Memorial Today for Laguna Cartoonist Dick Oldden

Dick Oldden, one of Laguna Beach’s most well-known characters and a prolific cartoonist, has died. He was 63.

Oldden, who drew cartoons for the New Yorker, the Saturday Evening Post, Playboy and daily newspapers, died Tuesday at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center and will be remembered at a memorial gathering today. He had been in a coma since suffering a cerebral hemorrhage Feb. 16.

During his later years, Oldden became a fixture of the Laguna Beach social scene, said his daughter, Maya Oldden.

“Everyone knew him here,” Maya Oldden said. “He was somewhat of a town celebrity. He had a gift for gab.”

Born in Indio the son of printer and an accountant, Oldden saw various parts of the West during his youth, living with his family in homes in San Francisco, Nevada, Catalina Island and even on a boat in the Los Angeles harbor.

He attended New York University’s Parsons School of Design and began to work in advertising. He also joined the Army, and painted murals for the military.

A fan of the Japanese sport of kendo and a teacher of German, Spanish and Japanese, Oldden also studied in Japan. When he returned to the United States, he began to sell cartoons to publications. He moved to Laguna Beach in 1980, and turned his attention to painting in the following years.

Oldden was known for his association with the old Ivy House Restaurant, a hangout in Laguna Beach for local artists, cartoonists, performers and writers.

“He and a whole group of cartoonists had a daily routine of sending their cartoons off in the mail, and then stopping off at the Ivy House to share ideas,” Maya Oldden said. “It was definitely eclectic.”

He also is survived by his parents, Rosemary and Steever Brooke Oldden of Catalina.

A memorial cocktail party will take place at 3 p.m. today at the Cedar Creek Inn, 384 Forest Ave., Laguna Beach.