Every time Les Crispelle and Glenn Tiedt celebrated Thanksgiving, they would go around the table saying what they were thankful for. And the couple never once varied in their 25 Thanksgivings together. Every year, Tiedt said he was grateful for Crispelle. And every year, Crispelle said he was thankful for Alcoholics Anonymous and his eventual 44 years of sobriety.

“Because without it,” he often said, “I would have nothing.”

Including, in an indirectly direct way – Tiedt.

Crispelle was an attorney from humble East Denver beginnings who went on to both help dozens of people get into treatment and become an unassuming guardian angel of the Denver theater community. He underwrote homegrown productions by the Denver Center Theatre Company, Curious Theatre, Miners Alley Playhouse, Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, Stories on Stage and many more.

Including mine.

I wrote a play called “Waiting for Obama” in 2016, and the couple made a substantial gift to help our all-Colorado cast and crew present the play as a featured selection at that year’s New York International Fringe Festival. In 2021, I directed a play called “The Treasurer” at Miners Alley in Golden, and Les, by then a widower, signed on as a show sponsor – no questions asked.

It was not just a financial investment in my plays. It was an emotional investment in my creative dreams. 

Crispelle and Tiedt were among a small circle of modest, friendly Denver theater benefactors who aren’t corporations or foundations – just people from our own neighborhoods who would rather spend their money not on mansions but on making live theater happen.

People like Mike and Diana Kinsey, Jeremy Shamos, Jim Steinberg, June Travis, Carol Wolf, Richard and Suzanne Zernow, and more. They’re people who don’t give a damn how big the stage is – if it’s live theater, they support it.

Crispelle was a longtime subscriber and founding member of the Denver Center’s Director’s Society. When Tiedt died in September 2020, Crispelle made a substantial gift to the Denver Center’s first-ever capital campaign, a $36 million effort to renovate the Bonfils Theatre Complex at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Crispelle directed his gift for an orchestra section in the newly remodeled Wolf Theatre to be named in Tiedt’s memory. “He also made the final gift to our capital campaign so that we could complete renovation of the complex,” said DCPA President and CEO Janice Sinden.

Crispelle clearly loved theater. But to say that doesn’t do justice to the enthusiasm that fueled his passion. His love was for stories, and it was for the storytellers and artisans who brought them to life against all financial odds. As he grew older, his favor turned ever more to the scrappiest of storytellers throughout the local theater community. In 2017, Crispelle and Tiedt were given honorary Henry Awards from the Colorado Theatre Guild as Outstanding Theater Benefactors.

“They were always together,” said acclaimed Denver actor Emma Messenger. “It was always the pair of them. When Glenn died, that was a huge loss to him.”

Crispelle died at his home on Sept. 22, three years and three days after the death of Tiedt. He was 88. “What an amazing life,” the late DCPA President Lester Ward said of Crispelle in 2021, “for one that began so modestly.”

From hoedowns to law school

Leslie Nichols Crispelle Jr. was born in Grand Junction to Inez and Leslie Crispelle on Feb. 13, 1935. His father was an electrical engineer for the phone company before moving the family to Denver. Crispelle grew up on Dahlia Street and attended Denver East High School, where he was vice president of the Pre-Medic Club and served on the Hoedown Dance Committee.

After graduating from East in 1952, he attended Stanford and in 1959, he got his law degree from the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. He set up his law practice in Golden, where he lived and worked for 60 years as a member of the First Judicial District Bar Association in Jefferson and Gilpin counties.

Crispelle was considered an expert in helping localities and businesses implement comprehensive plans to achieve drug-free working environments. He served governors Richard Lamm and Roy Romer by working with professionals across the state in the fields of mental health and addictions. He served on the state’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division’s Advisory Board and worked with the Task Force on Drunk Driving and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. For years, Crispelle and longtime friend Gary Clexton taught a jurisprudence workshop to drug and alcohol counselors for the Mile High Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.

A random Facebooker recently posted on Crispelle’s page: “Are you the person (who) helped me with my alcohol liability program many years ago? If so, how are you? Well, I hope.”

Crispelle remembered, and engaged with him. Crispelle always kept an anonymous quote handy that he no doubt shared with many who came to him struggling with their addictions:

“Life is too short to argue and fight with the past. Count your blessings, value your loved ones and move on with your head held high.”

Crispelle got sober himself in 1979, and he often said his sobriety date mattered more to him than his birthday. He credited Alcoholics Anonymous with more than saving his life. After all: He met Tiedt at an A.A. meeting. Crispelle was there for himself, while Tiedt was there on behalf of a relative. Tiedt was a father of two who worked for the U.S. Department of the Interior, mostly converting old railroads into hiking trails and relocating wild horses to better feeding grounds.

As a couple, they were known to be engaging and perfect gentlemen. They traveled extensively around the world, including trips to Russia and Egypt, The Great Wall of China, and theater tours to New York and London. They took four cruises on the Corinthian II. At the Rock of Gibraltar, a barbary ape sat on Tiedt’s shoulder and groomed his hair, making for a story they would tell for years.

“Les was such a great raconteur,” said longtime friend Marla Corwin. “He could make the whole room laugh with stories of theater, travel and life with Glenn.”

Ever the attorney, Crispelle once called Corwin on the phone and asked, “Do you know what time it is?” She looked at her watch and said, “Yes, it’s 2 p.m.” “Wrong!” he replied.

“He said it with such force but also with great wit,” Corwin said.

“The answer is either yes or no. You either know what time it is, or you don’t. Never volunteer more information than is asked of you.”

That’s advice Corwin said she will “never, ever forget.”

Beyond his great generosity to the theater community, Crispelle was a fan of Joyce Carol Oates, the Broadway musical “Les Misérables” and former Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. He was known for his love of football (pro or college) – and some might say death did him a favor by sparing him the ignominy of the Broncos’ record-setting 70-20 loss to Miami on Sunday. He was an avid reader until he started losing his vision about five years ago. He particularly liked authors Jonathan Franzen, Wallace Stegner and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Crispelle was also a devoted animal lover, and he regularly donated to animal charities. In his final days, his rescue cat Oliver sat vigil (literally) atop Crispelle’s fractured right hand, while the more jittery Woody hid in the closet. Before them, Crispelle  adopted Lady (a Maltese) and Duke (a toy poodle), also rescue animals. “He never stopped grieving Duke, who was killed in his backyard by a fox while he and Glenn were at the theater,” Corwin said.

To his death, Crispelle – an only child – kept possession of a handmade Valentine that preceded him by at least five years. “In the early 1930s, his father made his mother a huge, stuffed pink heart,” Corwin said. “It had a cross on the back along with the message: ‘With love and esteem.’ That just shows what proper and loving parents he had.”

Impact of a relentlessly positive man

Messenger, who came out of nowhere about 10 years ago from Denver’s smallest stages to star in productions all over the state, said it was encouragement from Crispelle, as an audience member, that helped give her the confidence to believe that greater things were in store for her. Crispelle constantly encouraged her. Eventually, he specifically sought out shows Messenger was cast to appear in to offer his financial backing.

“Les was always just so relentlessly positive. An exquisite, courtly gentleman who was cheerful until the very end,” Messenger said. “He was laughing and joking with me the last time we spoke on the phone, even though he knew the end was near. He told me he’d come and see me in a show I’m in next spring. We both knew it wasn’t going to happen, but I knew he was pleased to think of me doing that play. For both of us, that had to be enough. And that was a real happiness for him, because he was just that kind of person.”

As an only child with no children of his own, Crispelle has no direct survivors. But in many ways, his family was not only his fellow theatergoers, but all of those theatermakers who have benefited from his generosity.

In his last email to me, he quoted the spiritual advisor Ram Dass:

“We’re all just walking each other home.”

A public graveside service will be held at 11 a.m. Oct. 4 at the Crown Hill Cemetery, 7777 W. 29th Ave., in Lakewood. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Crispelle’s name to the Denver Actors Fund, P.O. Box 11182, Denver, CO 80211, or online at denveractorsfund.org