'Grande dame' of L.A. literary salons

My favorite obituaries are of people I never heard of but wished I had. Claudia Luther did a nice job in the Times today with Edna Lillich Davidson, who hosted literary salons here (mostly at the Beverly Hilton) for 40 years. She died April 14 in a nursing home with no survivors, "believed to be in her 90s," and her obituary is just now getting out. But in her day, she wowed them.

She swept into her events in Loretta Young style, always in a long gown, and she would deliver her book reviews with a dramatic flair and musical accompaniment. Her programs would always include her singing a Broadway tune, or a song by Schubert or Wagner. No one went away bored.

Doug Dutton, whose Dutton's Bookstore in Brentwood for many years sold the books by featured authors at the salons, said this week that the first time he saw Davidson come on stage in a diaphanous gown, "She floated out, and welcomed, with a kind of warmth nobody has anymore, people to the group, and then she broke into a song rendition of all of the parts of 'My Fair Lady.' "

Dutton said Davidson would introduce authors with "extraordinary grace and good taste and sweetness" but also insist that they keep to a 12-minute time schedule.

"But I think she always let Ray Bradbury go over," Dutton said.

Bradbury, reached at his home, chuckled at that story, acknowledging its truth.

"She was her own special person," he said. "She put together a very wonderful group of people to lecture and people to come to the lectures."

Davidson provided scholarships at USC and Mount St. Mary's. "She did a huge amount for the book world in her own unique way," Carolyn See says in the obit.