The Culture Broker Franklin D. Murphy and the Transformation of Los Angeles [Hardcover]

Franklin Murphy? It's not a name that is widely known; even during his lifetime the public knew little of him. But for nearly thirty years, Murphy was the dominant figure in the cultural development of Los Angeles. Behind the scenes, Murphy used his role as confidant, family friend, and advisor to the founders and scions of some of America's greatest fortunesAhmanson, Rockefeller, Ford, Mellon, and Annenbergto direct the largesse of the wealthy into cultural institutions of his choosing. In this first full biography of Franklin D. Murphy (1916-994), Margaret Leslie Davis delivers the compelling story of how Murphy, as chancellor of UCLA and later as chief executive of the Times Mirror media empire, was able to influence academia, the media, and cultural foundations to reshape a fundamentally provincial city.The Culture Brokerbrings to light the influence of L.A.'s powerful families and chronicles the mixed motives behind large public endeavors. Channeling more than one billion dollars into the city's arts and educational infrastructure, Franklin Murphy elevated Los Angeles to a vibrant world-class city positioned for its role in the new era of global trade and cross-cultural arts.

Margaret Leslie Davisis a California lawyer and is also the author ofDark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny(UC Press, 1998) andRivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles(1993), for which she won the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award in nonfiction.

Los Angeles as a cultural capital did not exist in 1960 when Franklin D. Murphy, M.D., rode into town. Over the ensuing thirty years, more than any other single individual, it was he who put it on the cultural map. In a brilliant work that includes a set of now-it-can-be-told institutional histories, Margaret Leslie Davis writes the history of an exceptional city at an exceptional time through the life slSS