PASSINGS: Gail Dolgin, Bob Kholos, Miriam Golden Ziegler Hailparn

Gail Dolgin, documentary filmmaker

Gail Dolgin, 65, an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker, died Oct. 7 at her home in Berkeley. She was diagnosed in 2001 with breast cancer, which later spread to other parts of her body.

Dolgin produced and co-directed “Daughter from Danang” in 2002 with Vicente Franco. The film, which follows the story of an Asian American woman and her Vietnamese mother who reunite after a 22-year separation, won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for best documentary and was nominated for an Academy Award.

After a theatrical release and international festival run, the film had a national broadcast on the PBS “American Experience” series. In 2007, Dolgin and Franco co-produced and co-directed “Summer of Love” for “American Experience.”

Dolgin’s latest project, which remains unfinished, was about the foot soldiers of the African American civil rights movement who remain unsung heroes, friends said. Filmmakers Robin Fryday and Judith Helfand will finish the film, Franco said.

Born April 4, 1945, Dolgin was raised in Great Neck, N.Y. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in art history and later returned to New York to study photography. She joined Newsreel, a social issues-driven film collective that launched her interest in film.

Bob Kholos

Longtime political activist

Bob Kholos, 67, a longtime Democratic political activist and the first mayoral press secretary to Tom Bradley, died Oct. 12 in Eugene, Ore., of cancer, said his wife, Pam Yeaton.

Kholos was named Bradley’s press secretary after Bradley was elected Los Angeles mayor in 1973. Kholos had served as media director during the campaign and assistant press secretary during Bradley’s 1969 unsuccessful 1969 mayoral bid against Sam Yorty.

Born Oct. 5, 1943, in Los Angeles, Kholos graduated from Santa Monica High School and attended Santa Monica College. Kholos served in the Army in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967 and started working for political campaigns upon his return, his wife said.

He told The Times in 1993 of hearing Bradley campaigning on the radio in 1969 and “it was so refreshing that I went right in and volunteered.”

Among other campaigns Kholos worked for were the presidential runs of Democratic senators Harold Hughes of Iowa, Frank Church of Idaho and George McGovern of South Dakota.

He also worked for several California politicians, including state Sen. John Burton and U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston.

Miriam Golden Ziegler Hailparn

Co-founder of L.A. Ballet Theater

Miriam Golden Ziegler Hailparn, 90, who danced with the American Ballet Theatre and started the Los Angeles Junior Ballet, died Sept. 30 at her home in Beverly Hills, said her son, George Ziegler. She had suffered from peripheral artery disease.

She was known as Miriam Golden in 1940 when she became a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. She moved to Los Angeles in 1944 and danced in several films, including “Show Boat” in 1951. After starting the Los Angeles Junior Ballet with Irina Kosmovska, she served as a “ballet master” for the Los Angeles Ballet Theater, The Times said in a 1973 story.

Born Miriam Goldstein in Philadelphia on Jan. 5, 1920, she began her professional career as a teenager with the Littlefield Ballet.

—Times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com