TERRY B. FRIEDMAN

Party: Democrat.

Age: 37.

Family: Wife Elise Karl, no children.

Residence: Laurel Canyon.

His district: The 43rd, which covers Beverly Hills, a portion of West Hollywood and much of West Los Angeles, including parts of Bel-Air and Brentwood, and Canoga Park, Encino, North Hollywood, Reseda, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Tarzana and Woodland Hills. Formerly represented by Democrat Gray Davis, who is now state controller.

Background: Friedman, the only child of two schoolteachers, grew up in Eagle Rock. Interested early in current events, he became a follower of the civil rights leaders of the 1960s--John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy. Attended UCLA, where he got to know Burt Margolin, a good friend who would later become a Democratic assemblyman representing Los Angeles. For eight years Friedman worked at Bet Tzedek, a Fairfax-based legal-aid foundation, before Democratic friends urged him to run for office.

What Paul Zeltner says about Friedman: “He’s personally a very nice man, a gentleman and intelligent and committed. (But) he’s committed to a philosophy that’s different than mine. . . . His questions usually are pretty darn good questions, but (they carry) a liberal tilt.”