The Grin Reaper -- For Greg Palmer, `Death: The Trip Of A Lifetime' Has Been Quite An Adventure

Greg Palmer's double bow in the national spotlight - "Death: The Trip of a Lifetime" - won't hit the airwaves or bookshelves until Monday, but already he's had to put his small-town integrity on the line.

"We have a shot at getting you on a national talk show," said the rifle public-relations voice from the East Coast, "please stand by."

"Do I have the nerve to say I won't do `Geraldo?' " Palmer agonized in his modest office near Seattle's Bon Marche, where he was pausing to publicize his four-episode series that airs Monday and Tuesday from 9 to 11 p.m. on KCTS (Channel 9). (A companion book is being published by HarperCollins.)

Fortunately, it was Sally Jessy Raphael, who hovers at an acceptable level above the dung heap for Palmer.

It wouldn't have been the first time Palmer said no. In his 13 years at Seattle's KING-TV, first as arts and entertainment editor and then as a "signature" reporter, Palmer refused to stick microphones in the faces of traumatized families and demand, "How do you feel about the death of your loved one?"

That's not why Palmer, 45, eventually was swept out with a new regime at KING, but it's exactly why those people who can work with him would never leave him. He has a strong sense of humanity. He never takes the world too seriously, but he's very serious about his work.

It's also the source of one of his beloved ironies. He wouldn't do death for KING. Now he's spent the past two years studying how the world views death, learning that rituals surrounding death differ, but that fear, fascination, sorrow and humor are universal.

His favorite discovery was how many of his preconceived notions were wrong.

A drive-by funeral parlor in Pensacola, Fla., for instance, presented a moving and meaningful service. A laser light show in Japan where a coffin is "driven" to heaven was actually based on long tradition.

In both cases, he'd gone prepared to say, "How crass."

He asked a routine question of Ed Decker, an Issaquah comedy writer, a week before Decker died at age 82 and then sat stunned at what haunted this man, whose rich life "could have been an hour-long show by itself."

Decker said his regret was that he could not go back to his teenage years for one day so he could apologize to all the people to whom he'd been a smart ass "when I didn't have to be."

"There are worse things," Palmer reassured him. "I'm a professional smart ass."

"So I hear," said Decker.

Decker's segment appears in Episode 2, "The Good Death," which Palmer sums up by saying, "The good death is the one that comes at the end of a good life."

Palmer, who has won numerous Emmys, a Peabody, three Ohio State awards and three commendations from Action for Children's Television, maintains that in any television the true personality of the people involved comes through in about 20 minutes.

That's why he tries to surround himself with amenable people. And it's why Palmer The Professional Smart Ass and Palmer The Sensitive Soul both come through in "Death," which he wrote, co-produced and is hosting. Barry Stoner was executive producer and Sue McLaughlin was producer for the Public Broadcasting System production.

"It's a very curious thing about his personality," said Lucy Mohl, Palmer's trusted friend and sometimes collaborator, a former KING colleague.

"He's very flexible and generous and at the same time he can be very strong about wanting things his way.

"If you work well with him, you tend to work really well with him. If you don't, you might as well forget it."

Working well with him does not mean saying "Yes, Greg, I think that's wonderful." Insincerity is a no-no. So is any sign of double-cross. Mix high skill with integrity and kindness, however, and you're in.

He went round and round with McLaughlin on the length of different segments in "Death." Yet, he says, he would work with her again in a minute.

McLaughlin agrees. Six months ago, when the sounds of their hallway shouting and door slamming were still fresh, she might have said no.

Palmer's news background sensed the timing should be quick; her documentary background said linger longer. His lust for interesting quirks said throw in this fact even if it doesn't advance the story. Her instinct said stay on the arterial.

"You have to win his trust and that takes a while, and it doesn't happen with all people," McLaughlin said. "But he will listen. He is open."

McLaughlin said her fear that the show would be too glib is offset by Palmer's guy-next-door appeal. The documentary is less about death than it is about Palmer's response to death. He's indignant where most people would be indignant, repulsed or hesitant where most people would feel the same.

Cathy Palmer, Greg's wife of 25 years, said it would be surprising if Greg's personality wasn't evident throughout "Death."

"He always brings his personality to bear on any social encounter."

Some people are reluctant to meet him because of his reputation for being sardonic, she said, but she was first attracted to him because his friends at Mercer Island High School ranged from the greasers to the elite.

"He was the guy who mixed with everybody," said Cathy Palmer, who is the education director for the Seattle International Children's Festival. "I'm sure that's why this man who can barely balance a checkbook was elected our school treasurer."

That multi-layered approach to work and people is also what makes his fictional characters ring true and have depth, said Bill Fenster, his business partner and a photographer at KING.

"He gets to use the experience of all the people he met while working in television and bring them into his fictional writing," said Fenster.

His sense of the quirky and his playfulness with words give his children's productions, in particular, resonance: When the children are laughing at one thing, adults are laughing at something else.

Fenster again: "He can take a trite situation that has an outcome that's very predictable and he'll write it to show how another outcome could happen."

Which brings us - obtusely - back to death. Inevitably, there is no other outcome.

PBS had to foot almost the entire $1.2 million bill for "Death" because no corporation, and particularly no airline, wanted to be associated with the theme.

"If one believes the premise that we're all fascinated by death but none of us will admit it," said Palmer, "then every man, woman and child will watch this series but it will still have a zero rating because no one will admit it."

McLaughlin said she came away from the 2 1/2-year project recognizing that death is a normal process. Contrary to general belief, the U.S. handles it about as well as anybody.

"A lot of Americans think we respond incorrectly to death and that somebody out in other countries must know the right way to act," she said. "But as we traveled we discovered that there is no solution, no magical elixir that makes it not painful or not scary."

One of the stops in Episode 2 is a hospice in Sydney, Australia, where a party breaks out every Friday afternoon. It's the last bash for half the residents.

"When you know approximately when you're going to die, and where you're going to die and how you're going to die, it changes the way you look at everything," Palmer said.

"There was a certain sense of liberation in that room. These people didn't have to die anymore. They'd had those questions answered that I think subconsciously bother us all."

Which leads to Palmer's favorite answer these days when debating whether he should peddle his first book on such shows as Geraldo Rivera:

"Life is, indeed, too short."