Bob Chitester, who produced the famous Free to Choose series for PBS, died on Saturday, May 8.

I gave an appreciation of him here and highlighted some of his earlier work here.

We first met when he invited me to a dinner that followed a meeting of his board in Santa Monica in 1989. Also attending were Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver. We kept in touch after that, sometimes with years in between. Because he made known to me about three years ago that he was dying, we talked on the phone about twice a year instead of twice a decade.

David Boaz at the Cato Institute gives a nice summary of his work here.

Bob gave me one tip about wearing ties that I still haven’t taken. I’m guessing he gave this same tip to others. Aware early on that free-market views are not popular and that many people carry negative stereotypes about those who have them, he always wore ties with pictures of happy children on them. Maybe I’ll get such a tie as a tribute to Bob.

I hate cancer.