Celebration Honors Dr. Murphy

The cultural institutions of Los Angeles have almost finished celebrating Dr. Franklin D. Murphy’s 75th birthday. It’s been some celebration, since he’s now approaching 77.

The most recent commemoration was at Friday’s black-tie dinner at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. The evening was the next-to-last event in a two-year series of honors that have been the community’s way of thanking the Times Mirror chairman emeritus and former UCLA chancellor for his work in support of the arts.

“Dr. Murphy has devoted his life to the development of cultural assets in this city,” said Loren Rothschild, chairman of the Huntington’s Overseers’ Library Committee, who co-hosted the dinner with Robert F. Erburu, chairman of the Huntington’s board of trustees and chairman of the board and CEO of Times Mirror, the parent company of the Los Angeles Times.

“He’s been one of the great conspiratorial benefactors of Los Angeles,” said the evening’s speaker, Brown University President Vartan Gregorian. “He’s been a Medici at your expense.”

As befits a modern Medici, the evening began with the viewing of early Renaissance printed treasures, an area in which Murphy has a personal interest. The literary art works included the first printing of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Albrecht Durer’s famed prints from “The Apocalypse” and an original edition of John Milton’s “Areopagitica.”

The 140 guests, who were primarily book collectors and academics, included Marion and Earle Jorgensen; Dennis and Terry Stanfill; Barry and Louise Taper; New Yorker West Coast bureau chief Caroline Graham; Judge David A. Thomas and his wife, Peggy; Frances Brody; Monsignor Francis J. Weber and USC President Steven Sample and his wife, Kathryn.

After the viewing, the guests proceeded to the Friends Hall for a rack of lamb dinner followed by brief remarks by Huntington president Dr. Robert A. Skotheim and co-hosts Rothschild and Erburu and the presentation of an L.A. County Board of Supervisors proclamation honoring Murphy by Supervisor Ed Edelman.

The program’s centerpiece was a lecture by Gregorian on the importance of the library, the book and the act of reading that easily fulfilled the speaker’s wish to be “brief but enlightening.”

When Murphy stood to speak at the evening’s end, he began by saying that “the Irish are not without verbal charm.” It was a telling remark--a clue to his secret for loosening purse strings for spending on culture.