Beloved Harry Truman impersonator and retiree of Nelson-Atkins museum has died
.JPG "Ray Starzmann worked for decades at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art bookstore and was known around Kansas City for his impersonation of Harry Truman and other historical figures. He was 73.")
A man who entertained and educated thousands by impersonating former president Harry S. Truman — down to the Panama hat and two-toned shoes — has died.
Raymond Starzmann died Feb. 20 after complications from surgery, according to his obituary in The Star. He was 73 and had been portraying Truman and other historical figures for more than two decades.
A native of Philadelphia, Starzmann’s love for history began with an influential third-grade teacher, according to an online biography.
“As I got older I started reading history and began corresponding with people who made history,” Starzmann said.
His collection included letters from Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Adlai Stevenson and many others. He met Truman himself on several occasions.
Starzmann came to Kansas City to attend Park College in Parkville, where he earned a degree in political science.
He began portraying Truman in the 1990s and his repertoire also included Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Kansas City Star founder William Rockhill Nelson.
Starzmann regularly performed at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence and appeared as Truman at schools and at association gatherings across the country.
He was interviewed as Truman in 2009 by Kansas City Library Director Crosby Kemper III on the program “Meet the Past,” in which he recounted the 1948 election that everyone believed Truman would lose to New York Gov. Thomas Dewey.
Instead, Truman was re-elected.
“I guess it’s called acting,” Starzmann said of his niche in a 2012 article in The Star. “The knowledge is the most important thing. And I do look a little bit like Truman.”
Starzmann was featured in USA Today in 2017 musing about what Truman would have thought of President Donald Trump. As Truman, he said Trump “has no historical perspective.”
Starzmann was known to many patrons of the bookstore at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, where he worked from 1994 until his retirement in 2018.
But it was his personification of the past that gathered audiences.
The end of his obituary noted: “In his memory, you might reach out to an unfamiliar face with a warm smile, an easy joke, or a welcoming handshake.” It also said a celebration is planned for spring.
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