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 fortunes—Ahmanson, Rockefeller, Ford, Mellon, and Annenberg—to 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 Broker brings 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 Davis is a California lawyer and is also the author of Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny (UC Press, 1998) and Rivers 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 story of a little-known but utterly exceptional man."—Jack Miles, Pulitzer Prize winner and Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Irvine
“Rarely has a city and a man been better suited to one another. In this fascinating biography, Margaret Leslie Davis tells us how one man—as chancellor, corporate leader, and cultural entrepreneur—supercharged the transformation of a regional city into a world-class metropolis.”—Kevin Starr, Professor, University of Southern California, and former California State Librarian
"Once again, Margaret Leslie Davis has chosen a fascinating subject and produced a compelling—and revelatory—biography. Franklin D. Murphy may not have been the most visible architect of the ‘new’ Los Angeles but he may well have been the single most influential figure of his time, leaving his fingerprints on everything from the expanded UCLA to the Getty Center. Anyone who lives in 21st century L.A. should learn about the man who shaped the city’s culture as we know it.”—Leonard Maltin, film critic and historian
"Franklin D. Murphy left an enormous imprint on Los Angeles because he touched so many different spheres. Thankfully, Murphy has a biographer whose protean knowledge rivals her subject's. Margaret Leslie Davis's fluency across topics—medicine and education; art and architecture; industry and media; philanthropy, politics and civic affairs—is absolutely stunning."—Rick Wartzman, Los Angeles Times columnist and author of The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire
"At the height of his cultural and educational authority, Franklin Murphy was everywhere in Los Angeles. In this fine biography, Margaret Leslie Davis has traced his extraordinary influence and legacy. The Culture Broker is a careful tracing of the life and work of arguably the most important cultural figure in all of 20th century Los Angeles."—William Deverell, Director, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West
495 pp.6 x 9Illus: 33 b/w photographs
9780520224957$85.00|£71.00Hardcover
Aug 2007