The Best Is Yet To Come: A Life That Went From The Lion Of Metro Goldwyn Mayer To The Lion Of Judah

By Bill Barber

After years of working in the motion picture industry and watching 
innumerable films, Bill Barber was promoted to Vice President and 
General Manager of one of the largest theater operations in the U.S.

But when Bill’s wife, Nanette, started praying for him, things 
started to change.  Jesus fil

• Language: English
• Publisher: Relate to God Ministries
• Release date: Nov 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9780986092367

Book preview

Preface

In 1997, Jack Nicholson played an obsessive-compulsive writer named Melvin Udall. At a particularly desperate moment in a hospital waiting room, he says to the group of waiting patients, What if this is as good as it gets? I’m writing this book because I know that this—whatever this is for you—isn’t as good as it gets.

Many years ago, a pastor named W.G. Denton ended a sermon with the phrase, The best is yet to come. With everything I had been going through, that line struck a chord with me, and I told him how much I appreciated it. He loved my encouraging response, and so began what would become the most influential relationship of my life. Brother Wally became my spiritual father, a man I grew to love and respect more than any other man I’ve known.

My wife, Nanette, and I started seeing and hearing the phrase everywhere. We’d see it printed on calendar pages; friends would casually use it in conversation; Frank Sinatra would sing it over the speakers in the grocery store. And I loved Brother Wally so much that any time I would hear or see the phrase I associated it with him, which made it even more important and meaningful to me.

We’ve cut squares out of magazines where we’ve seen it; we’ve ordered prints of the phrase and engraved it onto plaques. The phrase has been like a banner over our lives. We’ve just returned from a conference, and the keynote speaker ended with these comments: "As Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ but I’ve heard from the Lord that the best is yet to come."

We came home to a letter from Gary Wilkerson about everything he had learned from his father, David. This quote stood out, near the end: I also learned from my father to have great faith, hope, and vision for the future. As he always said, ‘the best is yet to come.’ You must remember this all started in the early 70s, and the phrase had not been made popular as it is today.

Now I am in my latter years and I still believe that the best is yet to come. I didn’t always believe that, though. So what changed?

Let’s get right into it.

1

Growing up with Movies

Movies have played an important role throughout most of my life. My childhood years were difficult ones, and I needed somehow to escape from my home life.

When I was five years old, my parents went through a bitter divorce. As a young boy and the product of a broken home, I developed a tremendous inferiority complex that I struggled with until much later in life. For many years, I was not outgoing at all.

My sister, Shirley (who was five years older), and I were shuttled back and forth from parent to parent, spending the school term with Father and the summer months with Mother. After Shirley graduated from high school, we settled in with our father and stepmother in a blue collar neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee.

I was hoping to find something in Memphis that could take my mind off the mess of our home life, something that might help give my life some meaning. And soon enough, I felt like I’d found that something in the movies.

A theatre called the Rialto was located about six blocks from where we lived. Every week the hope of going to the movies on Saturday was the only thing that kept me going. If I completed all my chores and household duties, I would receive my weekly ten cent allowance. I was about nine or ten years old at that time, and in the 1940s, a child’s admission to the movie theater was nine cents, which left me with a penny for candy. Every weekend I enjoyed a cartoon, a serial, previews, and candy, along with a double feature—all for a dime.

For a long time, my weekly routine was to complete my chores so I could receive my allowance and go to the movies until I grew old enough to get a paper route. At that point, I started trying to save some money so I could be ready to buy a car when I turned sixteen, and then I’d be so much more free.

Each day after school, several other kids and I would go to the corner of Cleveland and Overton Park to pick up the Memphis Press Scimitar papers for delivery. The pickup was located just across from the White Way Drugstore, where I regularly spent some of my extra cash.

One day as I was getting my papers, some earth-moving machines started to work on the lot right next to White Way. I stopped by after I finished my route to see what was going on, and one of the workers said they were building a new theatre. My mind started whirling when I heard that. I just knew I had to get a job at the brand new theatre.

Each day for months I stopped by and checked on the progress and found it was going to be a Malco theatre (a local chain). One day, a theater executive happened to be there, so I introduced myself to him. As best as I can remember, I had just turned fourteen, and the man said they would only hire people who were sixteen and above. Boy, did my feathers ever fall. I honestly didn’t think I would be able to wait two years to work in that movie palace.

As the weeks went by, I learned to recognize that executive’s car; whenever I saw it parked in the lot, I would make it a point to stop by, say hello, and chat with him about the progress.

Job in a Theater

Eventually, the grand night came—the opening night—and I was one of the first ones in line. The theatre’s decor looked out of this world—all deluxe and first class. The concession counter was filled with candies, popcorn, and drinks, and the screen was truly an incredible sight—massive and beautiful to me.

I introduced myself to the manager and shortly thereafter started my routine visits with him, as I had with his boss. Eventually I guess they decided the only way to get rid of me was to find something for me to do, so they put me to work behind the screen, making the popcorn.

Theaters only had one screen back then, and behind it was a room where all the popcorn was made and stored in large, metal cans. I worked when the theatre wasn’t open, and the only other people there were the cleaning crew. Sometimes I would pop a big batch with extra salt and seasoning, just for myself. In fact, I did that so often that I grew pretty