New York Times May 3, 2003
R. J. Sinnott, 76, Last Wielder of 'Banned in Boston' Cudgel, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
R ichard J. Sinnott, the last municipal official empowered to ban
wickedness in Boston, died on Wednesday at his home in Hyde Park,
Mass. He was 76.
The apparent cause was a heart attack, his son Joseph said. He had had
heart attacks in the past.
For two decades, starting in 1960, Mr. Sinnott (pronounced sin-not)
upheld a tradition going back to the Pilgrims, who banned Christmas in
Massachusetts because it was too showy. He chased overenthusiastic
exotic dancers from saloons and forced Broadway producers to alter
their shows..
His official title may have been chief of the licensing division of
the mayor's office, but Mr. Sinnott's real power could be summed up in
three infamous words: "Banned in Boston." His weapon was his ability
to withdraw licenses from theaters and other places of entertainment.
Some dreaded a ban, but others heartily welcomed one on the theory
that a "banned" label might not hurt at the box office. Boston's
official censor knew this.
"Why whack it and make a bomb a best seller?" Mr. Sinnott told The
Boston Globe in 1964.
Indeed, when the only stripper he ever banished told her agent she was
banned in Boston, her salary tripled. She profusely thanked the
censor.
When he refused to ban a African-themed ballet in which dancers bared
their breasts because it seemed authentic, producers were irate. They
sent him a postcard from New York two weeks later. "Thanks a lot," it
read. "The show closed."
In the 19th century, the banner for censorship in Boston was carried
by the New England League for the Suppression of Vice. Boston became
nationally famous for banning things. In 1929, 60 books were banned,
including some by Hemingway and Whitman. That same year, people who
wanted to see Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude" had to go to
Quincy. Book-banning was halted in Boston in the 1950's.
Mr. Sinnott scrutinized targets including "Hair," which he hated but
could find no reason to ban, and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." He
persuaded the playwright, Edward Albee, who vowed never to return to
Boston, to delete 60 lines.
Not all Mr. Sinnott's actions concerned legally prohibited matters
like blasphemy. When he prevented the singer Marvin Gaye from
performing in Boston during the fight over school busing in the
1970's, he said he did not want whites and blacks mingling for fear
they would kill one another.
As public tastes changed and courts loosened definitions of obscenity,
the numbers of cases, always sparse, dropped. Mr. Sinnott had other
work to keep him busy as press secretary to Mayor John F. Collins,
editor of the city record and official city greeter.
"I think he did it as a joke," Mr. Sinnott said in an interview with
The Globe in 1995 of Mayor Collins's naming him to the greeter's
position. "He said, `I suppose when you go to the airport to welcome
visitors, people won't know if they're being greeted or banned.' "
This sort of wit was an essential part of Mr. Sinnott's makeup. He
loved to tell stories, like the one in which he was checking out a
dancer who might have been skirting her skirt a bit flagrantly.
"Approaching the bartender, I announce, `I'd like a few minutes with
your stripper,' " Mr. Sinnott said.
"Who doesn't?" was the reply.
He also knew Boston's Democratic clubhouses and wards intimately, not
to mention its Roman Catholic churches, and his city office had a bust
of Cardinal Richard J. Cushing and a picture of President John F.
Kennedy.
Mr. Sinnott was born in Dorchester, Mass., on May 5, 1926. He joined
the Navy after high school, and later attended the Bryant & Stratton
Business College, where he set the shorthand speed record for men. He
graduated from Curry College.
He then worked as a reporter and editor for The Associated Press,
where he learned to type so fast he later shunned computers because
they slowed him down. He met his future wife, a nurse, when he was
assigned to report on the condition of Peggy Lee, who was in the
hospital.
"None of your business," the former Una Marie Montgomery snapped in
reply. They married in 1955.
In addition to his wife and his son Joseph, of Winthrop, Mass., Mr.
Sinnott is survived by three other sons, William, of Hyde Park, and
Richard III and James, both of Boston, and six grandchildren.
After Mr. Sinnott stepped down as censor in 1980, no one succeeded
him. He became a radio and television host and wrote a column for
neighborhood newspapers in Boston.
By 1988 he told The Associated Press that he was not sure the 10 or so
bans he had actually issued were worth the trouble. He said they might
have made Bostonians look like "party poopers."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company