Bill Hersey, who died on March 14 at age 87, was a fixture on the Tokyo social and entertainment scene for decades, covering everything from openings of Hollywood movies to embassy parties for the Tokyo Weekender, a pioneering free city magazine launched in 1970 by Corky Alexander.
Though "society columnist" was the label most often applied to him, Bill had many other job titles after first arriving in Japan in 1962, including fashion editor for the men's magazines Heibon Punch and Shukan Playboy, fashion columnist for The Japan Times, travel writer for the Weekender and other publications and, starring in 1978, public relations agent for A-Project, a club and restaurant management company. Bill's best-known association, however, was with the Lexington Queen, a Roppongi club he turned into a hang-out zone for seemingly every celebrity who passed through Tokyo.
Bill commemorated these and other interactions with thousands of photographs, nearly 1,800 of which were displayed at memorial service and party held at the Tokyo American Club last month. No captions were used and, in many cases, needed, since the faces posing with Bill were so famous: Liza Minnelli, Sylvester Stallone, Rod Stewart, Leonardo DiCaprio, Akira Kurosawa, Shintaro Katsu, Jimmy Carter and, in one early photo, Richard Nixon.