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“Love, Scene”: Bonnie and Gary

Jaime Hebel | Head of Illustration
At WashU in the world of 1963, Bonnie Holland was the “cute girl from Chicago” that Gary Arlen had met at a party the first week of college. She was smart, full of character, and had a dazzling smile. When they had class together their sophomore year, he approached her in what he described as “love at almost first sight.”
“How do you describe love to anybody? You just have a feeling,” Gary said. “Frankly, I thought she was too good for me.”
An aspiring journalist and a 19-year-old kid who had yet to take life seriously, Gary had handed her his business card (“I’m doing some investigative reporting about you,” he had said). Sure, it was a stupid line, he admitted, laughing. But somehow, it worked.
Their first date, they went sledding on the hill between the South 40 and Fontbonne University (“Happy sledding!” he would later carve into her engagement ring). They ate in Bear’s Den together, hung out in their dorms (which have since been torn down), and bonded over the paintings that hung on the walls of Olin Library (now shown in Kemper).
“We fell in love at the same time we were falling in love with a lot of other things about our life,” Gary said.
Bonnie held an intense passion for art, and Gary for journalism. She put up with his crazy hours as Editor-in-Chief of Student Life, and opened him to the color of a world she saw through artist eyes.
The pair began dating as sophomores, started falling in love as juniors, and by the time they were seniors, Gary knew she was worth following after graduation.

Bonnie and Gary on Francis Field during their senior year, 1967. (Photo courtesy of Gary Arlen)
By the time they got to Chicago — where Bonnie worked at the Art Institute of Chicago and Gary attended Northwestern University’s journalism school — he was sure they would get married. Both of them were curious, independent, and eager to put themselves in the “right place at the right time.” Together as a married couple, they moved to Washington D.C., where they have lived ever since.
Bonnie and Gary were both eldest children — and they lived up to the stereotypes. They were each steadfast and stubborn, which in marriage meant some real “groundbusters,” Gary said, laughing.
“She was definitely a free spirit, and sometimes she was frustrated that I was a little too buttoned-up,” Gary said.
Early in his career, Gary worked for many a “suit and tie place,” including the American Film Institute, where the couple met celebrities like Betty Davis and Lucille Ball. He opened Bonnie’s world to the fast-paced realm of media, and she helped slow him down by taking him to art galleries, many of which held her own exhibitions, even when he thought he was too busy.
Together, they threw themselves into their passions — Bonnie would stay up until the early morning engrossed in her art, and Gary decided to kickstart his own communications company.
“[Setting up my own company] meant we didn’t have as much money as some people did, but we had enough to live on, and we lived well enough. The nice part is, she put up with me,” Gary said. “That’s how we grew up together — just very motivated and admiring what each other did.”
Today, Gary sits at a house in D.C. that is scattered with Bonnie’s paintings, silk screen prints, and sculptures. Their son, Benjamin, lives in California. Bonnie and Gary visited WashU a couple times together after graduation — the first for their 25th alumni reunion, and the second for their 50th. This October, Gary came on his own.
Bonnie died the day before their 50th wedding anniversary in 2018. Gary has visited her grave every year since, excluding 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It doesn’t get easy, but it gets easier over the years,” Gary said. “[In October], I noticed that I was still emotional about being at her grave site, but I felt a little less awful than I felt last year and the year before that. It reminds me of all the times we had together.”
Walking around campus a few months ago, memories of what it used to be like came in waves.
“I’m so grateful I went to WashU, because I got a great education and I met Bonnie,” Gary said. “The whole experience was great, but meeting Bonnie just changed my life.”
Coming back to campus, he saw how much more diverse the student body is, and how different the technology and architecture are from when he was in college. A lot has changed — but not everything.
“I’ve lived in a world that was always changing, and I like that,” Gary said. “So the fact that students still can meet each other, fall in love, and spend a life together is sort of rewarding — to know some things are the same.”

Bonnie and Gary at a wedding reception in 2013. Bonnie is wearing an outfit decorated with one of her hand-painted silks. (Photo courtesy of Gary Arlen)