Rafer Johnson’s body had grown weak but his spirit was undimmed the last time he attended a Special Olympics breakfast at Long Beach State. That was a year ago — or maybe two years, Tai Babilonia guessed, since she had seen him at a meeting of the organization that gripped his heart since he founded its Southern California chapter in 1969.
The precise date escaped her after she learned of Johnson’s death Wednesday, lost in her grief but comforted by memories of his selflessness and humility. His Olympic decathlon medals — silver in 1956 and gold in 1960 — were testament to his extraordinary athletic talent. His work with Special Olympics and other advocates for the sick and unfortunate testified to his extraordinary generosity.
“He was so frail but he was there,†Babilonia, a two-time Olympic pairs skater who became involved with Special Olympics at Johnson’s urging, said of that gathering. “That just tells you so much about the man and his passion and his strength and everything about Rafer.
“Rafer Johnson inspired me to be the best that I could be. He’s at the top of the mountain for me. What a loss, but what a life. And what a family.â€
Johnson’s children, Jenny and Joshua, knew little of their father’s athletic feats while they grew up. He had saved his memorabilia but didn’t display anything at the family’s Sherman Oaks home. When the kids were studying the ancient Olympics at school and asked him if he had anything they could bring in, he had to dig his souvenirs out of storage.
Johnson didn’t value his life by his dust-catching trophies. He was comfortable with who he was and his achievements as an athlete, and well as an organizer and memorably elegant torch-lighter of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. “We preferred to display the kids’ stuff,†he said while striding along Bondi Beach before Jenny’s beach volleyball match at the 2000 Summer Olympics. “To me, it was more important to build their pride.â€
Jenny Johnson Jordan is now associate beach volleyball coach at UCLA. Joshua Johnson, a three-time Bruin all-America javelin thrower, is managing director at a commercial real estate firm. “Whatever I’ve learned from him has been more by example than anything else,†Jenny said in 2000.
When Johnson retired from the board of LA84, the youth-focused foundation established with profits from the 1984 Olympics, the organization pondered ways to honor him. LA84 President Renata Simril, whose candidacy had been strongly supported by Johnson, deeply admired him and wanted to recognize the remarkable scope of his life. She was surprised when she asked Johnson’s wife Betsy to contribute memorabilia for an exhibit and was told they had nothing at hand.
“When I asked him about that, when he came to see the exhibition before we opened it publicly, he said he wanted to be a father to his kids. He didn’t want to be the Olympian, the humanitarian. He wanted to give them space to be their best self and not to be overburdened, if that’s the right word, by who he was as a person and as an athlete,†said Simril, who worked with Johnson on coverage of the 2015 Special Olympics World Games during her brief stint as an executive at The Times.
“He was just a dad. He always wanted to shine his light on other people and he said in his book [published in 1999] that he always used his God-given talent to be the best that he could, and he was. He just wanted to use his God-given talent to help everybody be the best they could be.â€
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Kobe Bryant, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sean Connery and more. (Los Angeles Times)
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Rafer Johnson, winner of the 1960 Olympic decathlon gold medal, was a man whose legacy was interwoven with Los Angeles history, beginning with his performances as a world-class athlete at UCLA and punctuated by the night in 1968 when he helped disarm Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin at the Ambassador Hotel. Johnson lit the Olympic flame at the opening of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. He was 86.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 3/25
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(Los Angeles Times) 4/25
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(Wibbitz/Getty) 5/25
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(Kiichiro Sato / Associated Press) 6/25
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Black Panther, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first Black superhero, Boseman became the face of Wakanda to millions of fans around the world and helped usher in a new and inclusive era of superhero blockbusters. He was 43.
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(Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times) 8/25
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(Charles Sykes / Associated Press) 9/25
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(Mark Humphrey / Associated Press) 10/25
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(Rick Diamond / Getty Images for IEBA) 11/25
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(Associated Press ) 12/25
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fervor and R&B sexuality, profoundly influencing the Beatles, James Brown (who succeeded him in one of his early bands), Jimi Hendrix (one of his backup musicians in the mid-’60s) and Bruce Springsteen. He was 87.
(Boris Yaro / Los Angeles Times) 13/25
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(ASSOCIATED PRESS) 14/25
Former Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak crushed dissent for decades until the 2011 Arab Spring movement drove him from power. During his presidency, which spanned nearly 30 years, he protected Egypt’s stability as intifadas roiled Israel and the Palestinian territories, the U.S. led two wars against Iraq, Iran fomented militant Shiite Islam across the region and global terrorism complicated the divide between East and West. He was 91.
(Sameh Sherif / AFP/Getty Images) 15/25
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burly Brian Dennehy played a sheriff who jailed Rambo in “First Blood,†a serial killer in “To Catch a Killer†and a corrupt sheriff in “Silverado.†On Broadway, he was awarded Tonys for his roles in “Death of a Salesman†(1999) and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night†(2003). He was 81.
(Dia Dipasupil) 16/25
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(Frazer Harrison / Getty Images for Stagecoach) 17/25
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(Suzanne Mapes / Associated Press) 18/25
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Ski industry pioneer Dave McCoy transformed a remote Sierra peak into the storied Mammoth Mountain Ski Area. Over six decades, it grew from a downhill depot for friends to a profitable operation of 3,000 workers and 4,000 acres of ski trails and lifts, a mecca for generations of skiers and boarders. He was 104. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
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Screen icon
Kirk Douglas brought a clenched-jawed intensity to an array of heroes and heels, receiving Oscar nominations for his performances as an opportunistic movie mogul in the 1952 drama “The Bad and the Beautiful†and as Vincent van Gogh in the 1956 drama “Lust for Life.†As executive producer of “Spartacus,†Douglas helped end the Hollywood blacklist by giving writer Dalton Trumbo screen credit under his own name. He was 103.
(Annie Wells / Los Angeles Times) 21/25
“Queen of Suspenseâ€
Mary Higgins Clark became a perennial best-seller, writing or co-writing “A Stranger Is Watching,†“Daddy’s Little Girl†and more than 50 other favorites. Her sales topped 100 million copies, and many of her books, including “A Stranger is Watching†and “Lucky Day,†were adapted for movies and television. She was 92.
(Associated Press) 22/25
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(Associated Press) 23/25
Former California
Rep. Fortney “Pete†Stark Jr. represented the East Bay in Congress for 40 years. The influential Democrat helped craft the Affordable Care Act, the signature healthcare achievement of the Obama administration, and also created the 1986 law best known as COBRA, which allows workers to stay on their employer’s health insurance plan after they leave a job. He was 88.
(Associated Press) 24/25
News anchor
Jim Lehrer appeared 12 times as a presidential debate moderator and helped build “PBS NewsHour†into an authoritative voice of public broadcasting. The program, first called “The Robert MacNeil Report†and then “The MacNeil-Lehrer Report,†became the nation’s first one-hour TV news broadcast in 1983. Lehrer was 85.
(David McNew / Getty Images) 25/25
Terry Jones was a founding member of the Monty Python troupe who wrote and performed for their early ’70s TV series and films including “Monty Python and the Holy Grail†in 1975 and “Monty Python’s Life of Brian†in 1979. After the Pythons largely disbanded in the 1980s, Jones wrote books on medieval and ancient history, presented documentaries, wrote poetry and directed films. He was 77.
(Associated Press) The exhibition, titled “Rafer Johnson: His Life. His Impact,†opened at the LA84 Foundation’s headquarters in 2019. The building is closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, but the display of his shoes, photos, and other wonderful memorabilia remains in place.
“We had a big celebratory Sunday brunch to unveil the exhibition and I called him a couple days later just to check in with him,†Simril said. “He got quiet and reflective. He said, ‘You know, Renata, you and the LA84 foundation, at the exhibition, helped me realize that I made a life.’ I like to say we gave him his flowers while he was still with us.â€
He didn’t build a brand, as many athletes do. He wasn’t an influencer by the current definition of someone who can sell products or sway public opinion. Good on those who do and on athletes who use social media to encourage voting and social justice. “Rafer wasn’t about him. He wasn’t about the limelight,†Simril said. “He was about quietly making a difference and inspiring people through his actions, not his words, not through press releases or about ‘See me, see me.’â€
He had an unexpectedly powerful impact on Babilonia. He pulled her aside at an event they attended in the early 1980s and asked what she was up to; she was then performing in the Ice Capades with partner Randy Gardner. “Rafer said, ‘Tai, with all that you’re doing — and that’s great and it’s wonderful — don’t ever forget to give back and to always pay it forward.’ And I had never heard the term pay it forward before,†she said. “That’s when I got involved in Special Olympics. … It was Rafer Johnson who planted that seed and it changed my life.
“He’s just this bright light. It’s a little dim right now, but for me it shines so brightly.â€
Rich Perelman, vice president of the 1984 LA Olympic organizing committee and editor of thesportsexaminer.com, knew Johnson was ailing but had difficulty accepting Johnson’s death. “It sounds so trite but he’s Rafer Johnson. He’s not supposed to get old. He’s not supposed to pass away. He’s eternal. And in a lot of ways he will be eternal,†Perelman said.
“I hope that people will remember not that he was a gold medalist, which he was, gold and silver medalist. ... This is a guy who achieved much more in his life after his athletic career than he did during his athletic career and how many great, iconic Olympic athletes can we say that about? He was the absolute embodiment of a living legend. There are very few people who you can say are literally legends in their own time.â€
Rafer Johson’s last race was run long ago. May the memory of Johnson the person live on.
