Obituaries - April 11, 1999

* Graenum Berger; Helped Ethiopians Go to Israel

Graenum Berger, 90, an American credited with helping relocate tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. A social worker by training, Berger became interested in Ethiopian Jews after encountering some during a visit to Israel in 1955. Ten years later, he visited Ethiopia and recalled being angered at the conditions there. “We saw extreme poverty, the worst in the world,” Berger said, “where people earned $65 a year. And they faced terrible discrimination.” He lectured about the Ethiopian Jews, also known as Falashas, before American audiences and formed the American Association for Ethiopian Jews. He thought he would be helped in his cause by the Israeli rabbinate’s 1975 decision to legally recognize the Falashas as Jews, but found little support from Jewish leaders in the United States and Israel. After Menachem Begin was elected prime minister of Israel in 1977, Berger sensed some support for his cause. In 1984 and 1985, Operation Moses, a secret airlift of Falashas to Israel, was initiated. In 1991 another rescue operation was carried out and thousands more Falashas were airlifted to Israel. By 1993, there were believed to be 50,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel. While Berger didn’t set up the Israeli government- sponsored airlifts, he has generally been credited with being the moral force behind the evacuation. On March 31 at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y.

* Frank Cordeiro Jr.; Photographed Pearl Harbor

Frank O. Cordeiro Jr., 73, who as a high school student in Honolulu took historic photographs of the attack on Pearl Harbor. An editor at the Honolulu Star Bulletin asked Cordeiro to take a few photographs of naval maneuvers at Pearl Harbor on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. Armed with a Leica camera borrowed from a teacher, Cordeiro captured the destroyer Shaw exploding in a ball of flames. Cordeiro joined the Army, and after being wounded in combat in the Philippines, exchanged his rifle for a camera. At the end of the war, he photographed Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepting the Japanese surrender aboard the Missouri. He went on to serve in the Korean War, winning a Bronze Star for his photography behind enemy lines. He retired from the Army in 1964 with the rank of master sergeant. On Monday in Oregon. The cause of death was not announced.

* Hyman Faine; Labor Executive, Opera Booster

Hyman R. Faine, 88, a veteran labor executive who helped organize several of the country’s leading opera companies and later helped establish the country’s first management in the arts program at UCLA. Faine was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and came to the United States at age 10, graduating from City College of New York and Harvard Law School. After serving in the Army during World War II, Faine began a 25-year career as executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists for the U.S. and Canada. In that position, he negotiated union contracts for artists and staff at the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, New York City Ballet, and opera and dance companies around the country. In Los Angeles, he negotiated contracts for the Roger Wagner Chorale. In 1970, he was appointed regents professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Management and later joined the regular faculty. He helped establish the country’s first management in the arts program, which trained future administrators for nonprofit visual and performing arts institutions. After his UCLA retirement, he set up a similar program at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. He also served as president of the Labor Zionist Alliance from 1964 to 1968. A memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. Monday at Pierce Bros. in Westwood. On Thursday in Los Angeles of pneumonia.

* Raul Silva Henriquez; Defended Rights in Chile

Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez, 91, an outspoken defender of human rights during Chile’s military dictatorship. In opposing the repressive government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Silva sponsored groups that gave legal aid to political prisoners and helped people dismissed for political reasons find jobs. He also worked to collect evidence of torture and other human rights abuses. He once commented that “there are more of the Gospels’ values in socialism than there are in capitalism,” but he also firmly opposed Marxism. Silva’s work made him a target of attacks by the military and its rightist supporters. His parents’ grave was desecrated, he received death threats and gunmen fired on his house. President Eduardo Frei decreed five days of national mourning to honor Silva. “Above all, he was a man of indomitable spirit,” Frei said. “He would always tell me, ‘One has to work for the poor.’ ” Silva, who had been afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease for years, died Friday of a heart attack in Santiago.

* Jack H. McDonald; Former Head of S & L Firm

Jack H. McDonald, 88, former chairman of Imperial Corp. of America who led the firm at the time it became one of the nation’s largest holding companies. McDonald was an official of the Pasadena-based firm Investors Savings and Loan Assn. when it was bought by Imperial in 1959. McDonald rose through the ranks of the San Diego-based Imperial, becoming chief executive officer in 1964 and chairman of the board in 1972. In the late 1960s, Imperial was spread out farther than any other S&L; holding firm in the country with properties in Texas, Colorado and Kansas. But new federal regulations limited the number of states such businesses could expand into to just one. Imperial focused on California, purchasing a number of smaller firms on the way to becoming the largest S&L; in the state with 125 branches stretching from the Mexico border to Oregon. When McDonald retired in 1975, Imperial Corp. of America was the largest S&L; corporation in the nation and the first and only one to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. During the mid-1980s, Imperial got into financial trouble with junk bonds and bad loans and was taken over by federal regulators in 1990. In retirement, McDonald developed properties in Hawaii and Guam and served as a consultant to a number of corporations. On March 19, at Sharp Memorial Hospital in Kearney Mesa of complications from Parkinson’s disease, leukemia and pneumonia.

* Donald Savage; Expert on Anthropoid Evolution

Donald E. Savage, 81, a noted expert on the origins of mammals, in particular the evolution of anthropoid apes. The focus of the work of Savage, professor emeritus of paleontology at UC Berkeley, was biostratigraphy, or correlating mammal fossils with geological formations. This was the primary way of dating finds before radioisotope dating became reliable and accessible. His major find came in 1978 on a dig in Burma: a primate jaw dated to be 40 million to 44 million years old. It remains one of the earliest known fossils of higher primates. Born in Texas, Savage received his bachelor’s degree from West Texas State University and his master’s from the University of Oklahoma. He spent six years in the Air Force before going to UC Berkeley as a graduate student and instructor in the paleontology department. In 1949, he received his PhD from Berkeley and joined the faculty. An expert on Bay Area fossils, Savage was also the director of the university’s Museum of Paleontology. On Monday in Rossmoor, Calif., of pancreatic cancer.

* Sam Shaw; Producer, Photographed Monroe

Sam Shaw, 87, a photographer famous for the shot of Marilyn Monroe standing over a grate with her skirt blown high by subway breezes. Born in New York City, Shaw worked briefly for the Brooklyn Eagle as the art director before beginning his photography career. By the 1950s, his photographs frequently ended up on the covers of Life and Look magazines. He later moved into films, making the photograph of Marlon Brando in a torn T-shirt that became synonymous with “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He was hired by 20th Century Fox in 1953 to handle publicity for “The Seven Year Itch.” The scene with Monroe and the subway grate, reenacted from the movie, was shot more than 20 times. Shaw moved away from photography in the early 1960s, going into film production. He produced “Husbands,” “A Woman Under the Influence,” “Gloria” and “Opening Night” for John Cassavetes. He also produced “Paris Blues,” starring Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier. On April 5, of a stroke in Westwood, N.J.

* Angus E. Taylor; Former UC Administrator

Angus E. Taylor, 87, a UCLA mathematics professor, University of California administrator and chancellor of UC Santa Cruz. Born on a ranch near Craig, Colo., Taylor earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his doctorate from Caltech. After teaching briefly at Caltech, Taylor joined the mathematics faculty at UCLA, where he taught for 26 years and was chairman of the department from 1958 to 1964. He became chairman of the Academic Council of the university’s Academic Senate in 1964 at the outset of the turbulent Free Speech Movement. Former UC President Clark Kerr hailed Taylor as a giant after Taylor designed a compromise that resolved the impasse between the Board of Regents and the Academic Senate over regulation of students’ political activity. In 1965, Kerr appointed Taylor to the newly created position of UC vice president of academic affairs. He served in that post for 10 years, and then as provost, the university’s highest academic officer, for one year. Taylor completed his career by serving as the third chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, from 1976 until his retirement in July 1977. On Tuesday in Berkeley.