Everett Freeman

Everett Freeman, the screenwriter and producer nominated for an Academy Award in 1947 for his story "It Happened on Fifth Avenue," has died. He was 79. Freeman, who wrote such classic films as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and co-created the long-running television series "Bachelor Father," died Thursday at his Westwood home. His daughter Elizabeth attributed his death to renal failure. The veteran writer began his career in New York.

Everett Freeman, the screenwriter and producer nominated for an Academy Award in 1947 for his story "It Happened on Fifth Avenue," has died. He was 79. Freeman, who wrote such classic films as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and co-created the long-running television series "Bachelor Father," died Thursday at his Westwood home. His daughter Elizabeth attributed his death to renal failure. The veteran writer began his career in New York.

Everett Freeman of Westwood deplores the 1980s as being totally without class. He means that nobody has it. "Class almost seems to have disappeared from our society. America had class once. People had class, music had class, movies had class. Cary Grant had class, Humphrey Bogart had class in his fashion; Ronald Colman and Sidney Howard and Franklin Roosevelt had class. . . . I can think of almost nobody today who has it. Notoriety, fame, fortune--but not class."

Glendale's housing manager was blunt with his concerns about giving a prominent developer $12.2 million to build low-income housing near the city's downtown. "I strongly recommend … not funding this project at anywhere near the level currently being requested," Mike Fortney wrote in an April 2008 letter to his boss. Glendale City Council members awarded the money anyway. The following year, they paid an additional $1.7 million for the project, dubbed Vassar City Lights, a five-story stucco building on San Fernando Road.

A funny thing happened on the way to the La Jolla Playhouse: "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" became high class entertainment. That's Entertainment with a capital E, not a capital H, as in high-brow, which "Forum" could/should never be.