Robert Hastings; Lawyer, Music Center Director

Robert P. Hastings, attorney and civic leader who was one of the original officers and directors of the Los Angeles County Music Center, has died on the eve of his 86th birthday.

Hastings, name partner of the Los Angeles law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, died Wednesday night at his Pasadena home, said his friend and law partner Leonard S. Janofsky. Hastings would have been 86 on Thursday.

He was a director and secretary of the Los Angeles Music Center Operating Co. from 1961 to 1965 in the infancy of the organization that developed the three-theater complex in downtown Los Angeles.

Hastings also served as board chairman and president of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Assn. and as a director of the California Light Opera Assn.

A scholar on Winston Churchill, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1974 for his study and writings on the great British leader, including “Winston S. Churchill--From Naughtiest Small Boy in the World to Child of the House of Commons.” Hastings was a trustee of the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States and director of the Los Angeles chapter of the English-Speaking Union.

A bibliophile, Hastings served on the boards of the Huntington Library and Art Gallery and the support groups, Friends of the Huntington Library, Friends of the Stanford Law Library and Friends of the Bancroft Library. He was active in the Zamorano book collectors club.

He headed the California USO Campaign in 1956, and for many years was vice chairman of the board of trustees of Harvey Mudd College of Science and Engineering in Claremont and president of the Friends of Claremont Colleges. He was also president of the board of the private Thatcher School in Ojai, and a member of the board of visitors for Stanford Law School.

Hastings served as a vestryman at Pasadena’s All Saints Episcopal Church.

Born in Los Angeles, he studied at Yale and Harvard law schools and was a Navy air combat intelligence officer in the Pacific during World War II.

Among Hastings’ varied writings were “Privateer in the Coconut Navy,” “Of Jakes and Other Conveniences” and “On the Third Day He Arose From the Dead.”

A widower, Hastings is survived by his daughter, Susan Hastings Mallory, and two granddaughters, Emily and Shelby.