for her 1999-2000 “Divine
Miss Millennium” tour. It was
made from stretch velvet and a
RibbonLift, a sort of stage crane,
and instead of employing fancy
pyrotechnics, a production man-
ager hid behind it with a fire extin-
guisher, which he then sprayed to
simulate an eruption. “It was
great,” Ms. Midler said, “until one
day it got away from him and
sprayed everyone onstage.”
Mr. DeMora explained it this
way to Entertainment Design
magazine in 2000: “We don’t need
effects; we have her. She is the ef-
fect!”
Mr. DeMora worked with many
other performers. For Joel Grey’s
“Borscht Capades ’94: A Vaude-
ville Gone Mishuga” — a live mu-
sic revue that honored the vaude-
villian life of Mr. Grey’s father,
Mickey Katz — Mr. DeMora
dressed Mr. Grey in an outlandish
cowboy outfit, complete with
oversize fringed chaps and a cow-
boy hat that threatened to swal-
low him.
For another bit, he turned Mr.
Grey into a duck, hot-gluing feath-
ers to a yellow shirt for a number
called “Geschray of the Vild
Katschke” (“Call of the Wild
Duck”), a parody of Frankie
Laine’s 1950 hit “The Cry of the
Wild Goose.”
“He was outrageous and un-afraid,” Mr. Grey said of Mr.
DeMora in a phone interview. “He
had his own style and vivacious-
ness in putting together cos-
tumes. And a real sense of humor.”
The theater being what it is, Mr.
DeMora’s work was not without
its share of dramas. Ms. Midler re-
counted the prelude to a “Divine
Madness” show that ended up on
Broadway in 1979. One number
was a homage to punk. But a cho-
reographer for the production,
Toni Basil (who became an early-’80s pop star with hits like “Hey
Mickey”) declared that Mr. De-
Mora’s costumes just weren’t
punk enough.
“She considered herself in the
vanguard of the punk scene, and
she took a pair of scissors to the
costumes, to punkify them,” Ms.
Midler said. “Of course, Bob had a
fit, and they didn’t speak for years.
“Oh, to see these two over-the-
top professionals go at it hammer
and tongs! I guess it was vandal-
ism, but it was also hilarious.”
Robert Schuler DeMora Jr. was
born on Oct. 22, 1934, in Lancaster,
Pa. His father was a machinist;
his mother, Winifred (Snyder)
DeMora, was a homemaker.
Robert discovered theater at
McCaskey High School in Lancas-
ter, where he designed, directed
and produced student plays. He
attended the Whitney School of
Art in New Haven, Conn., and
then the Cooper Union in Manhat-
tan.
When Ms. Midler became in-
volved in urban philanthropy, like
the New York Restoration Project,
which supports open spaces in un-
derserved communities and
lesser-known projects, like a the-
ater for Washington Irving High
School in Manhattan, Mr. DeMora
was an unofficial project manager.
“He could take anything on a
low budget and turn it into bril-
liance,” said Brian Fassett, a light-
ing designer who worked with Mr.
DeMora at Washington Irving.In addition to his work for Ms.
Midler, Mr. DeMora had a suc-
cessful career as a costume de-
signer for Hollywood. Besides
“Risky Business,” the 1983 teen
sex comedy with Tom Cruise, and
“The Birdcage,” Mike Nichols’s
1996 comedy with Robin Williams
and Nathan Lane, he created cos-
tumes for, among other films, the
“Marathon Man,” the 1976 thriller
with Dustin Hoffman and Lau-
rence Olivier, and “Cruising,”
William Friedkin’s 1980 police
drama starring Al Pacino.
He also designed costumes for
music videos and sets and cos-
tumes for children’s and regional
theater and ballet.
In 1997, Mr. DeMora was nomi-
nated for two Emmys, for art di-rection and costume design, for
“Diva Las Vegas,” a documentary
about Ms. Midler’s tour of the
same name.
He is survived by a sister, Mi-
chelle Dorsey. Another sister,
Audrey Caldwell, died in 2015. His
partner, Marc Paul Henri, died in
1989.
Mr. DeMora moved to a house
in Sullivan County after working
for years out of a studio on
Carmine Street in Greenwich Vil-
lage. He filled the house with his
“trash and treasures,” as he called
his collections.
“The place was packed with
books and prints and clippings,”
Mr. Fassett said. “The garage was
like a museum. There was the
leather jacket from ‘Cruising,’ a
sketch from ‘The Birdcage,’ the
set of Ray-Bans from ‘Risky Busi-
ness,’ and he’d pick something up,
blow off the dust and tell you a
story about it.”
In recent years, however, it be-
came harder and hard to extract
Mr. DeMora from his house, his
friend Mr. Miller said. If you
phoned or emailed to propose a
trip to Manhattan, or even to the
grocery store, he would reply with
his trademark rebuttal: “Dream
on, Louise.”Robert DeMora, 85, Designer of Outlandish Costumes
Robert DeMora contributed to
films like “Risky Business” and
“The Birdcage,” and he was
nominated for two Emmys.VIA BETTE MIDLERBette Midler said his
‘eye was impeccable’
for crafting wild stage
extravaganzas.
By PENELOPE GREENNathan Lane, left, and Robin Williams wearing outfits designed
by Mr. DeMora in the 1996 comedy “The Birdcage.”LOREY SEBASTIAN/UNITED ARTISTSMr. DeMora came up with the look for Bette Midler’s bawdy
mermaid character, Delores DeLago, including her sparkly span-
gled tail. He worked with Ms. Midler for more than four decades.ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGESBAYLESS—Jaye
Jaye Bayless, of Baltimore,
MD, passed away on Tues-
day, October 20, 2020 at the
age of 88. She is survived by
her children, Neal Bayless,
AndrewBayless,andJeff
Bayless; and grandchildren,
Chase Bayless, Quinn Bay-
less, Justin Bayless, and Kait-
lyn Bayless. Jaye was prede-
ceased by her beloved hus-
band, Theodore Bayless; sis-
ter,Mary-JaneRund;and
parents,Max and Adline
Nides.
Services are private, a public
memorial servicewillbe
scheduledin the coming
months. In lieu of flowers,
contributions in her memory
may be sent to Sierra Club,
2101 Webster St., Suite 1300,
Oakland, CA 94612. Condolen-
ces may be sent to Jaye's
son: Neal Bayless, 338 De-
graw St., Brooklyn, NY 11231.BERNARD—Richard P.,
“Dick,” 85, passed away on
October 21 in New York City.
Beloved husband of Barbara
for 55 years; proud father and
father-in-law ofJackand
Katrina, and Daniel and
Laura; doting grandfather of
Max, Ruby, and Kaia. Kind
and generous, with a warm
smile and infectious laugh,
Dick was a devoted family
man and friend, an old school
businessmanwho puthis
clients' interests first; a New
Yorker through and through,
and Yankees and Giants fan
to the very end.BUCKLEY—Virginia L.,
age 91, died peacefully at her
home in Leonia, NJ on Octo-
ber 21, 2020. She was born on
May 11, 1929 in New York Ci-
ty, the daughter of Professor
Alfred Iacuzzi and Josephine
Manetti Iacuzzi. Virginia is
survived by her beloved hus-
band of 60 years, David; her
devoted children Laura and
Brian (Wei); three grandchild-
renandherlovingsister
Eleanor Natili-Branca. Virgi-
nia graduated from Wellesley
College and received an
M.A. from Columbia Univer-
sity before embarking on a
long,successfulcareerin
publishing.
CHABRIS—Daniel Dominick,
age97, ofMadison, CT,
passed away on October 17,
2020, at home. He was born
on August 1, 1923, in New
York City to Luigi and Esteri-
na Caciagli, who had immi-
grated from Italybefore
World War I. Daniel was pre-
deceased by his wife Lois Fit-
zgerald Chabris, his parents,
and his brother Peter Chabris.
He is survived by his son
Christopher Chabris, his
daughter - in - law Michelle
Meyer, and his grandson Ca-
leb Meyer-Chabris,allof
Lewisburg, PA; and his broth-
er Anthony Caciagli and An-
thony's wife Lillian, both of
Costa Mesa, CA. Daniel gra-
duated from Stuyvesant High
School in 1941 and attended
Queens College for two years
before being drafted into the
U.S. Army in 1943. He served
for three years, reaching the
rank of First Lieutenant in the
Corps of Engineers and be-
coming an instructor at West
Point. Upon his discharge in
1946, he transferred to Har-vard University, where his
tuition was paid under the
provisions of the G.I. Bill. He
graduated with an A.B. de-
gree in Government in 1948
and returned to New York.
Dan's career in business fea-
tured stints working for W.R.
Grace, IBM, and Colt Indus-
tries, where he served as
Assistant Treasurer and was
involved for 20 years in mer-
gers and acquisitions, corpor-
ate finance, and pension fund
management. After retiring
from Colt in the late 1980s, he
became an independent di-
rector for the Invesco family
of mutual funds, where he
served until mandatory re-
tirement at age 75. Outside of
work, Daniel was often an ac-
tive member of his Catholic
parish, frequently serving as
a lector or a eucharistic mi-
nister and always singing en-
thusiastically. Dan's principal
pastime was rare book col-
lecting. He created one of the
largest private collections of
the work of Sinclair Lewis,
and also collected Washing-
ton Irving, Louis Bromfield,
and Dante Alighieri. Inspired
by his travels to Colorado for
Invesco, heassembleda
unique collection of works re-
lated to Wyoming and the
American West. He was in-
volved in founding the Wash-ington Irving Society, was a
lifetime member of the
Dante Society and the Biblio-
graphic Society of America,
and was an Honorary Mem-
ber of the Grolier Club for
which he chaired the Admis-
sions Committee and led sev-
eral important projects. He
was also a supporter of libra-
ries, donating funds, books,
and his own time to the public
libraries in his hometowns of
North Castle, NY, and Madis-
on, CT. He donated collec-
tions to the Harvard Universi-
ty libraries and established
the Chabris Book Fund to
support acquisitions at Har-
vard's Houghton Library.
Dan was amazed by his own
longevity. During World War
II he did not think he would
reach age 30. As a lifelong fan
of the Boston Red Sox, at age
81 he was shocked to see
themfinallywinthe 2004
WorldSeries,buthewas
even more surprised to live
for 16 more years (and three
moreRedSoxchampion-
ships). Daniel Chabris was a
great man who will be missed
by all who knew him well. Fa-
mily and friends are invited
to attend a Funeral Mass on
Thursday, October 22, 2020, at
11am at St. Margaret Roman
Catholic Church, 24 Academy
St., Madison, CT.Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths.