Legendary Hilton Head chef Charlie Golson triumphed over life’s sour notes | Opinion

Everybody loved Charlie.

And at the end of one’s life, that’s a wonderful thing to be said.

Charlie Golson of Bluffton was a legendary chef and restaurant owner on Hilton Head Island before passing the reins to his two children more than two decades ago.

He and his wife, Nancy, opened Charlie’s L’Etoile Verte restaurant with quirky décor and an open kitchen 40 years ago, opening a beloved chapter in the Hilton Head story. It has always helped set Hilton Head apart.

The name came from a tiny, unpretentious restaurant in Paris, on a corner alley near the Arc de Triomphe, “A L’etoile Verte” — “At the Green Star.”

Charlie found that star as a young man during a year in France. Like his two years in the Peace Corps, it reflected a zest for life and its many different flavors, and something new to do after earning what he called “a largely useless degree in English from the University of South Carolina.”

He fell in love with French food that informed the menus he wrote by hand each week.

He learned French and took a couple of cooking classes at the Alliance Francaise.

“But mostly I ate a lot of wonderful food and gained a lot of weight,” he said.

He felt a call toward the kitchen as a child in Savannah, Georgia.

“My parents taught me to mix martinis at a very young age,” he said. “And after a few martinis, it could only lead to cheese crackers.”

He was mentored by French master chef Duilio Bigatin at the Chatham Club in Savannah. He worked a number of restaurant jobs, including executive chef at the old Hilton Head Inn, before opening his own place in January 1984 with the help of an investment by his mother.

Nancy would later head home to open the Eggs ‘N Tricities shop in Bluffton. And in 2003, the restaurant would move to larger quarters on New Orleans Road, with son Palmer Golson and daughter Margaret Golson Pearson taking charge.

It might have seemed easy to love Charlie in his heyday, with his humor, smile and infectious laugh. Diners, which at one time included sitting President Bill Clinton, were pulled to him.

But over the past seven years, Charlie’s life story reads more like the Book of Job.

A mysterious infection attacked his spine and nothing was ever the same, right up until his death Sept. 27 at age 75 at the home on the May River they call Mayfair.

We’re talking months in intensive care units, rehabilitation units and nursing homes. And the cold statement that he’d never walk again.

But he did walk. He could walk to the end of the dock. And he was able to reach a sweet goal at home. Every morning of a married life that stretched to 47 years, Charlie took Nancy a cup of coffee in bed. With physical therapist Stacy Russell pushing him hard twice a week for seven years, Charlie was able to get to the kitchen, make coffee, put it in the basket of his walker, and deliver it to Nancy.

He always told her she was beautiful, even when she didn’t feel beautiful at 76.

He was buoyed by regular visits from Monty Laffitte, who would come for coffee and bring cookies. Charlie loved cookies. Monty brought two for each of them, and two for the dog.

George Westerfield, Albert Scardino and Marshall Stone came often for lunch. Charlie Parker came to serve communion every week for the past four years.

Family members say that Charlie’s strong faith may be why he never complained as he made it through a hip replacement, a pandemic, a broken leg, a broken back, a collapsed lung — and on and on until his last night on Earth with Tropical Storm Helene cracking truckloads of branches down in the yard.

When Nancy was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma, his concern turned to her.

More than 450 people attended his funeral on what would have been his 76th birthday.

Everyone loved Charlie, like his Flounder Sauteed Meuniere from France and caramel layer cake from Allendale.

“I want to provide an atmosphere where people know they can come and have good food and good wine,” he said when Charlie’s opened. “And hopefully, where they’ll stay a while and have lots of both.”

Merci, Charlie. Merci.