William Albert Cade III

William (Bill) Albert Cade III, born February 25th, 1953, left this life April 5th, 2024, after facing T-Cell Leukemia head on. Bill is survived by his loving wife Kelly Green Cade, children: Laura Louise (Bryant) Flippo, Robert Louis Cade, and William Albert (Sophie) Cade IV, grandchildren: Kai Kingston Cade, Victoria Rosalie Cade and Lucas Constantin Cade and children of the heart; Brandon Grout, Ashley Shambaugh and”3rd son”, Brandon Sams.

Though born in Sacramento, California, being a military family, they moved to Homestead air force base in Florida within weeks of his birth. He would often share how his father became a bombardier and navigated across oceans through skill & mathematics long before the aid of GPS and on setting lobster traps with his mother & siblings, cooking them over a fire on the beach at night when his father was away.

After retiring from the Military, the family moved to the suburbs of Atlanta where he began the road to becoming the “Bill” we all knew & loved. A memory Bill told often is retold here by his life-long friend “Bwana” DiNatale.

“We lived on opposite sides of North Fulton Golf Course. A vast opportunity for two young entrepreneurial lads. We would meet after dinner several times a week on the course to safari for the elusive and valuable “albino frog eggs” (golf balls). Under constant threat from the Park Police, we waded fearlessly through the creeks, lakes, and the tall grass savannas bagging our prey. We loaded the bounty into white tube socks tied to our belts. Saturdays were pay-days. We sold our spoils to golfers playing the rounds.

One summer we got wind that Theater of the Stars and the Fox Theater were looking for extras in their musical production of Hello Dolly, starring Betty Grable and Mort Marshall. Neither of us could sing or dance, but knowing how much chicks dig actors, we were compelled to try out. It must have been our obvious star quality; we got the part!”

Soon the boys were off to college. Bill was off to a few; University of Georgia, Duke, even a stent at St. Andrews and film school in Berkley before eventually finishing his degrees at the University of Oregon.

Bill credited his mother Laura Louise Holcomb Cade, a librarian, for instilling in him a desire for information in whatever form available. Being an avid storyteller, the written word always consumed him. It didn’t take long for his love of storytelling to grow into a love of film & screenplays that motivated him to move cross-country to attend film school in California and hone his skills as a screenwriter.

The movie business, as the music business, calls many but chooses few. Though he didn’t get an option that resulted in an Oscar nomination, he experienced times in Berkley, Laurel Canyon & Santa Barbara that when recounted brought a twinkle to his eye & a blush to his cheeks; yet his most proud achievement in California was starting his family.

He was part of the Santa Barbara Fire Department as dispatcher, firefighter & EMT before moving to Oregon to pursue Telecommunications & Journalism. With his family & education complete, they moved to Atlanta, to be closer to family as the children grew.

He began working for Whittle Communications, servicing Channel One & continued that role with Convergent Media as a regional field manager. He stayed with the company for over 30 years through mergers with Technicolor and Sony, continuing in management and evolving into digital cinema.

In retirement, he spent several years feeding his unquenchable thirst for just the right mix of history, legend, mythology, and geography, as he dusted off his most promising screenplay in hopes of transforming it into a novel. However, he chose to write and self-publish a prequal, The Night Bride, instead.

Bill never lost his love for books. He began volunteering at the Metro Nashville Public Library, Green Hills branch and later transferred to the Bellevue branch. He became a page after 4 years of service and could not have been more proud. He wore his ID badge as if it were the Congressional Medal of Honor. The smile on his badge proved it. It was the fulfillment of the quote by Thomas Jefferson that hung by his dresser, “I cannot live without books.”

Though Bill loved books, movies, white socks with sandals, BOGOs at Publix and the Oregon coast, he loved family and friends more. If you were one or the other, you have more than likely been to “The Bunker,” whose walls from ceiling to floor were covered with decades of memories. As Leukemia made reading & movies more difficult, those walls held more value than ever. Thank you for the memories.

To donate in memoriam:

THE LEUKEMIA & LYMPHOMA SOCIETY 

https://diy.lls.org/williamcadeiii

Donations can be mailed to our office as well:

LymeLight Foundation

1229 Burlingame Ave, Suite 205

Burlingame, CA 94010