Andrew Johnston, RIP

When we first got together for beers in New York City, it was 1994 and neither one of us imagined we would be writing about television for a living. We knew each other's writing styles well, because every day he and I posted dozens of messages to Echo, NYC's most famous online gathering space back in those early cyber-years. Echo was my connection to a city that would fuel my freelance writing career and later lead to my being hired as television critic at a major daily newspaper at the age of 31. Andrew would blossom in his 30s too, and eventually become a full-time TV critic as well, at Time Out New York (writing for the section aptly named "Time In").

In early 2006, I heard from Andrew that there had been a "regime change" at TONY and that finally, he had been given clearance to attend the TCA TV critics' gathering in L.A. that July. I must say, I was really looking forward to introducing Andrew to the weirdness of press tour and to catch up on our lives.

He never made it.

Andrew Johnston died Oct. 26 of colon cancer, which he was originally diagnosed with in the summer of 2006, and which he informed me about with his usual characteristic optimism:

Unfortunately, it appears I have no choice but to cancel my trip to TCA at the last minute. It's the result of a situation I meant to tell you about sooner, but the whirlwind pace of events has kept me from writing. About a week and a half ago, I discovered that I have colon cancer. My gastroenterologist and oncologist said they thought I could go and begin treatment after TCA, but this morning I sat down with the surgeon who looked at my film and said he thinks it's important to operate sooner than later, so I'm going under the knife on Wednesday the 19th.

We last got together on December 14, 2006, in a coffeeshop in lower Manhattan. I had come to town the night before to say goodbye to another friend, John Higgins, who had died unexpectedly. Andrew looked fine, and told me he was responding to the drugs "super well," but admitted that "the side effects are getting gnarlier each time," so he wouldn't make January TCA tour either. We got caught up on all our shows -- our tastes had always been uncannily similar -- and we pledged to get together at the next TV critics tour in July 2007.

Andrew once told me that my own cancer had been an "inspiration" to his while preparing for chemo, but as became clear pretty quickly, my experience was by comparison a walk in the park. Andrew Johnston dies well loved and much missed by his colleagues, while I am left with fond memories of someone who stumbled into a great life in a manner very similar to mine -- and a reminder that it doesn't last forever.

Comments

[Erin Clermont]

Sweet tribute for the sweet Andrew. We were sorry to see him leave Echo, but happy that he had found something that he loved to do through us. RIP

[matt stechel]

i'm sorry about your friend and collegue.
I;m in my mid-20's right now, and trying to stumble my own way into some sort of career, no takers so far, but my friends have been mighty good. If you were to tell me that one of 'em wasn't going to be here a decade, decade and a half from now to either take my rambling phone calls or grab a last minute beer, i'd prob wouldn't believe it.(or wouldn't want to believe it more likely.)

I always liked Time Out new York whenever I got my hands on it. The Tuned In Section always included a selection of movies on tv that week---usually filled to the brim with movies being being screened in the morning or afternoon on TCM. I don't know if Mr. Johnston wrote that part of the Tuned In section, but I always enjoyed reading that page either way.