Obituaries - Dec. 30, 1999

* Dorothy Barish; Beverly Hills Realtor Listed Pickfair

Dorothy L. Barish, 68, a prominent Beverly Hills Realtor. Barish had been in the real estate game for just a few years when she was one of the agents to get the listing for the Pickfair estate in early 1980 after the death of silent screen legend Mary Pickford the previous summer. With home loan interest rates hitting 17% at the time, the price of the 2.7-acre estate above Benedict Canyon was $8 million, down from the original asking price of $10 million. But in listing the property, one of the prerequisites to even look at it was that prospective buyers show a letter from their bank confirming that they had resources of $20 million. “I think this was done basically to make sure the people were capable of buying and maintaining it,” Barish said at the time. Barish came to California from Georgia in 1949. She was an elementary school teacher turned housewife, turned real estate agent. She was the widow of Howard “Bud” Barish, who ran a Chrysler dealership on La Brea Avenue for many years. She was elected to the board of the American Film Institute in 1992. On Dec. 22 of a stroke.

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Peter Jeffrey; British ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ Actor

Peter Jeffrey, 70, popular British television and radio character actor best remembered by American audiences from several episodes of PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre.” Born in Bristol, England, and educated at Cambridge, Jeffrey made his London stage debut in “Julius Caesar” in 1953. He had a respected stage career, but achieved his greatest success on radio and television. In the United States, he was seen on PBS in several miniseries: as Mr. Peabody in “The Jewel in the Crown,” as Oliver Cromwell in “By the Sword Divided,” and in “Elizabeth R” and “Cakes and Ale.” He also enjoyed various character roles in the long-running series “The Avengers,” which was shown in America by ABC. Jeffrey did enjoy Shakespeare and rated his favorite roles as the title character in “Macbeth” and as Falstaff in “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” He appeared as Commissioner Sir Colin Blamire in the 1996 BBC series “Our Friends in the North” and as Bulstrode in the 1994 series “Middlemarch.” On Saturday in Oxhill, England, of prostate cancer.

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Shankar Dayal Sharma; Former President of India

Shankar Dayal Sharma, 81, India’s president from 1992 to 1997 and a longtime ally of the Nehru-Gandhi family, India’s foremost political dynasty. A sentimental public leader, Sharma sometimes broke down in Parliament before unruly lawmakers. He once said he believed in retaliating by shaming offenders with acts of kindness. In the largely ceremonial post of president, Sharma was known for being scrupulously impartial. He wore many hats in his long career, including freedom movement activist, teacher, attorney, politician, president and a scholar of the Indian languages Hindi and Sanskrit. As an educator, he was once the chancellor of Delhi University. In his youth, he was jailed during India’s fight for independence from Britain. He studied law and received his doctorate from England’s Cambridge University, and visited as a fellow at Harvard Law School. On Sunday in a New Delhi hospital of a heart attack after being admitted last month with heart and lung ailments.