...and their memories

Art Buchwald
The editor of this site took part in a lunch with USC journalism professors and Art Buchwald in November 2001, and heard several anecdotes, which are here reproduced in spirit, if not verbatim.... The paper was a broadsheet in those days, 4 - 6 pages long usually. The paper was very liberal then. There were a lot of college shenanigans, for example, fraternity and sorority row stole the newspaper on election day. He also wrote a story about Tommy Trojan for the paper. One of the campus clubs, I forget which, had raised money to replace Tommy's sword, which had been stolen by UCLA. They raised a lot of money, but Ar twas walking by it and asked some friends to lift him up, and it turns out the replacement was made of cheap tin, which he figured cost about $12. They wrote a big story about it. Art hung out with David Wolper, and the two of them crashed the academy awards ceremony at the shrine by bringing a fellow in a gorilla costume along in a limo. They stayed about half an hour before getting caught. Says Art: "I got my education on campus but not necesarily in class. I didn't get a high school diploma, either," but now he's an honorary Ph.D. He was allowed to sign up for classes as a G.I. ,but one day the registrar noticed that he didn't have a high school diploma, and said that he shouldn't really be taking classes. "I know that," he said. They told him that he could stay, but they wouldn't be able to give him a degree, which he was fine with. Add your own memory

Beatrice "Bee" Canterbury Lavery
A great class in the School of Journalism including Art Buchwald and Jess Unruh. Bill Boyarsky, former City Editor of the Los Angeles Times is writing a book on Jesse Unruh. Add your own memory

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