LITTLE ROCK — Whenever James Robert Cahill’s grandchildren went to his apartment for Sunday dinner, he avoided sitting with them beside the pool, with the sun beating down. And, if they went out to eat, it was always after dark.
“He had my younger son convinced he was a vampire,” said his daughter, Margaret LeClair. “[However], his vampireness was such to where he didn’t have to stay in a coffin.”
Cahill, who worked more than 30 years for the American Red Cross, died Monday at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rockfrom lung cancer.
He was 73.
Growing up in New York City, Cahill developed a lifelong love for horror movies and monsters, particularly Dracula. When he was about 8 years old, Cahill and a friend visited a Manhattan hotel where Bela Lugosi, the star of the 1931 movie Dracula, was staying.
“They sneaked up the back way, knocked on his hotel-room door and heard a voice from inside that said, ‘Yes, can I help you?’” his daughter said. “Daddy said, ‘Um, Mr. Lugosi, can I have your autograph ?’Then the door slowly opened and there was his bloodshot eyes and all of that, his hand reached out and in his Dracula voice he said, ‘Come in.’ My Dad and his friend turned tail and ran. ... Daddy said Bela probably laughed for an hour after that incident.”
In 1982, Cahill became a blood-mobile unit assistant for the American Red Cross in Little Rock.
“You see the big vehicles that say Red Cross blood services ... that’s what he drove,” his daughter said. “He would prepare the blood for storage ... made sure the cookies were stocked for the donors.”
Cahill drove throughout the state helping set up emergency blood drives.
“[People] would come in and say, ‘I can do this,I can do this,’ and they’d stand up and pass out and get real white in the face, and he’d have to take care of them,” said his daughter, Joyce Watson.
Cahill’s philosophy was take a job seriously, but enjoy it, and he enjoyed picking on the nurses, LeClair said.
“There was one time Daddy got an electronic flatulent machine and put it under one of the nurse’s seats,” LeClair said. “Every so often, he’d set it off.”
Tricks were his specialty, especially on Oct. 31.
“Halloween was his holiday and his time to shine,” said his son, David Cahill.
Cahill became Dracula, complete with a black felt cape, white ruffled shirt, a “big gaudy pendant” and slicked back hair, LeClair said. One year, Cahill blended in among the hanging skeletons, strobe lights and fog rising out of the giant vat in his yard, ready to scare the next passing adult.
“Daddy stood stock-still in the middle of the yard dressed like Dracula,” LeClair said. “A couple with their kids came over to Daddy and were looking, and the mom had decided, ‘No, it had to be statue.’ And Daddy then turned his head ever so slightly and said, ‘Boo.’ And she jumped out of her skin.”
Luckily, the couple was in good Halloween spirits, but the husband did give Cahill a warning.
“‘We just got her out of the hospital with a heart attack, please don’t send her back,’” LeClair said.
This Halloween, Cahill had his hospital room decorated in a “Halloween motif,” complete with a big bowl of candy, LeClair said.
A few days after Halloween, Cahill and his daughter got to watch his favorite vampire movie and, no, it was not Twilight.
“When Twilight came out ... Dad and I had the same opinion on this - vampires aren’t sparkly,” LeClair said. “They are pasty white and live in Transylvania.”
Instead, it was Dracula, starring Lugosi.
“Dracula just happened to be on,” LeClair said. “So we got to watch it together one last time.”
Arkansas, Pages 16 on 11/22/2012