Volunteer’s Calling in the War on Drugs

Twenty-five years ago when Suzanne Marx’s guest house and pool collapsed into the ravines behind her Encino hills home during a mudslide, she realized that she’d have a much smaller back yard. She did not sell the house; she just built a retaining wall, added a hedge and went on. She even added a few rooms over the years.

Suzanne Marx is generally unflappable.

So when former First Lady Nancy Reagan announced in May that she was withdrawing her support for a proposed drug treatment facility--the Nancy Reagan Center--to be run by Phoenix House in Lake View Terrace, Marx, national campaign chairwoman of the center, gathered up her considerable fund-raising talents and moved on . . . with little comment.

Marx deals with the withdrawal of support like a trained politician at a press conference. Briskly, she parries any attempt to discern what really happened, how the Nancy Reagan Center donors have responded privately, and whither the $5.3 million was raised. (“I really don’t think I want to talk about it.”)

On Sept. 1, Reagan asked that the donors to the Nancy Reagan Center be given the opportunity to transfer their donations to the Nancy Reagan Foundation, her all-purpose charitable fund. Mitchell Rosenthal, the head of Phoenix House, which was to operate the center, wants the funds to remain with Phoenix House. Marx, still on the board of Phoenix House/California, maintains a delicate balance between the two parties.

And she will continue her war against drugs, regardless of the outcome of the dispute over the monies.

“Negatives are not in my vocabulary,” Marx insisted. Indeed, she is on a mission. “So many of my friends were touched by drugs. . . . Some of my friends have lost sons. This is a survival issue for all of us.”

Marx, perfectly coiffed and ensembled in a crisp Valentino black-and-white check suit, issues this statement while sitting, legs crossed at the ankles, in her study in her Encino home.

“I have admired Mrs. Reagan since she was First Lady of California, and as First Lady of this country, she served with great distinction. It was an honor for me to be national campaign chairman of a drug abuse rehabilitation center that was to bear her name.”

The study, appropriated from her cardiologist husband, Dr. Joseph Marx, is a nightmare of handwritten notes, stacks of position papers, invitations and correspondence.

But Marx reveals that she knows where everything is by delicately reaching into a pile and withdrawing just what she needs today: the agenda of this afternoon’s L.A. County Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Commission meeting. She has been a member of the commission since 1986 and rarely misses a meeting. When it comes to the war on drugs, Marx is relentless.

Eventually, she divulges a bit of frustration in her battle, especially with the Nancy Reagan Center.

“One cannot work on something of this magnitude for 1 1/2 years, seven days a week, night and day and not feel disappointed. But I don’t have time for disappointments. There are too many needs to be addressed.”

And she maintains that the project was a success: “We raised $5.3 million. . . . My donors will be leaving their initial pledges” with Phoenix House. As for the other donors and the dispute between Phoenix House and the Nancy Reagan Center, Marx will only say that “it’s in the lawyer’s hands. No further comment.”

Marx did not arrive at this prominent station by any accident of birth or marital fortunes. Although she is the daughter of a well-to-do criminal lawyer, Phillip Erbsen, and was raised in the comfortable Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, Marx, by her own admission, did not attend the right schools and go to the right clubs like her good friends Diane Disney Miller and Music Center maven Terri Childs. Though often asked whether she’s related to Groucho Marx (she isn’t), her background did not offer automatic entry into Los Angeles’ social circles.

Married at age 18 after a year at the University of Arizona, Marx had her first son, Craig, then proceeded to produce three more. She made certain that her sons attended the right schools, though. All four have gone to some of the best prep schools in the country--Harvard School, Lawrenceville and Philips Academy--and then on to the Ivy League. Already, journalist son Gary has been nominated for a Pulitzer, lawyer son Eric works at Columbia Pictures Television, television news reporter son Craig is a graduate of Princeton, and son Jason is studying at Georgetown Medical School after his years at Princeton.

It is through participation in parents’ activities at these prominent schools that Marx unearthed her calling. “Volunteerism is my life,” she said.

Eventually, after years of volunteer work in different parents associations, Marx became the head of various academic charities for the Philips Academy, Loyola Marymount University, Princeton University and the Harvard/Radcliffe University fund. Soon, she became involved in Music Center activities, was president of the Center’s Club 100 and a member of the center’s socially prominent Blue Ribbon group.

A watershed year in Marx’s calling was 1985. While serving on an L. A. County grand jury, Marx met Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates and became involved in his Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) project as a board member. Marx decided then and there to dare to keep young people off of drugs, locally and nationally.

She began by participating in Police Department vice squad drug raids. “I’d put on one of their jackets and hop into a squad car,” she recalled. “One time, we went out undercover with the LAPD cocaine dogs. The last time I went out--in early ‘88, I think--there was a chase of a couple of drug suspects. The guns were out and we were on two wheels the whole way. We caught them!”

Marx’s zealousness caught the attention of her friend Mary Jane Wick, the wife of Reagan Administration U. S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick. Mary Jane Wick recommended Marx to her good friend Nancy Reagan when the First Lady was searching for a chairman for her newly formed foundation, which would become the Nancy Reagan Center.

“It took six weeks and then Mrs. Reagan invited me to the family quarters,” Marx remembered. Subsequently, Marx began fund raising with a vengeance. At the opera during intermissions, at benefit dinners between courses, on lines waiting to get into social events, there was Marx with pen and note pad, pushing the Nancy Reagan Center, writing down millions of dollars worth of pledges.

That 1 1/2 years with the Nancy Reagan Center were Marx’s salad days. “It all came together during the Reagan years for me,” she said. “All the skills came together--fund raising, leadership, dealing with people. I’ll never forget a moment of that wonderful experience.”

But Marx must continue her efforts in the battle against drugs. At the meeting of the L.A. County Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Commission that afternoon, Marx sees Sgt. Timothy Beard, a detective with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. She races over to him, anxious for information on cocaine usage in Los Angeles.

“Is it up or down this month?” she asks.

The sergeant can’t be sure, but he suggests that crack cocaine sales appear to be rising.

Marx shakes her head, angry and frustrated.

“Are you going on any raids soon?” she wonders.

“Heavy or light?” the sergeant responds.

“Oh, heavy,” Marx says. “The heavier the better.” Marx takes down the sergeant’s phone number on one of her ubiquitous note pads. Her mission is far from over.