Jerry Gillam dies at 77; former Sacramento reporter for L.A. Times

Jerry Gillam, a longtime state government reporter primarily for the Los Angeles Times, died in his sleep Saturday at his home in Sacramento. He was 77.

Gillam, a diabetic whose left leg was amputated in 2006 and who was recently diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat, was taking a nap and was found unresponsive by his wife, June, who called 911. Paramedics were unable to revive him.

With more than 35 years in the state Capitol press corps, Gillam started covering government for the Copley News Service in 1960. A year later, he was hired by Bob Blanchard, then the Times’ Sacramento bureau chief, to join the paper’s expanding presence there. Gillam stayed with the paper until his retirement in 1995.

For much of his time in Sacramento, Gillam covered the Assembly and saw the Legislature become a full-time body with the passage of Proposition 1-A in 1966.

“No reporter understood the legislators or knew what they were doing better than Jerry,” said Times columnist George Skelton, who was a colleague of Gillam’s for years.

“He was up on everything, and there was little he couldn’t find out. That’s basically because they liked and trusted him.”

Veterans of the press corps remembered Gillam as genial and very funny.

Bob Schmidt, a retired reporter for the Long Beach Press Telegram, recalled a story that Gillam liked to tell about former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

“Jerry caught him saying something that was about 180 degrees from what he had said six months earlier,” Schmidt told The Times. “So Jerry went back through his clips and found the article and asked Brown about the flip-flop. Brown’s response: ‘It’s what I said last that counts.’ ”

Gillam was born Feb. 24, 1932, in Glendale and served in the Air Force during the Korean War. After his discharge, he returned to the Glendale News Press, where he had been a sports reporter, but his position was unavailable, so he became a political reporter.

While working for The Times, he earned his journalism degree from Cal State Sacramento in 1977.

In addition to his wife, Gillam is survived by three children, Mark Gillam of Fair Oaks, Calif., Cindy Sullivan of Arcata, Calif., and Karen Pettit of Martinez, Calif.; three step-children, Julie Davies of Auburn, Calif., Karen Freeman of Wallasey, England, and Mike Kimmel of Roseville, Calif.; seven grandchildren; a brother, Rich Gillam of La Crescenta, and his 99-year-old mother, Dorothy Gillam of Glendale.

A memorial service is scheduled for April 24 at 11 a.m. at Trinity Cathedral, 2620 Capitol Ave., Sacramento.

jon.thurber@latimes.com