Nobel Cause
Even in death, Linus Pauling is trying to get people to take their vitamins.
A line of vitamins named after the late Nobel Prize-winning scientist and featuring his picture on each bottle has just been launched nationwide by a Culver City company under a licensing agreement from Pauling’s four children.
According to Pauling’s daughter, Linda Pauling Kamb of Pasadena, her father legally transferred to his children the rights to his name and likeness shortly before he died two years ago at age 93. A company called LC Progeny Inc. was established (the name was picked, she says, because the LC and the P in Progeny were her father’s initials). Kamb, who is president of the company with her three brothers as officers, is even appearing in ads.
Pauling is still the only person to win unshared Nobel Prizes--one in chemistry and one for peace--and for years was nearly as famous for advocating the health benefits of vitamin C as he was for his scientific achievements. Kamb says he was approached over the years to promote various health products, but believed it would be a conflict if he were doing research and selling products.
Distributed by Irwin Naturals, Linus Pauling Vitamins include Oyster Shell Calcium, a vitamin with “grape seed extract” and a vitamin C product that company literature says comes “with bioavailability far greater than ordinary vitamin C.”
For now, she says, no other products are planned, although she hasn’t ruled out T-shirts featuring her father’s face.
Star Gazer
Since being forced out as chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment in late 1994, movie producer Peter Guber has taken a relatively low profile.
Now, Guber will address next month’s American Film Market in Santa Monica in a speech titled “Hollywood Graffiti . . . a View From the Hubble Space Telescope of the Entertainment Business.”
Asked to elaborate, Guber faxed The Times an explanation that read: “The title suggests that all of the seemingly unconnected seminal events in the entertainment business these last few years are in some macro way connected. It is only with the distance of space, time and with major tools we might find their seminal meaning. In short, is there some Rosetta stone that puts all such events in some context?”
Disney’s Bill of Health
Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael D. Eisner is known for his quirky, chatty messages to shareholders in the company’s annual reports.
Disney’s report being sent to shareholders this week is no exception. Eisner notes how much better things are now than when Disney encountered some trying events in 1994, including his own emergency quadruple bypass surgery.
“The only operation this year,” Eisner writes, “is the continued operational strength of your company. The only surgery was in making our movies, television shows and live performances leaner and better. The only triage was the saving, curing and celebrating the performance of Disneyland in Paris.”
