Ex-Boxer to Battle for Sake of Arts : Chairman: Bryan Littlefield, new head of the California Arts Council, is known to be as blunt as he is charming, but is expected to be a committed leader.

He never graduated junior high, high school or college, never dabbled in painting or piano, never had a job in the arts and has long run Ol’ Blue Eyes’ beer company. But Bryan (Whitey) Littlefield of Seal Beach now holds one of the state’s highest-profile positions in the arts.

A six-year member of the California Arts Council, Littlefield was unanimously elected its new chairman Friday. Many assert he’ll be a strong, committed and sensitive leader.

“He’ll make an excellent chairman. He is an arts advocate. He understands what the arts do for the quality of life in California,” says outgoing chairwoman Joanne C. Kozberg of Los Angeles.

“He has really articulated a strong case for arts funding and he was on the board of the Long Beach Symphony,” said Susan Hoffman, executive director of the California Confederation of the Arts, the state’s largest arts advocacy organization. “It’s good to have a chair with direct trustee experience.”

“I can’t think of one time in which he’s disagreed with me on multicultural issues,” said outgoing council member Gerald D. Yoshitomi, executive director of the Japanese Community and Cultural Center and a champion for ethnic culture.

Littlefield, 58, a Democrat, is an unpretentious, one-time Golden Gloves boxer who speaks his mind and is known to be as blunt and aggressive as he is charming and big-hearted.

General manager of Frank Sinatra’s Somerset Distributors Inc. near Long Beach for the past 23 years, he is said to be one of that community’s most effective charity fund-raisers and has raised thousands for a variety of groups, from the local Police Officers Assn. widow’s fund to the Cedar House, a center for abused children.

“He’s been very modest, but for instance, he always makes sure toys are delivered to the children at Christmas by a representative from his business,” says Daphne Ching, Cedar House executive director.

But Littlefield has also been embroiled in highly public disputes--one with the Long Beach Grand Prix Assn. president--and is known to bare intractable grudges.

“Whitey will give you the shirt off his back if you are his friend,” says a prominent Long Beach attorney who didn’t want to be named. “But if you disappoint him, you become the hated enemy, the devil incarnate, forever. That tends to be very divisive.”

And there are those in the Southern California arts community who seriously question Littlefield’s cultural qualifications, despite his council tenure.

Lindsay Shields, former director of the Long Beach Public Corporation for the Arts, an umbrella service organization, praised his support and interest in the South Bay art community. But Cynthia MacMullin, director of the prominent FHP Hippodrome Gallery, said she had “never seen or felt or heard of any input Whitey has contributed” to the Long Beach arts community.

An affinity for the gavel worries others. There are two things that those who regularly attend council meetings have come to count on: Littlefield, who until Friday was council co-vice chairman, will be the only councilman at meetings without a tie and he’ll be sure to make the motion to go home.

Just after his election, Littlefield discussed his qualifications, critics and goals at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where the regular council meeting was held.

Not every chairman or member of the council has worked professionally in the arts, either as an administrator or as an actual artist--much to the chagrin of many.

In fact, Los Angeles choreographer Bella Lewitzky, founder of the modern dance company that bears her name, was the last working artist to serve. Her council term ended in 1987.

In addition to his seat on the Long Beach Symphony Board, Littlefield was a member of the Fine Arts Affiliates of Cal State Long Beach, a support organization for the university’s arts programs.

Once having joined the council, where he served on several executive committees, he quit both posts to avoid conflict of interest, he says, but remained a symphony donor and subscriber. He also supports and regularly attends the Long Beach Civic Light Opera and the Long Beach Ballet.

Still, he believes that close friend and former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian named him to the council primarily for his business smarts. The governor, to whose campaign he had contributed, “asked me what I wanted to be involved with in his administration.” And, he makes no pretense that he’s anything but an arts “apprentice.”

“Certainly there are many disciplines I’m not an expert in at all, nor do I profess to be,” he said. “I know theater, I know music. . . . I rely heavily upon the recommendations of council staff because I think it’s a good staff. Do I feel comfortable doing the job as chairman and doing it well? Absolutely. And to the critics, they should wait and see at the end of the year.”

The past several years have been a time to learn, he said. “I hadn’t been inside of (the County Museum of Art) in 5 years, previous to coming to council. I’ve been in it three times since. Sight is knowledge.”

Kozberg, on the Music Center’s board of governors, agreed. “He has grown tremendously in his capacity with all art forms.”

As for his gavel-happy reputation, Littlefield denies that he terminates meetings prematurely. “We have an agenda, we go through the agenda. The end of the meeting is the end of the meeting.”

Littlefield admits he holds grudges, but he doesn’t think that sort of thing is germane to the arts. He’d rather discuss his goals as council chairman, namely doubling its $17-million budget over the next two years.

California currently spends 58 cents per person yearly on the arts, and ranks 40th among the states and territories in per capita spending, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. In comparison, New York ranks sixth and spends $3.11.

Littlefield admits his goal is “an impossibility,” but will continue to fight and thinks the battle may now be “a great deal easier.”

“I don’t think the previous governor was as aware of the arts as” newly elected Pete Wilson, to whose campaign he also contributed.

He also foresees greater involvement in Orange County arts. He has been to the Performing Arts Center once, and has no association with any local arts groups. But the council’s “site visit” budget for trips to evaluate prospective grantees has been cut, and members intend to take up the slack by attending more events, particularly near their homes, he said.

Born in Salt Lake City on Christmas Day, Littlefield grew up as a towhead in a predominantly black neighborhood, hence the nickname Whitey.

He attended school (about six years worth in all, he says), but never picked up a diploma. A troublemaker with an attitude, he says, “I always managed to get thrown out just about the time I was to graduate.”

A Golden Gloves boxer for three months, he started in the beer business in 1952 as a truck driver, working his way up while learning the ropes. He hadn’t known Sinatra when he got the job at Somerset, which supplies about 60% of Long Beach’s beer and grosses more than $35 million in sales annually, he said.

The father of two grown children, Littlefield moved to Seal Beach about 18 months ago after living 20 years in Long Beach. Though he never took up any of the arts, he has two brothers who were accomplished musicians and says he has a growing appreciation that he hopes, as chairman, to continue to spread to others.

“The arts can do wonderful good,” he said, citing radio news programs that he had heard were aired in Tel Aviv the night that Iraq fired its first missiles on the Israeli city.

“The news programs were not just news programs. They were playing music, and why were they playing music? To relax the person who was sitting in that shelter or in that sealed room. For the betterment of the human race, the arts have a lot to offer.”

BACKGROUND

The 15-year-old California Arts Council is a taxpayer-supported state agency that provides grants and technical assistance to artists and nonprofit arts organizations. Its proposed grants budget for fiscal 1991-92 is $13 million, and it is governed by 11 volunteer members who serve four-year terms. Chairmen usually serve two years. The governor appoints nine council members; the remaining two are named by the Legislature. Council members approve all grants, as recommended by a professional staff.