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Class Notes: 1970

Class of 1970

David Wurtzel ’70 has just published his second novel, The Chosen City: Hollywood in the 1930s, with Discript Ltd. (available on Amazon). Having been born in Hollywood himself, David has taken inspiration from his own family’s involvement in the motion picture industry over the last century. The narrator, Bobby, is the outsider member of a Jewish family who own and run a studio. After four years at Yale keeping up with a smart, moneyed set of amoral young men, he takes a lowly job at the studio. But his past catches up with him thanks to a novel written by a friend in which the protagonist is a thinly disguised Bobby and which the studio plans to turn into a major motion picture. Catapulted into the role of writer and then director, he nevertheless finds it impossible to escape his past. Thanks to the experience of his junior year abroad, David went to live in England, studied law at Cambridge, and became a barrister and a Bencher of his Inn of Court.

Class of 1970

Eric Mart ’70 – a past President of the Cal Alumni Association – recently completed a two year term on the UC Board of Regents. He is now a “Regent Emeritus”. Eric and his wife Janie also recently welcomed their first grandchild – Felix Mart Durant – class of 2043.

Eric Mart headshot
Eric Mart
Class of 1970 Frank Bliss

During covid Frank Bliss finished his first symphony the “DreamCycle” based on the business cycle of Wonder, Blunder, Thunder and Plunder. Scored for full symphony orchestra, he’s now looking to find an orchestra to do the world premier.

Class of 1970

Having finished his PhD in political science at UC Berkeley Jonathan Rothman taught for six years at Whittier College, being promoted to the rank of associate professor. After a year of teaching he went to law school at night and finished at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles in December 1983, took and passed the bar in February 1984. He moved on from teaching and practiced law at the city, county, and state levels, retiring in 2018 and then retired from teaching at Solano Community College at 2020. He is happily retired with my wife of 39 years.

Class of 1970

Craig S. Harrison is returning to Uganda after 50 years to revisit Murchison Falls National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, the Ruwenzori Mountains, and other wild locales. In 1971, Craig visited Uganda just after Idi Amin had consolidated power as part of a yearlong adventure in Africa after graduation from Cal. He wrote about his African adventures in Dreams of a Vanishing Africa: A 1970s Transcontinental Trek.

Class Secretary: Louis Goldman, 465 Grove St, Glencoe, IL 60022, goldmanLB@yahoo.com, 312/622-8448