Fred NicholasA biography by Shar McBee

Introduction

The life path of Fred Nicholas crossed with mine in 1972 when we were both vol­un­teers for the Mc­Gov­ern pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and del­e­gates to the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion. Lit­tle did I know then that 52 years later, at a din­ner party in Los An­ge­les, my anec­dotes about Fred’s re­mark­able life would spark the idea for this book.

Fred was fully in­volved and 103 years old as we em­barked on the project. Today, at 104, he con­tin­ues to as­tound me with his sharp mind and vi­tal­i­ty.

We met reg­u­lar­ly in his of­fice, where I posed ques­tions and later craft­ed chap­ters based on his re­spons­es. Fred re­viewed each sec­tion and rarely re­quest­ed changes ex­cept to cor­rect fac­tu­al er­rors. His sto­ries, span­ning over a cen­tu­ry of Amer­i­can his­to­ry, amazed me, as did watch­ing him at age 104 read­ing with­out glass­es.

Through­out the process, I often thought of Fred’s great-grand­chil­dren, en­vi­sion­ing them as the pri­ma­ry au­di­ence for this work. When I was a lit­tle girl, I loved my grand­moth­er. But as I grew up, my life got busy and then one day, she was gone. I never got to know her as an adult. Wish­ing I could have asked her ques­tions fu­eled my de­sire to pre­serve Fred’s lega­cy for his fam­i­ly. Hope­ful­ly, through this book they will be able to con­nect with their re­mark­able an­ces­tor.

While this book is a gift to Fred’s de­scen­dants, of­fer­ing them in­sights into their fam­i­ly’s rich his­to­ry, it is also the uni­ver­sal story of a life well-lived. So, dear read­er, pre­pare to be in­spired by the jour­ney of a man who has not only wit­nessed his­to­ry but helped shape it.

Chapter OneWar

In his se­nior year at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia School of Jour­nal­ism and at the age of 21, Fred Nicholas was draft­ed into the US Army. The date was Oc­to­ber 9, 1941.

Two months later, war was de­clared against Ger­many and Fred’s unit was or­dered to de­part for the Solomon Is­lands. First, he was sent to a navy den­tist where four im­pact­ed wis­dom teeth were re­moved. Dur­ing the pro­ce­dure, his unit shipped out with­out him – a turn of events that sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ed many lives.

He was then as­signed to a mil­i­tary po­lice unit. Fred was or­dered to round up and im­prison peo­ple of Japan­ese de­scent in a re­lo­ca­tion camp lo­cat­ed at Tan­foran Race­track in San Bruno, Cal­i­for­nia. Fred was an armed guard at the re­lo­ca­tion camp for four months and what hap­pened there says so much about him.

What he did was legal­ly (but not moral­ly) wrong. He com­mit­ted trea­son.

The Japan­ese Amer­i­cans from through­out the San Fran­cis­co Bay area were trans­port­ed to a site in San Mateo Coun­ty where they were housed in horse stalls, tents, and bar­racks. Ac­cord­ing to the US Na­tion­al Park Ser­vice, a total of 8,033 Japan­ese Amer­i­cans were in­car­cer­at­ed at the Tan­foran Prison. From this ini­tial fa­cil­i­ty, the in­di­vid­u­als were then taken to re­lo­ca­tion cen­ters (pris­ons) in the in­te­ri­or of the Unit­ed States.

Fred re­mem­bers:

“They were Amer­i­can cit­i­zens, forced to live under armed guard and were ex­treme­ly upset. I al­ways ad­mired the Japan­ese Amer­i­cans. They were taken ad­van­tage of and treat­ed very badly by our coun­try. Many were stu­dents around my own age. They were taken right from school at places like Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley.

Amer­i­ca was at war with Japan. We were also at war with Ger­many and Italy. Ger­man Amer­i­cans and Ital­ian Amer­i­cans were not in­car­cer­at­ed.

I was on duty for four hours, then off for eight hours. Some­times, I was in the watch­tow­er but much of the time was spent walk­ing around the perime­ter of the prison. While on tour, I would talk to the in­mates through the fenc­ing topped with barbed wire.”

His com­man­der was ei­ther told that Fred was doing “some­thing” or his com­man­der wit­nessed the ac­tiv­i­ties. In ei­ther case, Fred said that his com­man­der told him to “knock it off.”

When asked how he re­spond­ed to the order from his su­pe­ri­or, he said, “I was more care­ful from then on. I’d stand by the shrub­bery while talk­ing to the Japan­ese Amer­i­cans. I’d keep walk­ing while we talked – me on the out­side, they on the in­side.”

But Fred did more than just talk to the peo­ple in­car­cer­at­ed at the Tan­foran Prison.

“I helped get them need­ed items. It was cold there. Three or four peo­ple gave me the keys to their homes. When I was off duty, I went to their homes and got their sweaters and coats. Back on duty, I qui­et­ly gave them their clothes and keys.

Be­yond the cloth­ing, I did shop­ping for sev­er­al fam­i­lies. I’d go to the gro­cery store and get food that the Japan­ese Amer­i­cans want­ed. I’d go to shoe stores and get them footwear.”

For four months at the Tan­foran Prison, Fred Nicholas put into ac­tive prac­tice the val­ues of re­spect and dig­ni­ty that he lived by for the rest of his life.

Years later, after he be­came an at­tor­ney and worked ex­ten­sive­ly in the real es­tate in­dus­try, he never for­got about his time as an MP at the Tan­foran Prison.

Fred says, “I kept my eye on the prop­er­ty. Watch­ing to see if the place ever came on the mar­ket.”

The land that had been a prison for Japan­ese Amer­i­cans had re­vert­ed to its pre­vi­ous sta­tus as a race­track after World War II. A fire dam­aged much of the prop­er­ty in 1964. It sat va­cant for a num­ber of years. In 1968, Fred was part of a real es­tate team that ac­quired much of the site. He was then in a po­si­tion to reach his ul­ti­mate goal.

“We tore the damn thing down,” he says.

The Tan­foran Park Shop­ping Cen­ter was built on the site. Be­yond the re­tail as­pects of the shop­ping cen­ter, Fred in­stalled a plaque on an in­te­ri­or wall in the shop­ping mall to rec­og­nize what hap­pened at the prop­er­ty in the 1940s.

“I want­ed peo­ple to know what hap­pened here,” Fred ex­plained. “It was im­por­tant that peo­ple not for­get the Japan­ese Amer­i­cans that were im­pris­oned at Tan­foran.” Today, the plaque can still be found in a small out­door gar­den area of the re­tail cen­ter, now called ‘The Shops at Tan­foran.’

Sixty-six years after Fred served at Tan­foran, he was hon­ored by those he was forced to guard.

On June 2, 2007, the Japan­ese Cul­tur­al and Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia held a cer­e­mo­ny to ded­i­cate a new memo­r­i­al to the Japan­ese Amer­i­cans that were im­pris­oned on those grounds. Over a thou­sand peo­ple at­tend­ed the event and for­mer in­ternees came from as far away as New York and Cana­da. The event was called Jour­ney to Tan­foran. As part of the event, a lun­cheon was held in honor of Fred Nicholas.

When asked in 2021 if he would again do what he did in 1942, Fred did not hes­i­tate.

“Yes,” was the an­swer.

Many Japan­ese Amer­i­cans – many Amer­i­cans of all eth­nic­i­ties – are grate­ful for the ac­tions Fred­er­ick Nicholas took al­most 80 years ago and that he would be will­ing to do the same again today.

Per­haps Fred’s com­pas­sion for the Japan­ese Amer­i­cans springs from four in­ci­dents of dis­crim­i­na­tion that he has ex­pe­ri­enced as a Jew.

When he was a se­nior at USC and re­ceived no­tice that he was about to be draft­ed, he went to the pres­i­dent of the col­lege.

“I’m so close to grad­u­a­tion. I’m the sports ed­i­tor of the Daily Tro­jan. They need me. Can you help post­pone the draft until after grad­u­a­tion?” he asked Dr. Rufus Von Kleins­midt.

“Don’t you worry son,” the pres­i­dent replied. “We’ll get you ex­cused. We know peo­ple on the Draft Board.”

Just two days later, Fred was draft­ed. He has al­ways be­lieved that it was be­cause he was one of the very few Jew­ish stu­dents at USC and Kleins­midt did not like Jews.

The sec­ond in­ci­dent came while he was in the army at Fort Huachu­ca, Ari­zona.

Fred says:

“The Colonel in charge of my reg­i­ment liked me. We took walks to­geth­er dur­ing which he con­stant­ly made an­ti­se­mit­ic com­ments.

I was just a Lieu­tenant. He was the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer, so at first, I kept quiet. But fi­nal­ly, I spoke up, ‘Please Colonel. Don’t say that. I’m Jew­ish.’

A few days later he had me shipped to North Africa where I was greet­ed with, ‘Oh, an­oth­er fuck up’ and then as­signed to guard a pris­on­er of war camp. Ap­par­ent­ly, I was not the first Jew that Colonel had ban­ished to a war zone.”

The third in­ci­dent took place at the camp in Oran, Al­ge­ria.

Fred says:

“One night, a group of Ger­man of­fi­cers man­aged to es­cape. When we caught them, they were wear­ing Amer­i­can cloth­ing.

One of our sol­diers could speak their lan­guage, so I in­struct­ed him to ask where they had ob­tained the clothes. In re­sponse, the Ger­man spit on my sol­dier and called him a ‘Jew bas­tard.’

I wasn’t known for los­ing my cool, but en­raged, I struck him across the face, break­ing his nose. Sub­se­quent­ly, I was ar­rest­ed.

The fol­low­ing day, I had a meet­ing with the Cap­tain and the Colonel in charge. They were un­cer­tain of how to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion. They didn’t know what to do with me, so they let me go.”

The fourth in­ci­dent un­fold­ed dur­ing Fred’s basic train­ing in North Car­oli­na. The sol­diers slept in bar­racks wall-to-wall on cots and Fred be­came friend­ly with the man next to him. Then, one day that sol­dier spot­ted Fred in the show­er and, after notic­ing he was cir­cum­cised, shout­ed, “Jew bas­tard!”

“Don’t say that,” Fred warned.

“I’ll say what­ev­er I want,” the sol­dier re­tort­ed.

Fred’s re­sponse was im­me­di­ate - he threw a punch. What he didn’t know was that his op­po­nent was a light­weight prize fight­er, who pro­ceed­ed to give Fred a thor­ough beat­ing. Rather than let this in­ci­dent de­feat him, Fred chan­neled his en­er­gy into ap­ply­ing for Of­fi­cer Can­di­date School.

A year later, now a Lieu­tenant serv­ing in North Africa, Fred was dri­ving a jeep as a group of sol­diers marched past. A voice called out from the ranks: “Nicholas, could I get a lift?” Fred rec­og­nized the Pri­vate im­me­di­ate­ly - it was the same sol­dier from the show­er con­fronta­tion.

Once in the jeep, the sol­dier turned to Fred. “I know you’re still angry with me,” he said qui­et­ly. “Be­fore basic train­ing, I’d never met a Jew. Would you for­give me?”

Fred’s an­swer was sim­ple: “Yes.”

An­oth­er as­sign­ment Fred had in North Africa (a French colony at the time) in­volved guard­ing the Le Krug Air­port near Con­stan­tine. Upon ar­rival, Fred’s small air­plane crashed, killing the pilot and co-pilot. The gear above Fred tum­bled onto his head, but de­spite being hos­pi­tal­ized overnight, he mirac­u­lous­ly emerged un­in­jured.

The next day he began his as­sign­ment guard­ing the air­port.

Fred says:

“One day a plane came in and who came out of the air­craft – Charles De Gaulle. Al­though he was not yet ac­knowl­edged as the of­fi­cial leader of the French Re­sis­tance, we knew who he was and we jumped to at­ten­tion. We watched as he got into a car and drove to­ward Con­stan­tine.

I was told by the other guards that his plane had is­sues and need­ed re­pairs. He would be back in two hours and then his plane would take off. But when he came back the plane wasn’t ready.

We didn’t know what to do with him. We were out in the woods, and I sug­gest­ed that per­haps he’d like to rest in my pup tent and at least get to lie down on the bed for a while. He agreed.

De Gaulle re­laxed in my small tent for about four hours. We both dozed off and then he talked to me about his fam­i­ly. He spoke a lit­tle Eng­lish and I spoke a lit­tle French, so we had a very lim­it­ed dis­cus­sion, but it was in­ter­est­ing, and I re­al­ly fell in love with the man. I thought, ‘That’s a good guy.’

He must have thought I was a good guy, too, be­cause he gave me his wife’s name and phone num­ber and said, ‘If you get to Paris, call her.’

I was im­pressed with the way he re­spond­ed to me. How he took the time to talk to me. I was just a lit­tle Lieu­tenant at the time, and he was a Com­mand­ing Gen­er­al. I was cap­ti­vat­ed with that.

In April 1945, Fred found him­self with the Al­lied forces as they smashed through Ger­many’s final de­fen­sive lines in north­ern Italy.

Mus­soli­ni, sens­ing de­feat, fled his base in Milan on April 25th, des­per­ate­ly seek­ing refuge near the Swiss bor­der. Two days later, local par­ti­sans cap­tured him and his mis­tress, Claret­ta Petac­ci, near the small vil­lage of Dongo on Lake Como. The next af­ter­noon, both were ex­e­cut­ed - just two days be­fore Hitler would take his own life in Berlin.

The bod­ies of Mus­soli­ni and Petac­ci were trans­port­ed to Milan and dumped in the Pi­az­za­le Lore­to, a pub­lic square. There, an en­raged crowd gath­ered, hurl­ing in­sults and abus­ing the corpses be­fore string­ing them up up­side down above the square.

Fred wit­nessed this grim spec­ta­cle by chance. He’d been re­cov­er­ing in a Milan hos­pi­tal for two months, being treat­ed for shrap­nel wounds in his back. On the very day of his re­lease, he stepped out into the city and came face-to-face with the hang­ing bod­ies.

The shrap­nel in his back came from an event out­side Milan. He’d been lead­ing his pla­toon on pa­trol when Ger­man forces am­bushed them with heavy fire. In the midst of the fire­fight, they dis­cov­ered a crashed am­bu­lance with two men - a dri­ver and pas­sen­ger - trapped in­side. De­spite being under in­tense enemy fire, Fred and his fel­low sol­diers risked their lives and res­cued the strand­ed men.

For his courage, Fred re­ceived both a Bronze Star for bat­tle­field brav­ery and a Pur­ple Heart for wounds sus­tained in com­bat with the enemy.

As the Nazis re­treat­ed, the Amer­i­can troops moved through France and even­tu­al­ly Fred did get to Paris.

He says:

“I called Gen­er­al Charles De Gaulle’s wife and dis­cov­ered that her hus­band had told her about the young Yank in the pup tent. She in­vit­ed me to her home. I was re­cov­er­ing from one of my back in­juries and she was very kind. We sipped tea to­geth­er and chat­ted. She spoke Eng­lish bet­ter than he did. It was a love­ly af­ter­noon.

At the time I met De Gaulle, the French were hav­ing an ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing time. Their coun­try was oc­cu­pied. He was oust­ed from France. It was ter­ri­ble. But I’ll never for­get that he took the time to write to his wife about me. That was a long time ago... over 80 years.

After that, I was or­dered onto a navy ves­sel in Naples and thought I was being shipped home. The war in Eu­rope was de­clared over and I was in a huge hurry to get home to fin­ish my jour­nal­ism de­gree. But in­stead of cross­ing the At­lantic to the east coast of the Unit­ed States, the ship went through the Pana­ma Canal, and I ended up in the Philip­pines.

On­board, I played a lot of poker, win­ning over $90,000.

When we ar­rived in the Philip­pines, we hadn’t even dis­em­barked from the ship (we were still in Mani­la har­bor) when the U.S. dropped the atom­ic bomb. Again, we thought the war was over. But it wasn’t for me. The Army made me en­dure eight more months of ac­tive duty.

I had just be­come a Cap­tain and was as­signed an im­por­tant job... in charge of a prison. This time we were guard­ing Amer­i­can sol­diers who had com­mit­ted mis­de­meanors. They had to stay to serve their sen­tences be­fore they could be dis­charged, so I had to stay, too, and guard them.

One day in the Philip­pines, I had some time off. I was wait­ing for a bus to take me into Mani­la when a Rolls Royce fly­ing Amer­i­can flags pulled up. A win­dow rolled down and the man in the back seat asked, ‘Do you need a ride, son?’ It was Gen­er­al Dou­glas MacArthur, com­man­der of Unit­ed States Army Forces in the Far East.

I got in. The two of us sat in the back seat and chat­ted for about an hour. At one point, he stopped the car and picked up an­oth­er sol­dier. The three of us, with the fa­mous Gen­er­al seat­ed in the mid­dle, drove into Mani­la.”

After al­most five years in the army, Fred was hon­or­ably dis­charged in Feb­ru­ary 1946 with his Bronze Star and Pur­ple Heart.

Being in the ser­vice taught Fred things about lead­er­ship that he used for the rest of his life in busi­ness and vol­un­teer work. He gained knowl­edge of:

Com­pas­sion from his ex­pe­ri­ence at the Japan­ese in­tern­ment camp.

Mod­esty from De Gaulle.

Pa­tience from the US Gov­ern­ment.

Back home, Fred fin­ished his jour­nal­ism de­gree, land­ed his first job, switched to law, and then did what many young GIs did after the war – got mar­ried and start­ed a fam­i­ly.

Fred met Eleanore Berman on a blind date. Beau­ti­ful, she was an artist who had stud­ied paint­ing in Paris in the stu­dio of the leg­endary Cu­bist, Fer­nand Léger. She was an only child. Her fa­ther was a doc­tor. They mar­ried in her par­ents’ back­yard with about one hun­dred guests. Eleanore’s uncle, who was a rabbi and an ad­mi­ral in the Navy, presided.

Fred says:

“We re­ceived a lot of en­cour­age­ment from both of our fam­i­lies. Eleanore’s fa­ther got us an apart­ment in West­wood. When she be­came preg­nant, he bought us a small house. (Later, I paid him back.) Her uncle, Mur­ray Gold­stein, helped me get into the Loeb & Loeb law firm.

My par­ents did not have money. I was born in Brook­lyn, New York and when I was four­teen, we mi­grat­ed to Los An­ge­les. We all lived in one room. Still, they gave me love, great DNA, and the gift of longevi­ty. Today my sis­ter is 100, and I’m 104. Dad lived to 92. Mom to 99. At age 90 my moth­er went blind, so she learned Braille.

They taught me self-dis­ci­pline and an im­por­tant les­son that has helped in busi­ness: Lim­i­ta­tions are trou­ble­some yet ef­fec­tive, but don’t go too far. It is nec­es­sary to set lim­its even on lim­i­ta­tions.

Mom al­ways in­dulged me, and Dad did too, in his own way. Mom was Kosher but Dad and I sneaked out to­geth­er to eat lob­ster and crab.

They also taught me about pub­lic ser­vice. In 1972, I was a del­e­gate with my moth­er and sis­ter to the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion. It was very un­usu­al for three peo­ple from the same fam­i­ly to serve to­geth­er and my sis­ter’s photo wound up on the cover of Time Mag­a­zine.

Eleanore and I had three chil­dren, who I am proud of both moral­ly, spir­i­tu­al­ly, and in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly. Deb, Jan, and Tony are all mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in the world in their own way. They have given me six grand­chil­dren and three great-grand­chil­dren (so far).

My chil­dren have taught me the truth of Khalil Gibran’s fa­mous poem.

Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,For they have their own thoughts.You may house their bodies but not their souls,For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams…”

Chapter TwoArt

Fred Nicholas be­lieves that art pro­vides a means to ex­press thought, feel­ings and ex­pe­ri­ences that might be dif­fi­cult to ar­tic­u­late through words. It also en­hances cre­ativ­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and ex­pos­es peo­ple to di­verse cul­tures. Plus, there is an eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit. The art in­dus­try pro­vides var­i­ous ca­reer paths, and con­tributes to in­dus­tries like en­ter­tain­ment, de­sign and tourism.

Long be­fore the Gef­fen Con­tem­po­rary be­came an icon­ic fea­ture of the Los An­ge­les cul­tur­al land­scape, Fred grasped the im­por­tance art could have on the city. At a time when in­di­vid­ual artists were trans­form­ing Los An­ge­les while the city’s po­lit­i­cal and in­sti­tu­tion­al will to sup­port them was at a bleak ebb, Fred was one of very few peo­ple who leaped into ac­tion.

In his re­mark­able life­time, Fred made an in­deli­ble mark on the city in which he grew up and which he deeply loves. As a pa­tron of the arts, as a col­lec­tor, as a friend of artists, ar­chi­tects, and mu­se­um cu­ra­tors, Fred was an ad­vo­cate for cre­ativ­i­ty. Cities that achieve great­ness do so be­cause of the rare cit­i­zens who ex­pand their bound­aries, both lit­er­al­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly. Los An­ge­les will al­ways be for­tu­nate to have Fred as an in­spired ex­am­ple of this lead­er­ship.

“I bought my first piece of art while I was at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Law School,” Fred says. “I went to all the mu­se­ums and gal­leries and fell in love with Pre-Columbian art. I had no money, but I was able to ac­quire a minor piece at an art auc­tion. From then on, I loved art auc­tions and for years went to one al­most every week.”

MOCA: A DOWNTOWN OASIS IN A FORMER WASTELAND

The ben­e­fits of art have been far-reach­ing and im­pact­ful in Fred’s life. Which is why, in 1980 he agreed to help his friend Max Palevsky deal with some ar­chi­tec­tur­al dif­fi­cul­ties at the launch of the Mu­se­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art, Los An­ge­les.

Palevsky had pledged $1,000,000 to MOCA with the un­der­stand­ing that he would head the Ar­chi­tec­tur­al Com­mit­tee. Palevsky hired renowned Japan­ese ar­chi­tect Arata Isoza­ki but was un­hap­py with Isoza­ki’s de­sign. Palevsky felt Fred’s unique ex­pe­ri­ence with law and real es­tate de­vel­op­ment, de­sign and con­struc­tion could re­solve the com­plex­i­ty of is­sues per­tain­ing to MOCA.

One of the pre-em­i­nent is­sues con­cern­ing the de­sign plan was Isoza­ki’s lack of ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing in the Unit­ed States. So, Fred hired Gruen As­soc­iates of Los An­ge­les to aid Isoza­ki in per­fect­ing his de­sign.

Palevsky did not ap­prove the final de­sign plan and hired an­oth­er ar­chi­tect to re­design the build­ing. A dis­pute arose, and the Board of Trustees voted to ap­prove the Isoza­ki de­sign. Palevsky re­signed from the Mu­se­um Board and filed suit to re­cov­er his mil­lion dol­lar pledge to MOCA.

After the lit­i­ga­tion was set­tled, Fred took over the Chair­man­ship of the Ar­chi­tec­tur­al Com­mit­tee. He su­per­vised Isoza­ki and was in charge of the de­vel­op­ment and con­struc­tion of MOCA for the next five years, pro bono.

Dur­ing that time Fred ne­go­ti­at­ed the lease be­tween the City of Los An­ge­les and the mu­se­um on the Grand Av­enue site as well as the site for a tem­po­rary lo­ca­tion. On be­half of the mu­se­um, he hired the ar­chi­tect, Frank Gehry, to de­sign the Tem­po­rary Con­tem­po­rary.

Fred su­per­vised the en­tire con­struc­tion project. The Tem­po­rary Con­tem­po­rary (now the Gef­fen Con­tem­po­rary) is wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the most im­por­tant mu­se­um de­signs of the late 20th Cen­tu­ry.

With the goal of build­ing a per­ma­nent col­lec­tion for the fledg­ling mu­se­um, Fred, along with Mu­se­um Di­rec­tor Richard Koshalek and Chair­man Eli Broad, ne­go­ti­at­ed with Count Giuseppe Panza of Varese, Italy to ac­quire the Panza Col­lec­tion for MOCA. The Col­lec­tion, which in­cludes sem­i­nal works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschen­berg, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and James Rosen­quist was con­sid­ered one of the world’s great pri­vate col­lec­tions of con­tem­po­rary art and forms the core of MOCA’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion.

The agree­ment was struc­tured as fol­lows:

MOCA agreed to pay $11 mil­lion for the col­lec­tion over a 5-year pe­ri­od.

As part of the deal, MOCA was ob­lig­at­ed to pro­vide hous­ing for Count Panza, his wife, and their son for the du­ra­tion of the pay­ment pe­ri­od.

To ful­fill this hous­ing oblig­a­tion, the Panza fam­i­ly lived at Fred’s house in Bev­er­ly Hills in­ter­mit­tent­ly over the five years.

This arrange­ment al­lowed MOCA to ac­quire the sig­nif­i­cant col­lec­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 major works of Amer­i­can and Eu­ro­pean con­tem­po­rary art from the 1960s and 1970s, while spread­ing out the fi­nan­cial com­mit­ment and pro­vid­ing ac­com­mo­da­tions for the Panza fam­i­ly dur­ing their vis­its to Los An­ge­les.

The ac­qui­si­tion of the Panza Col­lec­tion was a piv­otal mo­ment for MOCA, help­ing to es­tab­lish its rep­u­ta­tion in the con­tem­po­rary art world. Today, the col­lec­tion is worth more than a bil­lion dol­lars.

Fred served as Vice Chair­man of MOCA for 4 years and as Chair­man for 5 years. He was prob­a­bly the longest serv­ing Chair­man in MOCA’s his­to­ry.

He is re­mem­bered for his abil­i­ty to bring peo­ple to­geth­er, to unite them. His skill at shar­ing the cred­it com­pelled peo­ple to work well to­geth­er to­ward a com­mon goal. Usu­al­ly.

Prob­a­bly his biggest dis­ap­point­ment was a clash with Eli Broad. A phil­an­thropist and promi­nent art col­lec­tor, Broad’s in­volve­ment with the mu­se­um also came with en­ti­tle­ment. Fred found him­self in a peace-maker role be­cause of the de­mands Broad made on the Board of Di­rec­tors, and on Fred.

“Eli pushed peo­ple around, and he was so de­mand­ing—you had to re­port to him, come to his of­fice,” Fred said. “In all those years, I never once got a ‘Thank you’ or a ‘Good job.’ I said to his wife Edye, ‘He treats me like I work for him, and I re­sent it.’

Edye Broad said, ‘He treats every­one that way.’”

Fred was in­volved with MOCA for over 30 years, as a vol­un­teer. When asked why he did it, he said, “Art and cul­ture are ex­cit­ing. I was al­ways look­ing for ways to get in­volved with art and artists. It made me feel good.”

Dur­ing his legal ca­reer, Fred rep­re­sent­ed nu­mer­ous artists and art gal­leries in­clud­ing William Brice, Paul Kan­tor Gallery, Ernest Raboff Gallery, Margo Leav­in Gallery, Frank Perls Gallery, Mar­tin Lowitz Gallery, ACE Gallery, Harry Franklin Gallery and Felix Lan­dau Gallery.

When the renowned Ab­stract Ex­pres­sion­ist Sam Fran­cis died, he left be­hind a com­plex lega­cy. He had five ex-wives, four chil­dren and an es­tate worth mil­lions of dol­lars. Fred, serv­ing as the Ad­min­is­tra­tor of the Will, faced the daunt­ing task of or­ga­niz­ing an army of as­sis­tants to dis­en­tan­gle the com­pli­ca­tions posed by Fran­cis’ vast artis­tic out­put. His es­tate in­clud­ed thou­sands of his own works, some 400 by other artists, an art book pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny and real es­tate hold­ings in mul­ti­ple coun­tries.

For his own col­lec­tion, Fred ac­quired Rauschen­berg, Warhol, Stel­la, Licht­en­stein, and many of the New York School artists as well as Pre-Columbian, African, New Guinea and Amer­i­can In­di­an Art.

He served as a Trustee of Art Cen­ter Col­lege of De­sign in Pasade­na, Fred­er­ick R. Weis­man Art Foun­da­tion and Fred­er­ick R. Weis­man Phil­ant­hropic Foun­da­tion.

The ben­e­fits of art have been far-reach­ing and im­pact­ful both in Fred’s long life and for the city where he grew up. Much be­cause of Fred’s con­tri­bu­tion, today Los An­ge­les is a thriv­ing artists’ com­mu­ni­ty.

Art even helped him find a new wife.

It had been a long time since Fred’s mar­riage to Eleanore had dis­solved and he had to do a lot of en­ter­tain­ing. When he met Joan Fields, he found the per­fect host­ess.

Fred says, “I had gone to an art show with a woman who start­ed an ar­gu­ment with me. She be­came more and more angry and even­tu­al­ly just left. Then I saw a pret­ty blond stand­ing alone and asked her, ‘Are you busy?’ We hit it off and I gave her a ride home that night.”

A few years later they were mar­ried. Joan had three daugh­ters: Re­bec­ca, Joan­na and Judy. Fred and Joan were to­geth­er for 40 years and mar­ried 36 years, from 1983 until 2019 when Joan passed away.

DISNEY CONCERT HALL: CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME

A fan­tas­ti­cal build­ing (that has been likened to a sil­ver galleon with wind-filled sails) is an em­blem of the new Los An­ge­les. But it may not have been con­struct­ed if it were not for Fred Nicholas.

At age 83, Fred’s keen eye for art and ar­chi­tec­ture led him to the biggest chal­lenge of his life­time – the Dis­ney Con­cert Hall.

In 1987 Lil­lian Dis­ney gave the coun­ty of Los An­ge­les $50 mil­lion to erect the hall in mem­o­ry of her late hus­band Walt Dis­ney. Dorothy Chan­dler’s daugh­ter, Camil­la Frost sug­gest­ed that Fred head the com­mit­tee be­cause she ad­mired what he had done with the launch of MOCA.

In the early 1980’s, she had watched as Fred di­rect­ed the de­sign and con­struc­tion of the en­tire MOCA project. She was im­pressed that he brought the project in on time and on bud­get.

When the Dis­ney fam­i­ly asked Fred to head their project, at first, he did not ac­cept the job. He was Chair­man of MOCA, and it felt like too much. After all, this was an­oth­er vol­un­teer project, and he was also run­ning a de­mand­ing busi­ness.

When he said “no,” Lil­lian Dis­ney in­vit­ed him to her home. After a two-hour meet­ing with her, where Mrs. Dis­ney as­sured him that she want­ed a world-class de­sign with great acoustics, Fred agreed to be­come the chair­man of a 10-mem­ber Walt Dis­ney Con­cert Hall com­mit­tee.

The first per­son he ap­point­ed to the com­mit­tee was his good friend Richard Koshalek, who holds de­grees in ar­chi­tec­ture and art his­to­ry and who was serv­ing as the Di­rec­tor of MOCA at the time. He chose Koshalek for his lead­er­ship ex­per­tise and be­cause the two worked so well to­geth­er. They had a proven his­to­ry of ef­fec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Fred poured his life into the job for the next 8 years pro bono. The project turned out to be more com­plex than any­one ever imag­ined.

Fred and his com­mit­tee went through 80 ar­chi­tects be­fore rec­om­mend­ing Frank Gehry who was rel­a­tive­ly un­known at the time. (Later, after this project, Gehry be­came world fa­mous.)

When Fred ac­cept­ed the po­si­tion, the $50 mil­lion was be­lieved to be the largest sin­gle pri­vate con­tri­bu­tion to the arts in US his­to­ry. But for the next 3 years, costs sky­rock­et­ed while Fred led the project through an un­pre­dictable string of legal hur­dles, in­ac­cu­rate cost es­ti­mates and lack of fund­ing.

After five years, Fred was one of those who shov­eled the first dirt in 1992. He kept the project alive through its most tur­bu­lent pe­ri­od. But then the 1994 North­ridge earth­quake be­came an­oth­er set­back. Con­trac­tors were busy and less in­clined to give com­pet­i­tive bids. Plus, new earth­quake stan­dards raised con­struc­tion costs.

De­spite Fred’s clar­i­ty and abil­i­ty to an­a­lyze the var­i­ous lev­els and work­ing parts of the project and use them to ad­van­tage…he couldn’t rally enough pop­u­lar sup­port.

Cost es­ti­mates had ex­pand­ed to $265 mil­lion by 1995. Years ear­li­er, when he took on the project Fred had op­er­at­ed under the as­sump­tion that the $50 mil­lion from the Dis­ney fam­i­ly would fi­nance the en­tire hall. Now on its death bed, the project be­came al­most en­tire­ly a fundrais­ing ef­fort.

By 1995 con­struc­tion on the hall had not even start­ed and Fred was re­placed as chair.

When he saw that there was noth­ing more he could do to af­fect the out­come, he knew it was time to sub­mit to the fates. Fred gen­er­ous­ly briefed his re­place­ment, Harry Huf­ford.

Fred had built a strong foun­da­tion, but it took an­oth­er eight years be­fore the icon­ic con­cert hall was opened.

Upon com­ple­tion in 2003, the project cost about $274 mil­lion.

Chapter ThreeWork

Public Counsel

In 1968, while the U.S. was on fire with anti-Viet­nam war march­es, Fred Nicholas was on the Board of the Bev­er­ly Hills Bar As­so­ci­a­tion and Chair­man of a Com­mit­tee on the Fu­ture of the Bar.

That year, he at­tend­ed a speech by a young lawyer and ac­tivist named Ralph Nader, who spoke about the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of lawyers to the com­mu­ni­ty. Nader crit­i­cized the legal pro­fes­sion for “not giv­ing back.”

This mes­sage hit a nerve with Fred. The crit­i­cism res­onat­ed. Rather than be­com­ing de­fen­sive or sim­ply com­plain­ing about the prob­lem, Fred did what he al­ways does – he acted.

In his noble way, he rarely dwells on dif­fi­cul­ties. In­stead, he turns his at­ten­tion to­ward so­lu­tions. He be­lieves there is al­ways a hid­den so­lu­tion to the prob­lem at hand as long as you keep your mind open until the way to pro­ceed shows it­self.

This was one of those times.

When he heard Nader’s con­dem­na­tion of lawyers, Fred sug­gest­ed to mem­bers of his com­mit­tee that the Bev­er­ly Hills Bar As­so­ci­a­tion spon­sor a pro bono law firm to pro­vide free legal ser­vices to the poor and needy.

A lot of the mem­bers thought it would be com­pe­ti­tion for their own prac­tices and were against it. But after two years of de­bate, the Bev­er­ly Hills Bar As­so­ci­a­tion au­tho­rized the for­ma­tion of a pro bono law firm under the name of Bev­er­ly Hills Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Law Foun­da­tion and do­nat­ed $5,000 to its for­ma­tion.

In 1970, in a tiny one-room of­fice off of Bev­er­ly Drive, the or­ga­ni­za­tion opened with Fred Nicholas as the first pres­i­dent and a staff of two. The fledg­ling or­ga­ni­za­tion sur­vived on a do­na­tion of $20,000 from Fred and small gifts from the large Bev­er­ly Hills law firms. In 1975, the L.A. Coun­ty Bar As­so­ci­a­tion joined the Bev­er­ly Hills Bar As­so­ci­a­tion to co-spon­sor the or­ga­ni­za­tion, and it changed its name to Pub­lic Coun­sel.

Today Pub­lic Coun­sel is the largest pro-bono law or­ga­ni­za­tion in the world, help­ing more than 30,000 fam­i­lies, chil­dren, im­mi­grants, vet­er­ans and non­prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tions each year. While ad­dress­ing pover­ty and civil rights is­sues, the value of its year­ly ser­vices is more than $45 mil­lion.

When asked about Pub­lic Coun­sel’s jour­ney, Fred re­flect­ed, “What start­ed as a small idea has grown be­yond my wildest dreams. It shows that when we come to­geth­er to serve oth­ers, there’s no limit to the good we can do.”

Twen­ty-five years after its for­ma­tion, Pub­lic Coun­sel cre­at­ed a Founder’s Day Cel­e­bra­tion in honor of Fred. In the year 2024, at the sec­ond Founder’s Day Cel­e­bra­tion, the Board said, “We are thrilled to honor the re­mark­able life and lega­cy of our founder, Fred Nicholas, as he turns 104 years old on May 30th. Fred Nicholas is a vi­sion­ary leader whose vi­sion con­tin­ues to guide Pub­lic Coun­sel’s work today.”

Fred’s life ex­em­pli­fies this truth from the Dalai Lama, show­ing us that in serv­ing oth­ers, we not only im­prove their lives but also find pro­found mean­ing and sat­is­fac­tion in our own. I think Fred’s great power lies in his in­tegri­ty and being cer­tain about the power of good.

Hawaii & Law School

Re­flect­ing on his re­mark­able life, Fred says he is most proud of start­ing Pub­lic Coun­sel, while be­com­ing a lawyer was the best de­ci­sion of his life. But the jour­ney was far from straight­for­ward.

When World War II broke out, Fred was study­ing jour­nal­ism at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia (USC). Like many young men of his gen­er­a­tion, he was draft­ed into ser­vice, putting his ed­u­ca­tion on hold. After re­turn­ing from the war, the study of jour­nal­ism is what he went back to.

He grad­u­at­ed from USC in the win­ter of 1947, right be­fore Jack­ie Robin­son be­came the first black play­er in Major League Base­ball. Pres­i­dent Tru­man de­liv­ered the first tele­vised White House ad­dress that year even though few Amer­i­cans owned the rel­a­tive­ly new and rare tech­nol­o­gy called tele­vi­sion.

Un­able to find work in Los An­ge­les, Fred’s jour­nal­is­tic pur­suits took him to Hawaii. There, he worked as a labor re­porter for Unit­ed Press in the same build­ing as the Hon­olu­lu Ad­ver­tis­er. He also took a job at night man­ag­ing a the­ater restau­rant in Waiki­ki.

At first, jour­nal­ism was ex­cit­ing be­cause Fred was cov­er­ing a Long­shore­man strike which par­a­lyzed all the ships and flights com­ing in and out of the is­lands. It was a big story. Fred got to meet, know and ad­mire Harry Bridges, one of the most in­flu­en­tial labor lead­ers in U.S. his­to­ry.

Once the ex­cite­ment of the strike cov­er­age waned, Fred found him­self rest­less. The news work be­came dull. There was very lit­tle to do, and Fred said, “I don’t want to spend my time in Hawaii doing noth­ing. I’m gonna go to law school.”

This de­ci­sion made his moth­er happy and also set him on a path that would de­fine his life’s mis­sion.

Fred was al­ways in a hurry (a trait that per­sists today at age 104). He felt the war had set him back and he was eager to turn the page and em­bark on the next chap­ter of his life.

He ap­plied to Har­vard, Yale and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go and was ac­cept­ed to all three law schools. He chose Chica­go be­cause he could begin im­me­di­ate­ly, plus he had two friends there. Har­vard and Yale wouldn’t begin for three months.

While he was in law school, he worked as a dri­ver for a He­brew School. “I al­ways worked,” he says.

But then Fa­ther Time reached out and grabbed him again. Al­though he loved Chica­go, after one year of law school, Fred was feel­ing out of place at age 30 among younger stu­dents. He said, “The other stu­dents were kids while I was an old man.”

Then the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia an­nounced that World War II vet­er­ans could take the Bar Exam in their third year. Again in a hurry, Fred trans­ferred to USC and passed the Bar be­fore fin­ish­ing school.

With a li­cense to prac­tice and a law de­gree from USC, he was off and run­ning. 50 years later at a re­union, his class­mates hon­ored Fred as the most suc­cess­ful grad­u­ate in the class of 1952.

Fred Nicholas’ jour­ney in law and real es­tate is a tes­ta­ment to his abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize op­por­tu­ni­ties and act on them with in­tegri­ty and vi­sion.

Fred’s in-law helped him get a job at Loeb & Loeb, which at the time was one of the few large firms in Los An­ge­les that hired Jew­ish lawyers. Fred’s nat­ur­al tal­ent for in­spir­ing con­fi­dence quick­ly at­tract­ed nu­mer­ous clients, and he soon found him­self bring­ing in more busi­ness than some of the part­ners.

How­ev­er, Fred felt con­strained by the firm’s struc­ture. “I re­al­ly didn’t like it,” he re­calls. “You couldn’t act on your own. You couldn’t make a de­ci­sion.”

This de­sire for au­ton­o­my led him to leave Loeb & Loeb and briefly part­ner with two oth­ers in a small law firm. Dur­ing this time, he be­came in­volved in de­vel­op­ing Brent­wood Sav­ings. Fred says, “It was the first time I made any real money.”

The Hap Smith Company

Fred’s entry into real es­tate began al­most by chance. It hap­pened while he was still at Loeb & Loeb. A real es­tate bro­ker on the west side of Los An­ge­les was re­ferred to Fred and the two be­came im­me­di­ate friends. His name was Hap Smith.

For­tu­nate­ly (and it re­al­ly was for­tu­nate), Hap Smith could not af­ford to pay for the legal ser­vices he need­ed – an op­tion agree­ment for real prop­er­ty in Fre­mont, Cal­i­for­nia. Be­cause he couldn’t pay, Loeb & Loeb re­fused to ac­cept him as a client.

Going above and be­yond, Fred pre­pared the op­tion agree­ment on his own time with­out charge. When he dis­cov­ered that Hap couldn’t raise funds to pay for the op­tion, Fred stepped in again, rais­ing money from fam­i­ly and friends. This act of kind­ness and fore­sight be­came a piv­otal mo­ment for both men.

Their goals blend­ed bril­liant­ly. Fred was blessed with an op­por­tu­ni­ty. Hap, in­stead of feel­ing shame and scorn, dis­cov­ered the best part­ner a man could find.

For Fred it was an open­ing, a be­gin­ning. For Hap, who knew real es­tate but was not suc­cess­ful, it was a time of re­cov­ery, re­new­al and re­gen­er­a­tion.

In 1956 they formed the Hap­smith Com­pa­ny part­ner­ship. Fred find­ing the in­vestors; Hap find­ing the real es­tate op­por­tu­ni­ties. Their col­lab­o­ra­tion led to the de­vel­op­ment of more than a dozen large shop­ping cen­ters across the Unit­ed States.

After Hap’s death in 1975, Fred re­tained the com­pa­ny name and con­tin­ued to de­vel­op real es­tate projects. His biggest un­der­tak­ing was the Ronald Rea­gan Build­ing and In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Cen­ter in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. As the sec­ond-largest build­ing in the cap­i­tal after the Pen­ta­gon, with 3.1 mil­lion square feet, this project was an­oth­er demon­stra­tion of Fred’s abil­i­ty to man­age large-scale, high-pro­file de­vel­op­ments.

His ded­i­ca­tion to the project was im­mense. He worked on it for ten years, fly­ing from Los An­ge­les to DC every two weeks.

At one point, Pres­i­dent and Mrs. Clin­ton in­vit­ed him for brunch at the White House to talk about the project. Clin­ton want­ed some changes made. Fred had to say “no” to the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States be­cause by then, it was too late to make any more al­ter­ations.

This ex­pe­ri­ence il­lus­trates Fred’s prin­ci­pled ap­proach to busi­ness even in the face of pow­er­ful in­flu­ences. When the build­ing fi­nal­ly opened in May 1998, Clin­ton was em­broiled in the Mon­i­ca Lewin­sky scan­dal – a strong re­minder of the com­plex po­lit­i­cal land­scape Fred nav­i­gat­ed through­out his ca­reer.

Fred’s story il­lus­trates that a truly good life, as Bertrand Rus­sell sug­gest­ed, is in­deed in­spired by love – love for one’s work, for help­ing oth­ers, and for mak­ing a pos­i­tive im­pact. Through­out his jour­ney, Fred Nicholas demon­strat­ed that suc­cess in busi­ness and law could be achieved with­out com­pro­mis­ing one’s val­ues.

Ray Evans – A kindred spirit

Fred has a lot of friends. His dear­est friend was Ray Evans. Long be­fore Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Ray was part of an­oth­er su­per­star song­writ­ing team, Liv­ingston and Evans. They have a star on the Hol­ly­wood Walk of Fame, com­posed more than 700 songs for screen, stage and tele­vi­sion and won three “Best Song” Os­cars.

Ray was funny and be­cause he had made a lot of money when he was young, ac­com­pa­nied Fred on many of Fred’s work jour­neys. To­geth­er they trav­eled all over the world with their wives. They were such good friends that a few years after Ray’s wife died, and his house­keep­er found him dead, she didn’t call an am­bu­lance or the po­lice. She called Fred.

Today Fred has Ray’s three Os­cars dis­played el­e­gant­ly in his of­fice.

Fred was high­ly ac­com­plished through­out his life­time, but de­spite his achieve­ments he wasn’t a worka­holic. He was re­mark­ably ac­tive phys­i­cal­ly and so­cial­ly, al­ways bal­anc­ing phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty with his pro­fes­sion­al life.

His daily rou­tine in­clud­ed swim­ming 25 laps every morn­ing, then play­ing ten­nis after the swim. All be­fore going to the of­fice. He main­tained this sched­ule until very late in life, play­ing ten­nis until age 96 and swim­ming until 103. Today, at 104 he still works out with a train­er three times every week.

In his youth, Fred was a hand­ball play­er. He be­came na­tion­al col­le­giate cham­pi­on in hand­ball while he was in col­lege – an­oth­er im­pres­sive ac­count of his sus­tained vi­tal­i­ty.

Epilogue

While writ­ing this book, I learned a lot from Fred and about him. If some­day in the fu­ture his great-grand­chil­dren are read­ing this, I want to say some­thing to you about your an­ces­tor:

I wish you had known him.

At age 90 he re­ceived a birth­day card that de­scribed him as “The youngest 90-year-old the world has ever seen.” I would say the same thing about him at 104.

Al­though Fred would never de­scribe him­self as a spir­i­tu­al per­son, I am spir­i­tu­al... and I think he is too. He is cen­tered and bal­anced. He’s an en­light­ened per­son who re­spects him­self and oth­ers.

He’s cau­tious, yet fear­less. He is not sub­ject to the whims of every pass­ing storm. He doesn’t grieve over lost trea­sures. When hard times would wreak havoc on most, Fred climbs to high­er ground and re­mains mirac­u­lous­ly un­touched.

He didn’t say these words, but this is what he taught me while we were work­ing on the book:

Savor your ac­com­plish­ments.

Take full pos­ses­sion of your world be­fore em­bark­ing to dis­cov­er the next one.

The end­point of today’s quest will only be the thresh­old for an­oth­er.

To read more about Fred’s honors, projects, life and awards: www.frederickmnicholas.com