Nicholas A. Salerno

Nick is still missed and admired!

I just read through several of the memories that people had of Nick Salerno; he touched a lot of lives. As teacher, mentor, friend and of course "Mr. Cinema Classics" on public television, Nick will always be in my memory as a nice person who cared.

In 1958 Nick Salerno taught freshman English for the first time at ASU. He was excited to show us all how it would enrich our lives. We could almost breathe his sincerity. Fast forward to the final exam. I rechecked all my answers and only pondered the meaning of the "fire or ice" question. Everyone had turned in their papers and he started correcting them. He made many corrections then rubbed his eyes. I handed him my test and he smiled. He knew I would do well. He signed my request to...

Whenever I see a classic film on TV, I would often think of how Nick Salerno would critique the film's production values or the story editing. I just saw, (March 2021), an early 1980's Rob Lowe film on television the other day and I remembered Nick telling me he recently interviewed a very young Rob Lowe a few weeks earlier back in 1988 when I was on the ASU campus.

Just today I learned of Prof. Salerno's passing as I went through some old papers and found a letter from him sent in 1977. I had been a student of his History and Art In Film as well as a participant in his student film review group. He acknowledged that although he didn't know all his students by name, he thanked me for attending his class and participating in the review group. I looked him up online.

His class was a favorite of mine, and like thousands of others in the Phoenix...

Nick Salerno, my oldest friend, now partly gone else-when,
remains my teacher, my conscience, and my second dearest critic.

Together we will still maintain

a place in the cosmos of stories to fit it all in
and then some.

Its still the story that counts. Always.
Even for those of us who choose to stay
in the rock-strewn outlands
above Tempe or Dorset or far Wessex
munching the simple joys of jujubes and popcorn,
the...

It was early in my college publishing career in 1987 when I was in Nick's office at Arizona State. Nick had just heard some very good news regarding one of his faculty members. He was very proud not only for her accomplishment but also for ASU.

Rita Dove had just won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. A huge honor and Nick was very proud that one of his colleagues was being awarded. Even though I was relatively new to the publishing world, I knew this was quite an accomplishment. A...

I moved away from the Phoenix area in 1989; but every now and then i would give Nick a call to see how he was doing. I feel embarrased that i did not call back sooner-- I missed calling him by over two years.

My first exposure to Nick Salerno was on Channel 8's cinema classics. As a teenager, I loved his commentary and the "inside" information he had on films. He knew how and why a film was made; who was offered the leading role "first" ; what actors hated each other but still had to...