It’s a sad day in Sam Spade’s San Francisco.
Got a note from Mike Humbert last night to inform me that Bill Arney died yesterday morning, September 28 2021.
As of now, I don’t know what got him. I’m kicking around tons of favorite memories to toss out later with various In Memoriams.
Bill can be seen above, on the left, regaling a tour that stopped into the Sam Spade apartment in 891 Post after his years as the tenant — the apartment where Dashiell Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon, and where Spade lives in the course of the novel.
I met Bill when he came on the Dashiell Hammett Tour in 1982, and of our many interactions you can find mention if you punch his name into the Search Bar or hit it in the Tags.
Bill became most widely known doing his Voice of Noir gig for the film noir screenings in the Castro Theatre, but now the Voice of Noir is silent.
A pillar of the Hammett Cult is gone.
