What happens when you put a prizewinning pugilist, an economist, a world-renowned opera singer, a Harvard House master and a television personality in the same room?

Richard T. Gill '48 stands alone.

A former Economics 1 professor who led Leverett for 16 years as senior tutor and then master, Gill has written books with Professors Nathan Glazer and Stephan Thernstrom, has sung with all Three Tenors and Beverly Sills, earned The Atlantic Monthly's short story prize and won a few boxing matches along the way. This all began not long after he entered Harvard College--at age 16.

Gill's sister says her brother has always been "phenomenal."

And his wife cannot help but chuckle when she looks back on her "very fascinating, if at times hair-raising" life alongside her husband of 48 years.

Longtime Harvard administrator Fred L. Glimp '50 says Gill is "as close to a Renaissance man as I've ever met," calling his former colleague "the kind of a guy that--if he weren't so nice and so kind and impressive in a human way--everybody would hate him because he's so dog-gone good at almost anything he puts his hand to."

With Honors

The Long Branch, N.J. native was a product of the Depression, the youngest of three children.

His father Thomas G. Gill worked for a billboard advertising firm hit hard by the economic crisis of the 1930s; Richard lived what he called a "tight, but very happy childhood," drawn to vocal performance by his mother Myrtle, a music teacher.

Gill met his future wife Elizabeth at a community concert when they were both 15. Their relationship was "stormy off and on," Elizabeth Gill says, "but ultimately it was on."

Placing second out of more than 100,000 students in a national American Legion Oratorical Contest in high school, Richard Gill came to Harvard in 1944 and led the Debate Council as its president, winning the College's Coolidge debate prize and delivering the Class Oration senior year.

A congenial man to interview, Gill was apparently quite the fighter--both behind the podium and in the ring--as an undergraduate.

After Gill accidentally broke someone's nose in boxing class, the coach of the varsity boxing team approached Gill and encouraged him to fight for Harvard.

Gill also managed to find a niche as a soloist in the Glee Club, the editor of the Student Progressive, the head of the Liberal Union and a member of Phi Beta Kappa junior year.

"I was busy," Gill acknowledges.