Singer Is High Note in Contest

When Gene Warren remembers his childhood, it conjures up memories that might haunt the ordinary individual.

In the early 1920s, Warren’s mother helped compose an original score for “Phantom of the Opera” and later played the organ in the traveling road show.

The 76-year-old Warren recently won first place for his rendition of a medley of songs from a modern-day “Phantom”--the Andrew Lloyd Webber extravaganza--in the solo male vocal category at the 1990 Los Angeles City-Wide Senior Talent Show.

The annual show, held at Fairfax High School, drew more than 150 contestants. Sponsors included FHP Inc., the Los Angeles Federation of Senior Citizens Clubs and the city Department of Parks and Recreation.

Warren, it turns out, has spent a good bit of time over the years on the stage or behind a microphone. Following his first singing engagement with the Al Donahue Orchestra, he joined radio station WRAL in Raleigh, N.C., in 1938. Warren became known on the airwaves as the “singing disc jockey,” as he sang along with the records he was spinning on the turntable.

When the United States entered World War II, he worked as a soldier-announcer on “Cheers from the Camps” and helped organize USO tours with a number of singing greats. After the war, he did radio spots such as the famous tobacco commercials during the “Hit Parade” program. In 1950, he appeared on “The Robert Q. Lewis Show” as a guest disc jockey. His guest, Nat King Cole, introduced a song called “Mona Lisa,” which went on to sell millions.

Although he claims to be semi-retired, the Santa Monica resident has remained active writing poetry, donating time to charity organizations or working on the stage.

“I have tried to stay modern in my tastes, but I also want to keep jazz and ballads alive,” Warren said. “I’m trying to become a living legend before I become unliving.”

Other first-place winners of the 1990 City-Wide Senior Talent show include the following Westside residents: Ruby Audbert and Ransom Southern for vocal duet, Giorgio Bunatta for classical male vocal, members of the Happy Chorale for vocal chorale, Ann Moore for dance solo and Adele Vonnie for solo female vocal.

Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky and his wife, Barbara, have been named Man and Woman of the ‘90s by Jews for Judaism.

They will be honored at the fourth annual dinner of Jews for Judaism at the Century Plaza Hotel Sept. 26.

Councilman Yaroslavsky was a founder of Students for Soviet Jewry while at UCLA and served as the organization’s national president from 1968 to 1972.

Camille A. Goulet was installed earlier this month as the first woman president of the Kiwanis Club of Beverly Hills.

Goulet is an attorney with the law firm of Berman & Clark in Santa Monica.

The American Political Science Assn. has awarded the prestigious James Madison Award to UCLA’s James Q. Wilson.

The Madison Award is given once every three years to a recognize an American political scientist who has made a distinguished scholarly contribution to the field.

Wilson holds the James Collins Chair in Management and is professor of Organization and Strategic Studies at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management. He is an expert on American government and politics, economic regulation, bureaucracy, crime and criminal justice.

Gov. George Deukmejian has appointed Fred Stern of Beverly Hills as a member of the Teachers’ Retirement Board.

Stern, who is on the Beverly Hills Board of Education, replaces Cyril Fritz of Castro Valley, who resigned.

He is the associate managing director of Wertheim Schroder & Co. Inc.

Adam Jerugim and Zev Kvitky were awarded Boy Scouting’s highest rank, Eagle Scout, at a special troop Court of Honor at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills on Sept. 16.

In 1988, Jerugim was the recipient of the Mark Shinderman Memorial Scholarship and is a freshman at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Kvitky is also a freshman at UCSC.