Years ago, when a hot air balloon launched during the promotional opening of Jim Skillern Porter Jr.'s Hot Air Balloon Theater in Little Rock, an inebriated man tried to jump into the basket.
The balloon tipped precariously, threatening to spill its occupants onto the ground. But Porter dashed in, leaping for the man and grabbing his pants. The man let go of the basket, reached to hoist up his pants and fell, and the balloon ventured off safely.
Later the man, sobered up by then, told police he just wanted to catch a ride in the balloon so he could drop onto the roof of a nearby Little Rock hotel.
It was the dashing way that Porter, an entertainment promoter and a pioneer in the integration of Arkansas concerts, approached everything in life, friends and family said.
Porter, 83, died Thursday in a Little Rock hospital after a series of complications from colon surgery.
"He was so much fun," said Porter's wife of 39 years, Lillian Porter. "He did everything."
Porter was born in Little Rock in 1932 and graduated with a business degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1954. He began working with his father's businesses, which included warehousing, moving and storage, and food distribution.
But his true love was in music.
In 1957, he began his own entertainment management and booking agency. He was inducted into the Entertainers Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame in 2006.
Porter was the first to bring black jazz acts to the state, booking Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and Errol Garner.
In 1961, Porter was arrested at Robinson Auditorium for entering the "colored" section of the Little Rock facility while Ray Charles performed, Lillian Porter said. Police charged him with "attempting to incite a riot," and took him to jail.
"He told the police, 'Why would I want to incite a riot at my own concert?'" she said her husband told her.
Porter remembered that he was allowed one telephone call at the jail. He called Arkansas Attorney General Bruce Bennett and was immediately released; the police even offered to drive him back to the auditorium.
"He didn't feel there should be any racial lines with music and entertainment," Lamar Porter said of his father. "He saw back then that black performers had to stay in separate hotels, and he felt that was not fair."
Porter also founded the Riverdale Club, Little Rock's first integrated country club, and opened the Yellow Rocket, a popular entertainment center and arcade for children in the Heights section of Little Rock.
"He was a business person," Lamar Porter said. "He could get people together on projects. But entertainment was his first love. He went to what he loved."
Although he didn't play professionally, Porter was knowledgeable about music, said William Whitworth of Little Rock, a longtime friend and former associate editor of The New Yorker who is now editor emeritus of the Atlantic Monthly.
"He had a passion for music, especially jazz," Whitworth said. "For me, it seemed to make the music even better if you could listen to it with Jim."
Brian Brown, a former drummer for the jazz group Artistry, often worked with Porter.
"He kept us working in a lot of jobs," Brown said. "He developed tinnitus, which was beyond ironic, because he'd go out and scout for new talent all the time."
Brown remembered Porter as being frugal with his money. After a meeting one day, Brown noticed the tires on Porter's Porsche as being worn.
"I told him he ought to get new tires immediately," Brown said. "The sidewalls were cracking.
"He was so proud that he had those tires for 14 years," he said.
Sissy Shane Brown sang with Artistry and considered Porter a good friend, although she noted his penchant for making puns.
"I don't remember any of the puns," she said, joking. "I tried not to remember them. They were so bad."
Porter called Sissy Brown "Ethel Merman" after the American actress and singer because she, like Merman, was from New York and sang on Broadway.
"The guys [in Artistry] would never want to talk on stage when introducing the musicians," she said. "Jim would holler 'Hey, Ethel Merman,' and I'd do the talking."
Porter wrote several books of humor, including one called Making Manners Worse.
"It was so wonderfully chauvinistic," Lillian Porter said. "He was so funny, but he was so making fun of everyone. It's a wonder his friends didn't kill him."
Still, she said, Porter owned three tuxedos because they were invited to so many parties, despite his barbed writing about friends.
Porter wrote a column for the former Arkansas Democrat in the 1980s and noted Brian and Sissy Brown's marriage -- a month after it happened.
"He said she married a musician," Lillian Porter said of her husband's delayed wedding notice. "He wanted to see if it worked before writing about it.
"He poked fun, but he was the most loving man," she said. "He was the greatest gift anybody ever gave to me."
State Desk on 09/05/2015