As a close personal friend to the New Orleans & Late Night TV Icon Morgus the Magnificent and extremely gifted spirit Sidney Noel Rideau, it is with a heavy heart on this July morning that I pen this one.

Like most guy friendships, we can go months at a time without a chat and then pick right up where we left off, with a lunch or a recording session.  So, in an entirely unrelated matter, I got Sid on the phone just yesterday only to find out that just months ago he had lost the one true love of his life –  Donia.

While we had spoken often of her through the years, I only knew of her through her answering the phone or in the background during our many phone conversations between NOLA and the north shore of the lake.

Sid & Aldona met innocently enough in New York City back in the early ’60s while he was the struggling actor & radio dude and she was an interpreter at the United Nations.  Really.

Their 52-year marriage included two beautiful children and a mutual love for the theater, the arts … and words. Oh, how they loved ‘words’.

It was ‘words’ that carried the lovely Aldona through Poland, England, Pakistan & Switzerland, all before even having met Sidney in New York. Catch up with just a bit of this woman’s spirit in her online obituary here  Aldona Nalecz-Tyminska Rideau.

Sid’s beloved and adored Aldona served all through those turbulent & chaotic Morgus years as not only his silent partner … but as the wind beneath his wings.

Now, all this having been said, Sid would just kick my ass if he even knew that I was writing these words. Of all the people I’ve ever met in show business, radio or the theater – Sidney Noel Rideau would have to be the most personally private of all. Truly. He fiercely defends his privacy.

So, to the reader of these words, a simple request. For prayers. For the spirit of his beloved bride. For healing. And maybe one of thanks – for all the years of enjoyment & fun his on-air exploits have given generations of late night horror movie fanatics around America.  And now, prayers for the woman who helped to inspire it all.

May God indeed bless you, Uncle Sid, and your lovely Donia.

“Don’t stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am the thousand winds that blow….

I am the diamond glints of the winter snow…

I am the sunlight that ripens grain…

I am the gentle autumn rain.

Don’t stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.”

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Airlift Productions ~ Audio Alchemy from New Orleans since 1984