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I have come to accept that during my annual holiday season slowdown and year-end maintenance on the background technology of LA Observed, some newsworthy deaths will hit the news that I wish to note. No exception this year.
Just last night, I was watching for the first time the documentary Levitated Mass, about artist Michael Heizer's quest to mount his giant Riverside granite boulder on the back lawn at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. One of the unsung stars of the story is John Bowsher, LACMA's fixer for getting such audacious art projects installed. He's the calm realist who just finds a way to manage Heizer's ego, the thousand little details and the larger art vision. It's a role he played in the early years of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and on earlier Heizer installations for other museums. Today I read that Bowsher, officially the Vice President of Museum Infrastructure, died this morning of lung cancer at his home in Hancock Park. He was 62.
Bowsher worked closely with LACMA's director, Michael Govan, for many years. "He was kind of legendary for his even-tempered competence in facilitating the most complex artistic endeavors," Govan says in the LA Times obit. "He had a quiet passion that drove him to work so well and so hard. He had a real passion for art and artists, especially large-scale work and permanent work that would affect many generations."
Rabbi Leonard Beerman, a powerful and controversial figure as founding rabbi of the Leo Baeck Temple in Bel Air and a noted pacifist and critic of Israeli policies, died on December 24 at age 93. He was the second prominent LA rabbi to die this month. Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino died a week earlier. Beerman retired several years ago but continued to give the Yom Kippur sermon at Leo Baeck. "Renowned for his unremitting pacifism and for speaking out against injustice," the Jewish Journal said.
Historian Jon Wiener writes for The Nation that Beerman "was a great fighter for social justice and peace over the last sixty-five years. His lifelong commitment to nonviolence, Beerman explained, came out of his experience in 1947 in Jerusalem, when he joined the Haganah fighting for Israeli independence." Beerman was also a financial supporter of the liberal politics magazine. Says Wiener:
In the 1960s he was a passionate critic of the Vietnam war; after Watts, he spoke out for black people in LA; after 9-11, he defended Muslims. He was co-founder of the Greater Los Angeles Partnership for the Homeless, and co-chairman of the Jewish Committee on Los Angeles Sweatshops. But he was best known as one of the nation’s most prominent Jewish voices defending Palestinian rights and supporting a two-state solution in the Mideast. He met with Yasir Arafat in Jordan in 1983, and at Leo Baeck he did not allow the Israeli or American flags to be flown. “Nationalism and faith should not mix,” he said.When Reagan revived the Cold War in the mid-eighties, Rabbi Beerman helped organize the Interfaith Center to Reverse the Arms Race. Michele Willens, whose father Harold was a leading peace activist alongside Beerman, recalled that “Leonard and the Episcopalian Rev. George Regas of Pasadena’s All Saints Church would speak at each other’s entities on a regular basis, hold press conferences, and support pacifist initiatives. The center was considered hugely radical at the time, and both Leonard and Regas initially took heat from their own congregations. But it went on to great success.”
Finally, I had received an email tip back in October that Peggy Stevenson, the former Los Angeles City Council member, had died. While awaiting confirmation that never came, I put the tip aside and it slipped my mind. Not until the day after Christmas did the LA Times run an obituary saying that Stevenson had died, at age 90, back on Oct. 16. "Her death was not widely publicized at the time," the paper said. Yeah, I guess not.
Stevenson was elected to represent the Hollywood area and the 13th district in 1975, winning a special election to succeed her late husband Robert Stevenson. She lost in 1985 to Mike Woo in a bitter fight that divided the district. From the LAT:
Once in office, she became chairwoman of the Police, Fire and Civil Defense Committee. "Historically, it's been a men's committee," Stevenson said. "I wanted it because it's important to my district. We have a lot of crime problems, juvenile delinquency, the exploitation of illegal aliens."
During her time on the council, redevelopment projects for Hollywood were approved. Although some of her major proposed projects, including turning part of Hollywood Boulevard into a pedestrian mall, did not go through, Stevenson said Hollywood became more economically vibrant during her time in office. "I am proud of the role I have played in helping Hollywood turn the corner," she told The Times in 1985.
