Garry Abrams, journalist was 58 *

The Los Angeles Daily Journal columnist died over the weekend after an eight-year battle with prostate cancer. He had previously worked as a feature writer at the Los Angeles Times. Abrams was from Kentucky. He is survived by his wife, Diana, and their daughter Andrea, who turned eighteen on Friday.

* Update: From tomorrow's Daily Journal obituary by Susan McRae (subscribers only:)

Whether he was musing over the latest revelations in the Suge Knight case, expounding on the in-fighting among Winnie-the-Pooh heirs or exploring the ever-widening fallout from the Anthony Pellicano investigation, Garry Abrams could be counted on to do it with style, humor, wry insight and close-to-the-bone truth....

"Garry was an old-fashioned newsman with a deep heart and soul, a laconic wit and a great laugh," Daily Journal Editor Martin Berg said. "He was equally at home digging out a small quirky story or competing ferociously on a big one," Berg said. "We will not see his like again, and we miss him terribly."

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Los Angeles Times writer Bob Sipchen, a close friend who met Abrams soon after he began working at the Times in the early 1980s, said he used to razz the Kentucky native about his hillbilly roots.

"He reminded me of Eyore in "Winnie the Pooh," Sipchen said. "He had a low-key, morose attitude. But when he was diagnosed with the disease, he developed a gusto for life that you don’t see often. I’ve never seen someone quite enjoy the moment as he learned to do when he had this disease. Toward the end, he couldn’t do too much, and we used to drive up to the mountains, and he would revel in the quality of the mountain air and how tangible it was."

Journalists Dennis McDougal and Nikki Finke are also quoted.