Obituaries - Sept. 1, 1999

Anita L. Bolin; Camp Fire Director

Anita L. Bolin, 93, former executive director of the Camp Fire organization in the Los Angeles area. Born in Seattle, Bolin was educated at UC Berkeley and then taught school in nearby Saratoga. From 1954 until her retirement in 1974, she headed Camp Fire’s Los Angeles Council. Bolin was also an active volunteer with Meals on Wheels. On Saturday in El Cajon, Calif.

Joan Braden; Inspired ‘Eight Is Enough’

Joan R. Braden, 77, Washington aide and hostess and inspiration for her husband’s book “Eight Is Enough.” Braden served as a State Department officer, public relations executive, magazine writer, television interviewer and aide to John F. Kennedy and Nelson A. Rockefeller. But she also reared eight children, as her husband, columnist Tom Braden, described in his book. His chronicle of their busy household became an ABC television series that ran from 1977 to 1981. Born in Indianapolis, Braden graduated from Northwestern University. In addition to her husband, she is survived by seven children. The eighth, Tom, died in 1994. On Monday in Washington, D.C., of a heart attack.

Waldo E. Cohn; Worked on A-Bomb

Waldo E. Cohn, 89, biochemist who helped build the world’s first nuclear bomb and developed radioisotopes used as medical tracers. A native of San Francisco, Cohn earned several degrees in biochemistry from UC Berkeley. He joined the Manhattan Project in 1942 while working at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago. In Oak Ridge, Tenn., the following year, he applied a technique known as iron exchange chromatography to the process of splitting uranium atoms to create plutonium. After the atom bomb ended World War II, Cohn realized that his technique could be applied to the characterization of the components of the nucleic acids DNA and RNA. His work earned him the Chromatography Award of the American Chemical Society, and he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. One of the first to foresee the value of radioisotopes in medical research and treatment, Cohn was influential in starting their production at Oak Ridge reactors and setting up a system for radioisotope distribution to the scientific community. On Friday in Oak Ridge.

Gerald Gottlieb; Political Scholar

Gerald Herbert Gottlieb, 81, attorney, politician and political scholar with the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara. The native New Yorker worked as a statistician for the War Production Board and as an Army staff member of the Manhattan Project during World War II. After the war, he earned degrees from USC and its School of Law and in the early 1950s served as attorney general of American Samoa. In his private Los Angeles law practice, Gottlieb specialized in antitrust and civil rights cases. He served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union and worked for many years to abolish the death penalty in California. In 1964, Gottlieb was the unsuccessful Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican Rep. Alphonzo Bell in the 28th Congressional District on the Westside. He joined the Santa Barbara center in 1966 at the invitation of Robert Maynard Hutchins. Gottlieb, a contributor to The Times’ op-ed pages, was a staunch believer in establishing a worldwide court with jurisdiction across all national boundaries. He had recently completed a three-volume proposal he titled “The Court of Man.” On Sunday in Los Angeles of leukemia.

Matty Jordan; Owner of Matteo’s

Matty Jordan, 74, restaurateur who established Matteo’s on Westwood Boulevard and fed fettuccine Alfredo to celebrities from Frank Sinatra to President Clinton. Jordan, whose real name was Matteo Giordano, grew up in Hoboken, N.J., across the street from Sinatra. He was delivered by Sinatra’s mother, Dolly, a midwife. After Jordan opened his homey old-style Italian restaurant in 1963, Sinatra became a regular customer with his own corner booth. Other regulars included Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, entertainers Phyllis Diller, Milton Berle, Rodney Dangerfield and Henny Youngman, and the gangsters Mickey Cohen and Sam Giancana. Jordan, according to Variety’s Army Archerd, personally cooked Matteo’s fettuccine for Clinton and delivered it to him at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Jordan put his own paintings on the walls and ran his handmade electric model trains along the bar. The restaurateur first worked as a trucker in New Jersey, then opened a hot dog and clam stand. After moving to Los Angeles, he worked at earlier landmark Italian restaurants Villa Capri and La Scala before opening Matteo’s and its annex, A Taste of Hoboken. On Saturday in Los Angeles of heart failure.

Albert Sharp; Santa Fe Springs Official

Albert L. Sharp, 67, Santa Fe Springs city councilman and former mayor. An Air Force veteran, Sharp attended Fullerton College, Long Beach City College and what is now Chapman University, and studied business and management at UCLA and the American Management Assn. in Chicago. His first political office was on the board of the Little Lake City School District, which covers Santa Fe Springs and part of Norwalk, from 1974 to 1982. He won election to the five-member council governing the largely industrial city of 16,000 in 1982 and served until his death, including four terms as mayor. He served as the city’s delegate to the California Contract Cities Assn. and the League of California Cities. Earlier this year, Sharp and his wife, May, received the William J. McCann Humanities Award from the Friends of the Santa Fe Springs Library. On Thursday in Santa Fe Springs after a long illness.