Obituaries

Dana Elcar Dana Elcar, character actor, director, founder of the Santa Paula Theater Center, and beloved member of our community, died Monday, June 6, 2005 at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura of complications from pneumonia. Best known, perhaps, for his role as Peter Thornton, problem-solving boss of TV’s MacGyver, Mr. Elcar had the sort of full and storied career that playwrights call a life in the theatre.Born to Danish immigrants in Ferndale, Michigan in 1927, Mr. Elcar began acting in high school and founded his first of three theatres, the Ann Arbor Theatre, while attending the University of Michigan. He moved to New York City in the early 1950s just as Off-Broadway and television were coming to life, and studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He was immediately successful in both genres, and went on for the next 50 years to be a mainstay in TV drama, from his early work in Hallmark Hall of Fame’s "Our Town" to his roles on virtually all the early TV series - "The Defenders," "The Nurses," "Naked City" - to name but a few.Six foot two, 250 pounds, a former linebacker for the University of Michigan football team, Mr. Elcar was an imposing man with a bubbling, friendly energy. In his early career, he played good guys, solid trustworthy citizens, men you could count on. It was later in the 1970s that he became the problem-solving boss, a role he perfected in three series, keeping Robert Blake in "Baretta," Robert Conrad in "Black Sheep Squadron" and Richard Dean Anderson in "MacGyver" all on the straight and narrow.Mr. Elcar was in almost every play that defined the Golden Age of Off-Broadway in the early 1960s: Thornton Wilder’s "Our Town" and "Plays for Bleecker Street" (in which he shared the stage with his daughter Nora, then age 7), the first American production of Harold Pinter’s "The Dumbwaiter," and "The Caretaker," Jose Quintero’s brilliant production of Dylan Thomas’ "Under Milk Wood," and Samuel Beckett’s "Waiting for Godot." He was a member of the Second City company directed by Paul Sills, and he understudied Alec Guinness in the Broadway production of the bioplay "Dylan" and played the role when Mr. Guinness went down with flu.He was an actor-in-residence at the Arena Stage in Washington in the ‘60s, where he starred in "Galileo," and he acted and directed at the Actor’s Conservatory theatre in San Francisco and appeared in the production of "Inherit the Wind" which toured Russia in 1975, inaugurating an artistic cold war thaw.He moved to Los Angeles in 1968, and began a movie career that spanned 40 films and included "The Sting," "2010" and "All of Me." He acted with everyone from Robert Young and John Wayne to Dustin Hoffman and Helen Hunt. He founded his second theatre, the L.A. Actor’s Theatre, with the late Ralph Waite and other actor friends.He moved to Santa Paula in the mid-eighties, and soon after founded The Santa Paula Theater Center. It started out in a church basement and then moved to the Ebell Women’s Club on 7th Street, where it is today. He drew actors and directors from L.A. to do plays and musicals such as "The Cocktail Party" and "Company." And it was Mr. Elcar who brought theatre in Spanish for the first time to our town. He was a member of numerous clubs, his favorite being the Optimists.He loved sailing, riding, horses and dogs. He whittled. And in the early ‘90s he went blind from glaucoma, which stopped him not at all.Mr. Elcar was not only a fine actor, but a loving and supportive father and family man who delighted in his children. He leaves behind three daughters, Nora Elcar Verdon, Chandra Elcar and Marin Elcar; a son, Dane Elcar; a stepdaughter, Emily Prager; step-grandchild, Lulu Prager; his son-in-law, Joseph Verdon; his sister, Marie E. Hewitt; half-sister, Janet K. Melville; and his beloved companion, Thelma M. Garcia. It was with Mrs. Garcia that Mr. Elcar was so often glimpsed, walking among the gnarled oaks and rose gardens of our town, his larger-than-life presence always communicating, unable to contain his joy at simply being alive.Services will be held at 2 p.m. on Friday, June 10 at Skillin-Carroll Mortuary, 738 E. Santa Paula St., with a private service for family and close friends held earlier that day.Arrangements are under the direction of Skillin-Carroll Mortuary, 738 E. Santa Paula St., phone 525-3391.Charles Gordon Westerman, Jr.Chuck Westerman passed away Saturday, June 4, 2005 after a lengthy illness. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 28, 1935, he moved to California and graduated from Gardena High School. Chuck joined the U.S. Marine Corps after high school, attaining the rank of sergeant.