GRAND RAPIDS, MI - John Douglas, retired editorial columnist and film critic for The Grand Rapids Press, a classic curmudgeon with a gentle heart, and a royal pain in the ass to anyone who asked him for his Social Security number, passed away this morning. He was 76.

Douglas was also my friend and mentor. I learned of his death as I was about to see director George Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road," the kind of invigorating action picture John might have enjoyed. He liked the original "Mad Max" and "The Road Warrior," also by Miller, who doesn't liberally employ the type of computer-generated effects that an old-school guy like Douglas pooh-poohed as phony, second-rate filmmaking. A trade advertisement once quoted John's review of "The Road Warrior": "The most exciting action picture ever," it reads.

A decade ago, Douglas and I probably would have seen the film together, grabbed lunch afterward, and chatted about movies and comic books. He probably would have ordered a "BLT without the T." He probably would have regaled me with stories of seeing blaxsploitation and kung fu movies at Grand Rapids' long-defunct Savoy Theater in the 1970s, his eyes widening with excitement as he described scenes from the wild grindhouse films he loved so much. He probably would have complained about the lousy customer service he received from various institutions - banks, the city, the power company. He probably would have recommended a number of films to me, most of them far off the beaten path.

If you're a longtime Press reader familiar with his movie reviews and editorial columns, which ran in the paper for 25 years until his retirement in 2006, you know all this stuff. His public persona loomed large for a long time. He shared his loves and gripes. He stirred the pot. He dished out criticism, and took it too.

But if you never met Douglas in real life, you didn't hear his slight vocal drawl, a product of his West Virginia origins. You may not have experienced his wit, quick and sharp. You may not have known he was a great storyteller. You may not have known he loved playing the banjo and guitar, singing old cowboy and hillbilly folk songs - one of the activities he enjoyed immensely in his retirement. You may not have known, behind the grouchy cynic, was a kind and compassionate man. I know - whenever someone passes away, you hear about what a great heart he or she had. But no truer statement could be made of John.

He loved people, and he loved using his job as a voice of The Press to stick up for the little guy. He hated injustice, how modern-day institutions would slap a hard-up family with fees after being a couple days late with a mortgage payment. He experienced injustice himself once. I risk mangling the story, telling it secondhand, but I need to share it: One day, he visited the public library downtown, which had short-term parking meters for people returning books. They cost 10 cents. He dropped a dime in one, and it jammed. He went in, dropped off his books, came back, and found a ticket on his car. He explained the situation, and the city ripped up the ticket. But he wanted his dime back. He was told to write a letter to the city treasurer, which was fine and dandy, but then he'd be out the cost of the stamp. Suffice to say, the story ends with him receiving a letter in the mail with two nickels taped to it.

That is John Douglas' personality to a T: living his life with a twinkle in his eye. He wasn't cheap - he often picked up the tab when we ate lunch together. But an opportunity to cause trouble over 10 stupid cents was just too delicious for him to pass up.

Before his journalism career, Douglas was a filmmaker. He made commercials and trade films, put together travelogues. He studied filmmaking at Wayne State University and was an Army veteran. But his work at The Press made him a local institution. He debated Ted Nugent on the radio about guns. He took politicians and insurance companies to task in his editorials. He railed against fart jokes and the use of the dialogue "Go go go!" in movies.

Some of you know I followed in his footsteps as The Press' resident film critic after he stepped down. ("I'm probably sitting on the porch chewing tobacco and shooting cats, as would most any self-respecting retiree," he wrote cheekily in his final column.) One doesn't fill the shoes of an institution, lest ye be a fool. But I moved ahead, knowing he was in my corner. We shared the film beat for a while prior to his retirement, and he gave me his stamp of approval one day, saying something about how he was happy I wasn't an airhead (I'm paraphrasing), and he could tell I truly loved movies. I quietly beamed.

In college, I dreamed of being a film critic, and took an opportunity to interview Douglas for a career-planning class. I had read his reviews for years in the paper, and admired him for his encyclopedic knowledge of film. I walked away from our first meeting with an impression of a man who was worldly, but casual about it. He wasn't a big ego. He was thoughtful and encouraging. He was wise - about life and movies.

Especially movies. Douglas was the first to introduce me to the work of Werner Herzog. "I watched 'Fitzcarraldo' over the weekend," I told him one Monday morning as he strolled by my desk. "Oh, well, you're a different person now," he said with a grin and his trademark eye-twinkle. I may not have realized it in that moment, but he was right: "Fitzcarraldo," and all of Herzog's wild, passionate films, changed the way I think about the moving picture. He kindled my obsession with the director, which lasts to this day, and likely will never abate. Another deeply hidden gem he shared with me was "The Dancing Outlaw," a documentary about a man who lives in the Appalachians of West Virginia, Jesco White, an oft-arrested "mountain dancer." The movie arrests the viewer, and is as funny, bizarre and revelatory slice of humanity as has ever been put on film.

While teaching a film course at Aquinas College, I showed my students both "The Dancing Outlaw" and films by Herzog. That's the kind of wisdom that needs to be passed on. Such is the influence of Douglas on my life.

Several years ago, I grew out my beard, and joked to my editors that it was my first step at being the next John Douglas, something I hope scared them a little bit. John would sometimes sneak inappropriate comments into his copy and see if our assistant entertainment editor, Betsy Musolf, would catch them. "He was a rascal," she'd say on many occasions. He would grouse about the goofy assignments he'd get stuck with, being the most popular mug in the paper: navigating corn mazes, judging singers at Festival of the Arts, going to pro-wrestling camp, working at the movie-theater concession, dressing up as a pirate. But he gamely went through with them, knowing the photographic evidence would last forever. He once was painted green and pasted with fur, made up to look like the Grinch, something that played to his writing voice perfectly.

Memories flooded back with the news of his passing. I was deeply saddened. But I perked up knowing he likely died without ever, ever giving out his Social Security number.

Douglas and I sometimes took road trips for movie screenings and junkets. His final week at The Press, we trekked to Chicago to conduct interviews for "World Trade Center": Director Oliver Stone, actors Nicolas Cage and Maria Bello. Seated at a round table with other journalists who asked a lot of dull, boilerplate questions, Douglas stood out. He posed to Cage a real query about his character's death scene: "How do you get the lights in your eyes to go out like that?" Cage, a notorious weirdo, paused. "I guess that's between me and God," he replied.

A few short weeks ago, Douglas was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I visited him, and even on his deathbed, he was witty and irascible. Before a tearful hug goodbye, he recommended one last film to me: railroad-train cab-ride films he found on YouTube, specifically one that travels through the American Southwest. This is so very Douglas - he loved trains and cowboy films as a kid. The camera is still, capturing gorgeous scenery. Its cinematography is meditative, contemplative. The train travels on, and on, and on, through beautiful places. Happy trails, John.

John Serba is film critic and entertainment reporter for MLive and The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at jserba@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter or Facebook.