Elder Stories

When Renee Taylor first set eyes on Joe Bologna, she recalled thinking: “This is the man I’m going to marry.”  Joe, for his part, wondered: “Why is this woman looking at me funny?”  In fact, it wasn’t long before the two soon paired off for a lifetime of love and a writing partnership that spawned some 20+ films and plays. Next month the two will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary, and on Sept. 20 at the Four Seasons Hotel, the two will be feted as this year’s Beverly Hills Theatre Guild honorees.

At 93, 4-foot-something, and undeniably sweet, the diminutive Diane Jacobs, who has lived in Beverly Hills since 1955, does not seem like the kind of woman to shoot another human being in cold blood. But in 1938, as part of the resistance in Grunenwald, Diane successfully ended the lives of over a dozen Nazis.

Next Tuesday, Donna Ellman-Garber will celebrate her 90th birthday in the City she has truly grown with and helped shape. Indeed, as the second woman ever elected to the City Council, she not only helped create policies that shaped Beverly Hills, but also pioneered as a woman in a male-dominated world.

At 93, Perl Oliff may well be the oldest working aesthetician in Beverly Hills.

It’s been nearly 50 years since Valeda Andler was last featured in The Courier–the first time included her working on the vegetable garden she planted in the vacant lot across the street from her Beverly Hills home. That lot, which she and her husband, Maxwell, opted not to purchase because the owner “wanted half as much for that lot as we paid for this house,” eventually became  the home of actress Loretta Young, whose kitchen wallpaper was so becoming that Valeda arranged to have the same for her own kitchen.

Before marriage, Bob and Fern Seizer once each lived at their respective parents’ houses on Wetherly (she lived in the north, and he lived in the south) without ever meeting; that is, until Fern, as a UCLA freshman, became the managing editor at the Daily Bruin where Bob was already the sports columnist.

For the past seven years, Elaine DuPont Bernard, 81, and Peter Bernard, 83, have shared a fulfilling life together as husband and wife. In fact, the two first met 47 years ago at the Church of the Good Shepherd, where they are still active today.

It’s been a lifetime of laughter for Cecile Krevoy thanks largely in part to her marriage of 65 years to prominent Beverly Hills dentist Norman Krevoy, who died on May 25 at 90.

It’s been 76 years since burlesque dancer Rose La Rose came onstage at the Burbank Theatre in downtown L.A. to Oklahoma’s famous tune The Surrey With The Fringe On Top while Fred Paulos played his saxophone in the pit – but it’s one memory that still remains vivid for this week’s Beverly Hills Elder.

As a young man growing up in Montevideo, Uruguay, Angel Castelo yearned for two things: to sculpt art with his hands and poetry through his body. Those dreams led him to Buenos Aires, where he became a professional tango dancer, earning more awards and competitions than he can recall; and, all the while, he worked as a jeweler.