Ed Guthman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, former press secretary for Robert Kennedy, and a man known as a relentless editor, died on August 31 in his home in Pacific Palisades. Guthman, 89, died from complications of a rare disorder involving the buildup of proteins in organs and tissues. His career spanned five decades, including his rookie years at the Seattle Times in the 1940s, his stint as a special assistant for public information in Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department in the ’60s, a dozen years as national editor at the L. A. Times, and a longtime USC professor until his retirement last year. Guthman was born on August 11, 1919 in Seattle and graduated from the University of Washington in 1941. During his service in the Army during World War II, he earned a Purple Heart and a Silver Star, before retiring with the rank of captain. Guthman was a journalist at the time when reporters pounded the pavement, and when tight deadlines demanded filing stories via Western Union or dictating copy by phone. And while he acknowledged the boon technological advances offer today’s journalists, he stressed throughout his career the importance of key journalistic standards’thorough investigation and fact-checking. Early in his career at the Seattle Times, where for 13 years he specialized in political and investigative reporting, Guthman won the Pulitzer prize in 1950 for his series of articles proving the innocence of a victim of McCarthyism. While still at the Seattle Times, Guthman turned his reporting laser on the corruption in the Teamsters union and the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which attracted the attention of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It was then that Guthman met Robert Kennedy, who served as committee counsel, and whom the journalist considered a mentor. During John Kennedy’s presidency, Guthman worked for Bobby in the Justice Department and with his campaign for the U. S. Senate in 1964, and later as press secretary. Although Kennedy asked Guthman to stay on as his press secretary, he turned him down, acknowledging his true commitment. ‘I felt I was a reporter and didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in politics,’ Guthman told the Palisadian-Post in 2005. ‘So he gave me some advice that helped me with the next step in my career. He said, ‘Go to anybody you respect, and they’ll be happy to spare a half-hour to give you advice for your future.’ So I talked to people I knew who I thought had good judgment: a number of friends at the Justice Department, the CEO at IBM, where I was offered a job in PR, Norman Lear’and I talked to Otis Chandler, who at that time, 1965, wanted to beef up the L.A. Times’ national bureau and asked me to be editor.’ During his years at the Times (1965-1977), Guthman was known as the paper’s most relentless editor, always pushing his reporters to make one more phone call to nail an important story. This demand for integrity, truth and common sense proved invaluable in the early 1970s, when the Times was one of the few papers in the country doing any Watergate stories, particularly in 1972, when the Times’ Washington correspondent Ronald Ostrow and reporter Jack Nelson secured an interview with an eyewitness to the Watergate break-in. Under Guthman’s insistence, the Times ran the piece, which ‘brought Watergate right to the heart of the Nixon reelection campaign in a more dramatic way than any other story so far,’ said Pulizer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam. While at one time Guthman was considered on the short list for editor at the Times, he left the paper in 1977, as result of a dispute with other editors. He spent the next decade at the Philadelphia Inquirer as editorial and Op-Ed editor until his official retirement in 1987. ‘When it came time to choose where we would retire, I let Jo make the decision,’ Guthman recalled in a Post interview in 1993. ‘She had packed up the four kids and dragged after me from one end of the country to the other for so long, it was now her turn to choose where she would like to live. She picked the Palisades, so we moved right back into our house [in the Riviera] that we had rented out for 10 years.’ Guthman then spent the next 20 years on the faculty of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, where he helped to fashion freshmen and sophomores into newspapermen and women Surveying the journalistic landscape these days, Guthman never let up on the importance of thorough investigation and good judgment. ‘Most of the kids have not had an opportunity to do newswriting, so we have them starting from scratch,’ he said in the Post interview. ‘The student are bright, with no problems with spelling and grammar. What they don’t realize is that they have to make decisions and judgments as reporter/journalists. They mustn’t take it all for granted. They must learn to recognize the hooks.’ Guthman was predeceased by his wife JoAnn in 1990. He is survived by sons Lester, Edwin H. and Gary, daughter Diane and five grandchildren. Services will be held at 1 p.m. Friday, September 5 at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary, 6001 W. Centinela Blvd. Memorial donations may be made to the Edwin O. and JoAnn Guthman Endowed Scholarship for Investigative Reporting at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089.

Lenore Hoag Mulryan, a resident of Pacific Palisades for more than 20 years, died August 26 at UCLA Medical Center following a stroke. A day earlier, she had celebrated her 81st birthday and 60th wedding anniversary. A fifth-generation Californian, Lenore grew up in Lompoc on a flower farm. After first attending UC Santa Barbara, Lenore was partway through UC Berkeley when she married Henry T. (Joe) Mulryan in 1948. They lived in the Los Angeles area until 1966, when they moved to Princeton, New Jersey, followed by Brentwood and Denver before they settled in the Palisades in 1987. Joe was an international business executive who, for many years before retiring, was president of Cyprus Industrial Minerals. Lenore had two careers: She was a stay-at-home wife and mom to three children until they left the nest, then returned to school at UCLA, graduating in art history. Following graduate school in folklore and mythology and museum studies, Lenore began what became a distinguished career in art and cultural history. She spent 25 years at the Museum of Cultural History, now the Fowler, curating three exhibitions and authoring three books. Renowned in the field of Mexican figural ceramics for combining intense scholarship with an acute but sympathetic artist?s eye, Lenore was always concerned first with the artists whose work she described and what drove them to create. Her favorite book, the justifiably acclaimed ?Nagual in the Garden,? demonstrates this approach to her discipline at its best. Together with her other body of work, this earned her a well-deserved listing in Who?s Who in the World. Lenore and her husband Joe were world travelers and took great delight in experiencing new people and places. Her three favorite destinations were India, Italy, and Japan, demonstrating the breadth of her interests. She worked with Joe on volunteer assignments for International Executive Service Corps in Zimbabwe, Jordan and Romania. A member of the Westwood Village Rotary Club, the Jonathan Wine Club and a director of the Jonathan Art Foundation, Lenore contributed unstintingly to their many activities and charities, including the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships. In addition to her husband, Lenore is survived by her son, James of Santa Monica; daughter Carrie Neal of Seneca, Missouri; and two grandchildren, Ryan Pane of Santa Barbara and Tyler Neal. Memorial donations can be sent to Rotary International Foundation, c/o Westwood Village Rotary Club, P.O. Box 24114, Los Angeles, CA 90024.

Bette P. Lokrantz, who lived most of her life in Pacific Palisades and Brentwood, passed away peacefully at home on August 25. She was 70 years old. Born on May 7, 1938 in Pasadena, Bette was the youngest daughter of Harris Carley and Thelma Hodges Porter. She attended UCLA as a nursing student and joined the Delta Gamma sorority. While at UCLA, Bette met and married John C. Norfleet. In the early 1960s, the couple moved to the Palisades, where their three daughters, Cheryl Kathleen, Karen Anne and Anne-Marie, attended Corpus Christi School. On October 4, 1976, Lokrantz married her soul mate, Dr. Sven Lokrantz, on the island of Hawaii, and gained a stepson, John. Throughout her life, Lokrantz participated in many organizations including the Music Center, the Junior League of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Orphanage Guild and the Brentwood Garden Club. She loved flowers and derived great pleasure from her garden. She also joined book clubs and the Pasadena Play Review. Lokrantz maintained an incredible strength of mind, and she had an appreciation of the Spanish language. An athletic woman, she won numerous tennis and table tennis tournaments. Bette and Sven enjoyed a full life together. Their home was the focal point for numerous parties for their many friends and family members. They enjoyed many activities, including round-robin tennis tournaments, golf and snorkeling on Catalina Island, traveling, dining and movie-going, and watching sunsets at the Bel-Air Bay Club. One of Lokrantz’s greatest joys came from spending time with her eight grandchildren. She was an adoring and loving grandmother, known around the household as ‘Nonie.’ She will be deeply missed by her family and friends. Lokrantz is survived by her husband, Sven; daughter Cheryl Orr (husband Bill) of Saugus; daughter Karen Norfleet-McEwan (David) of Brentwood, Tennessee; daughter Anne-Marie Blevins (Paul) of Columbus, Ohio; stepson John Lokrantz (Liz) of Pacific Palisades; her sisters, Lois McNair and Joni Eyler; and eight grandchildren: Jack and Emily Orr, Travis, Jason and Ethan McEwan, and Elise, John-Sven and Henry Blevins. Services are Friday, September 5 at 11 a.m. at Gates, Kingsley in the Little Chapel of the Dawn, Santa Monica.