Hoarse Celebrities Seek Out This Doctor

Dozens of Southern California singers and actors entrust Robert Feder with one of their most treasured assets--their vocal chords.

Feder, a sort of otolaryngologist to the stars, the doctor of choice for many entertainers suffering from colds, coughs or hoarseness, last year founded the Performing Arts Medical Center Voice Institute in Los Angeles.

Hoarseness is the number one ailment he and two partners treat at the institute, said Feder, whose clients include announcer Ed McMahon, actress Ann Bancroft and singer Kenny Rogers.

And what’s his advice?

“When you’re hoarse, you have to push the water, at least 10 glasses every day, and steam (is helpful),” he said. Also, “no whispering, talk normal. No clearing, no gargling and smoking is terrible.”

The best preventive measure to care for one’s voice is not to yell, he added. “After a show--quiet. If you’re having a good time, don’t yell, don’t shout. And, every day, warm up for 20 minutes.”

In addition to his work at the institute, Feder, 56, a Brooklyn native who graduated from New York University and Duke University, said he has written about 40 papers on the voice and is the consulting laryngologist to the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.

Many of his patients are opera singers and Feder, a baritone, said that, although he has never performed, he has taken classical singing lessons to understand the voice better.

“I love the voice, I love music,” he said.

Dorsey High School junior Kenny Smith did well in school this past year and received a five-day session this month at the Magic Johnson All-Star Basketball Camp in Thousand Oaks for his efforts.

Fourteen students throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District received the $485 “camperships,” sponsored by Kenwood U.S.A. Corp., for demonstrating “a positive change in their school attitudes and grades during the past year,” according to district officials.

Daniel Cano, professor of English at Santa Monica College, has been named the college’s outstanding Latino instructor.

Cano, who has been on the college faculty since 1988, was honored for his “exemplary efforts” to help Latino students advance in their studies by two Latino student organizations, CLUE and MEChA.

The American Jewish Committee has named Rabbi Gary Greenebaum as its Western regional director.

Greenebaum, the former regional director of the Northern California Hillel Council, succeeds Dr. Neil C. Sandberg, who resigned to take a post as director of the committee’s Pacific Rim Institute.

Ariel-United Israel Institutes held a reception this month in honor of its executive board chairman, Rabbi Simon Dolgin, and his wife, Shirley.

The Dolgins were honored at Beth Jacob Congregation’s Bayer Hall for their 50 years of helping Los Angeles Jews deepen their awareness of religious values.

The Los Angeles County Medical Assn. has selected Dr. Robert S. Hepler, an ophthalmologist, as the new president of the association’s Bay District, which includes Malibu, Santa Monica and Culver City.

Hepler, who practices at the UCLA Medical Center’s Jules Stein Eye Institute, is a graduate of Occidental College and UCLA.

The association also elected Dr. Brian D. Johnston, an internist and Culver City resident, to its governing body and appointed Dr. Marie G. Kuffner, a UCLA anesthesiologist, as its secretary.