Campbell, 69, brought artifacts to Memphis
It was 1992, and Memphis had nailed down an impressive deal. The government of Turkey had agreed to release many of its cultural treasures for a special exhibit in Memphis, including the Topkapi dagger, an ornamental weapon decorated with huge emeralds.
One man would personally transport this Turkish national treasure to Memphis. His name was Glen Campbell. He made the plane trip with the case holding the dagger handcuffed to his wrist.
That was one of many adventures that Campbell experienced as a high-level administrator within the Wonders exhibition series.
Campbell died Dec. 18 after suffering a stroke five days earlier, his son John Campbell said. He was 69.
Among the other objects Campbell and the Wonders team helped bring to Memphis were the red and gold carriage that brought Russian empress Catherine the Great to her 1762 coronation, a massive portrait of French emperor Napoleon by master painter Jacques-louis David and life-sized soldier statues collected from Chinese imperial tombs.
Exhibits at The Pyramid and other big Memphis venues drew hundreds of thousands of people from the late 1980s until the final exhibit in 2005. Campbell played a key role in the negotiations with foreign governments for loans of the artifacts.
Not to be confused with the late country singer of the same name, Campbell is also remembered for his expertise in judo, a Japanese sport similar to wrestling. He was a high-level black belt and finished fifth in the 1972 U.S. Olympic trials. He was still coaching students shortly before his death.
Pulling off ‘impossible’ art loan deals
The history of the Wonders exhibit dates to the late 1980s, when late Memphis cotton executive Rudi Scheidt and his wife Honey Scheidt worked with then-mayor Dick Hackett to bring a toplevel exhibit of Egyptian antiquities to Memphis.
Hackett had known Campbell since they were students together at Hillcrest High School in Whitehaven and recalled him as highly intelligent with many friends. Campbell would later go to work in the city’s parks department and it was from there that he joined Hackett in the cultural project.
Hackett described how he and Campbell visited the city of Memphis in Egypt and first saw a massive statue of pharaoh Ramesses the Great.
“The Ramesses statue was in shambles, in multiple pieces facedown in the mud,” Hackett recalled this week. “And I said ‘Let’s get that restored.’ He said ‘what?’”
“He would take an impossible statement like that and make it happen.”
Campbell and the team managed to reach a deal with the Egyptian government, restore the Ramesses statue and bring it to Memphis as the centerpiece of an exhibition.
The Ramesses the Great exhibition opened in 1987, drew a reported 674,395 visitors and turned a profit of $1 million.
“We were the first institution other than a museum that had done a largescale international exhibition, and certainly nothing like this had ever come to this area,” Campbell said in a 2006 interview. He called it “museum light,” an entertaining blend of fine art and history. “We made it easy for people to understand and enjoy and, hopefully, become more culturally aware.”
The original statue was returned to Egypt. A replica statue now stands at the University of Memphis.
That first exhibit set the stage for the subsequent Wonders series, which began as an arm of city government and later spun off into a separate entity.
Working with a team that included Hackett, Wonders executive Jim Broughton and others, Campbell would meet in person with notable world leaders. To line up an exhibit of Etruscan art borrowed from the Vatican, Campbell and the team met Pope John Paul II.
His wife Nellie Campbell said she always asked her husband to bring home souvenirs. He did so on the Vatican trip. “He came with a bust of Julius Cesar made out of marble. That thing weighs a small ton.”
Today that bust decorates their home near Horn Lake along with items from Glen Campbell’s other interests: memorabilia from Formula One racing, posters from old horror movies, including “The Blob” and binoculars at strategic points near windows to watch birds, she said.
How did he convince the foreign officials to hand over their art treasures? Hackett said Campbell was a quick study and already knew a lot about the history of many countries.
“He was sincere about wanting to share the culture,” Hackett said. “He obviously loved Memphis. And he was so good at convincing and picking out the objects.”
Campbell would seek spectacular centerpiece objects that would impress the average person, Hackett recalled.
The jeweled Topkapi dagger was one of those. Campbell learned that one of the key Turkish officials had a wrestling background — similar to his own longtime interest in judo — and in a conversation last year Campbell recalled using that background to build rapport with the official and help close the deal.
The Turkish officials would only let the dagger go under heavy security: Campbell’s son John Campbell said in Turkey, his father was transported to the airport in an armored vehicle and accompanied by armed guards on the plane to the U.S.
The Wonders series ran into financial trouble as attendance lagged for some of the final exhibitions in the series. The last exhibit was 2005’s “The Art of the Motorcycle.”
For Glen Campbell, the end of the program was a disappointment. But he would later find meaning in a sport he’d practiced for years, judo.
Judo coaching
In retirement, Campbell stepped up his judo coaching, working out at venues including The Fight Clinic in Southaven and later Memphis Judo and Jiu-jitsu.
He tended to bring out the best in students, treating the less athletic as though they, too, were true athletes. On the road to tournaments, he’d sometimes play Broadway show tunes and old radio dramas on the vehicle’s stereo.
“I think he’s a likeable, fun guy and easy to learn from,” his son said. “A lot of people, like you and me, don’t necessarily need somebody yelling instructions. They need to just be taken by the hand and led a little bit on how to do it.”
The death of Campbell follows other recent losses in the close-knit judo world in Memphis. Another long-time coach, C.C. Wilkerson of Frayser Judo, died in 2019, and Wilkerson’s wife Myrtle Wilkerson, who had supported him for decades as the club’s treasurer, died this year.
Judo student Darrius Isom had learned from both coaches.
This week, Isom, now 23, reacted to Campbell’s death. “Sensei Campbell bought me my first real tournamentstyle gi (uniform.) I cried that day. I am very sad to hear that he has passed. He meant just as much to me as Coach Wilkerson did. I truly miss them both.”
Campbell’s mentorship of Isom was documented in The Commercial Appeal’s 2016 project about the student’s transition from an impoverished background to Christian Brothers University.
Campbell was in his home office doing paperwork related to judo belt promotions when he suffered his stroke, his wife said. He was taken to a hospital but didn’t recover.
Hackett said including Campbell, he’s lost seven good friends in the past two weeks, including some due to COVID-19.
“I lost a very dear friend. And he absolutely worshipped Nellie, his wife, and John.” The family life ultimately mattered more than the Wonders exhibit work, he said.
Due to the pandemic, the family plans to hold a small graveside service at a later date, Nellie Campbell said.
“The best thing about Glen, though, was he was a really good, kind man,” she said.
She said her husband was an organ donor, and doctors were able to use some of his tissue. “He lives someplace else. Parts of him.”
Note: Reporter Daniel Connolly was one of Glen Campbell’s judo students.
Investigative reporter Daniel Connolly welcomes tips and comments from the public. Reach him at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.