The Life of BERNIE ARNOLD To Be Celebrated Tonight in Nashville

It's cloudy and grey in Nashville today, which is perhaps fitting as people from all over gather to mourn the passing of Bernie Arnold, the matriarch of the first family of Nashville theater. But being mournful is the last thing you can come up with when remembering Bernie and her late, devoted husband, Henry Arnold (known as "Buddy" to his legions of fans, students and admirers). Rather, any memory of the revered pair of theatrical talents is limned with joy, amazement and unbridled admiration.

So while it's grey, and the weather forecasters predict enough rain to cause local creeks and brooks to overflow their banks, for the people who know and love Bernie Arnold, you can expect gloriously bright and colorful stories to improve your outlook and to make your day so much brighter than the meteorological naysayers may tell you. As people gather this evening to celebrate the life of the altogether amazing Bernie Arnold, spirits will be lifted, stories will be shared and the laughter made possible only by the commingling of memories will chase the blues away, rendering the rain and clouds obsolete.

It will be as if the dancing light in Bernie Arnold's eyes has changed the world yet again, just as she did every day of her life, transforming grey skies to a bright cerulean blue. Elegant and gracious, and engaging beyond measure, she always made every person she met feel welcome and at ease.

Known for her clever wit and archetypically Southern warmth, Bernie Arnold passed away Monday, February 23, at the age of 88. Her passing was swift - she had enjoyed a dinner with family the night before her untimely death - and without much drama. She went to sleep and didn't wake up.

Bernie Arnold, you see, was the embodiment of perfect timing and the graceful exit. And although all of Nashville theater is saddened by her leaving, we are all the better for having known her and to have witnessed the sublime pleasure that her life, in all its many ways, represented her love for her family, her friends and all those people whom she never met but whose lives were nonetheless affected by hers.

"To this day I've never experienced anything like being included in her life with such intimacy," remembers actress/singer/artist Bonnie Keen, whose friendship with the Arnold family could rightfully be assigned "legendary" status.

"Bernie had this elegance about her, a deep Southern woman's charm that never failed to engage," she says. "She was gorgeous and smart and obviously gifted as an actress and writer. She was generous and had such a razor sharp wit. She also had the most amazing flirtatious kind of sparkle thing going on in her eyes - a kind of hold on the room. I wanted her approval because I knew she was a fully present lady who had a strong opinion on what she saw in life."

"She was someone who could make you feel like a million dollars by the way she leaned in with a personal comment, encouragement - and many times a profound question," she surmises.

The Arnolds - Bernie, Buddy and their four children Chip, Nan (Gurley), Cris and Tim - are, without question, the first family of Nashville theater. Bernie and Buddy, over the years, worked with numerous theater companies, while Chip and Nan are considered among the very best actors to be found on any stage, anywhere. Buddy Arnold, the second recipient of the First Night Lifetime Achievement Award (after its initial presentation to Tennessean theater critic Clara Hieronymus), made the theater department at David Lipscomb University a training ground for many of the region's finest artists, including Nan and Chip, and which today is known throughout the theatrical world for its innovative approach to educating ambitious young actors, directors, artists and technicians.

During the First Night Awards ceremony in which Buddy Arnold was honored, his daughter Nan presented him with his lifetime achievement award and in 2013, she was named a First Night Honoree, the award that evolved from the earlier lifetime achievement awards presented to Hieronymus, Buddy Arnold, Ann Stahlman Hill and Nashville Children's Theatre and actress and drama coach Ruth Sweet, all of whom made theater in Nashville the compelling and challenging - and awe-inspiring - art form that it is today.

Although perhaps best remembered for her tenure as the food editor for each of Nashville's two daily newspapers (she was at The Tennessean from 1965-1973 and at the now-defunct Nashville Banner from 1974-1992 - and make no bones about it, she was one of the best food writers ever), Bernie was also respected for her turns on the stages of various Nashville theater companies, often sharing the limelight with her husband when the two were cast opposite each other. Theater Nashville, Circle Players (now in its 65th season, the oldest community theater group in Middle Tennessee) and Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre are but a sampling of theater companies made better by the presence of an Arnold onstage, offstage or in the audience.

In 2009, Lipscomb University renamed the rehearsal space of the Thomas James McMeen Music Center (located in the Collins Alumni Auditorium complex) as "Buddy and Bernie Arnold Hall."

"Bernie Arnold was the perfect combination of grace, artistic excellence and human compassion," says Carol Ponder, a 2014 First Night Honoree along with her husband, Robert Kiefer. Both Ponder and Kiefer are longtime artistic collaborators with all the Arnolds and, like most everyone else in Nashville, have great stories to tell which ring with authenticity and much good-natured fun.

"She could act any role, she could write anything and she could convince Jack Arnold that it was indeed a good thing to go to New York to receive the James Beard Award," Kiefer remembers. "One of the singular honors of my life was to cook the perfect Bouillabaisse for Bernie when she was the food editor for the Nashville Banner."

Vali Forrister, co-founder of Actors Bridge Ensemble and a graduate of Lipscomb University where she studied with Buddy Arnold, says that the impact of the couple goes far beyond just any classroom or theater:

"As my dear friend Mark says, 'Life read as art in their home. Every detail was designed and carried its own individual beauty like the endless line of people whose lives they elevated,'" Forrister explains.

Recalling her own experiences over the years, getting the know Bernie and Buddy Arnold, is obviously an emotional experience for Forrister, but one that's embroidered with shared moments, both large and small.

"I spent countless hours in that wonderful house on Belvidere. There were cast parties and post-final exam brunches, dinner parties and the private conversations where I poured my heart out into their deep well of compassion," she recalls. "In Bernie Arnold, elegance met authenticity. She was the essence of grace with a glimmer in her eye that saw right to your heart. I never met anyone who could make me laugh so quickly or who was more willing to join me in my tears."

Bonnie Keen first entered the lives of the Arnolds - or did they enter hers? With the intervening years, it's become rather unclear, I suspect - when she was a teenager, first becoming friends with them via theater.

"I was a teenager when I sat in awe during rehearsals for a Broadway musical revue at Theatre Nashville, watching the massive talents of Buddy and Bernie Arnold, Jerry and Nancy Jennings (Bernie's sister). Little did I know the countless ways they would inspire my life, faith and become a nurturing second family over the coming years."

As Bonnie shares her memories, it becomes apparent that she - like Vali Forrister, Carol Ponder and Robert Kiefer - became an integral part of the Arnolds' "chosen family," people brought together by a shared love of life and a genuine sense of humanity that pervades every recollection of the golden lives of Bernie and Buddy.

"As my friendships with Nan and Wayne [Gurley] grew, I had the great privilege of being swept into the Arnold family," Keen enthuses. "Sunday nights were the best ever! Bernie would put out a spread of fantastic food she somehow magically 'put together at the last minute' and we would eat, laugh, watch TV or movies and talk through life on many levels. I've rarely to this day laughed as hard and felt as loved."

The laugher and stories included affectionate ribbing of their mother by Chip, Nan, Cris and Tim Arnold, Bonnie Keen maintains: "Her children, Chip and Nan, Cris and Tim would delight and tease Bernie with tales of Arnold adventures. It literally felt like the roof might come off the house with laughter. It's hard to describe the joy on Bernie's face - at times mixed with protests. There were outrageous, fantastic re-enactments of family history."

Keen's memories are highly personal, but in the same effortless grace that she was welcomed into the Arnold clan, she shares them as she remembers Bernie.

"Bernie hosted a massive brunch for my wedding party when I got married," she says. "She cried with me when I had a miscarriage then planned a shower for my first child. She cheered me onstage and loved, kissed my face, reminded me of who I was and could become offstage.

"She once told Nan that she may not have birthed a physical sister for her but God gave her one in me. Her affirmation and decades of love left a mark on who I've become."

Bernie Arnold is survived by her daughter, Nan Gurley and her husband Wayne Gurley; her sons, Cris Arnold and his wife Alene, Henry "Chip" Arnold III and his wife Kay, and Tim Arnold and his wife Margie; her brother Tad Wyckoff and her sister Nancy (Jerry) Jennings; grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and innumerable friends and loved ones who will gather today to celebrate her extraordinary life.

Visitation is set for 4 to 7 p.m. at the Otter Creek Church of Christ, 409 Franklin Road, Brentwood, with a celebration service immediately following. Bro. Josh Graves will officiate.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Wayne Reed Center (waynereedchildcare.org/donate) or donations may be made to David Lipscomb University's Bud and Bernie Arnold Scholarship for Theater Fund, in care of The Advancement Office, 1 University Park Dr., Nashville, TN 37204.

"Bernie was a force of nature, one of God's greatest works of art and a gift in my life for which I'll always be grateful," says Bonnie Keen. "There's no way to put into words what it meant to be close to the astonishing, complicated, beautiful Bernie Arnold. Her legacy will live on in those of us who were lucky enough to be close to Bernie. There was simply no way to know her without being forever changed."