Lucy Saroyan's L.A. Times Obituary
Bill Schenley
Lucy Saroyan, a former actress who struggled for
years over her estrangement from her famous father,
author William Saroyan, has died. She was 57.
The cause was cirrhosis of the liver complicated by
hepatitis C, said her brother, Aram, of Los Angeles.
She is also survived by her mother, Carol Matthau,
of New York.
Saroyan died April 11 at a Thousand Oaks, Calif.,
lodge where she had been living.
A formal announcement of her death was made only
a few days before her ashes were to be interred at
Ararat Cemetery in Fresno, near those of her father,
the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who died in 1981
at age 72. The interment is today.
Lucy Saroyan was born in San Francisco on Jan. 17,
1946. She was the second child of her father and the
former Carol Marcus, a New York debutante who
enchanted the writer with her beauty, zest and
glamorous friends.
The marriage took place at the peak of Saroyan's fame.
The son of Armenian immigrants had thrilled the
literary world in 1934 with publication of The Daring
Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, a collection of short
stories.
He expanded his reputation over the next decade with
the novel The Human Comedy, which was turned into
an Oscar-winning movie, and The Time of Your Life,
which earned the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
He became known for stories that celebrated
brotherhood and tight-knit families.
But his own family life was disastrous.
He married and divorced Marcus twice in eight years,
the final break coming in 1952.
Her later marriage to actor Walter Matthau lasted 41
years.
Saroyan never remarried.
Once one of the richest and most celebrated authors
in America, he cheated on child support and gambled
away most of his wealth.
By his own choosing, he had almost no contact with
his children in his last years.
In the end, he essentially disinherited them, leaving
the bulk of his $1.3 million estate to the William
Saroyan Foundation.
"Papa idealized big, big families," Lucy Saroyan said
in 1983. "He wanted 10 kids and he only had two. I
think he was estranged from Aram and me partly for
that reason. His marriage failing caused him lifelong
heartbreak."
After the author's final divorce, the children lived with
their mother, but they spent summers and many
weekends with their father, whose success allowed a
sophisticated lifestyle of European sojourns, embassy
parties and encounters with a glittering array of
Hollywood and literary luminaries.
He wrote books for each of his children. Aram's was a
collection of monologues titled Papa, You're Crazy,
published in 1957. For Lucy he wrote the 1956 novel
Mama, I Love You, which found commercial success
despite negative reviews.
A thinly veiled exercise in wish fulfillment, it revolved
around a divorced couple who split custody of their son
and daughter. It ends with the daughter becoming a
famous actress and the parents remarrying.
Lucy attended the exclusive Dalton School in New York
before enrolling at Northwestern University in Chicago.
She wrote short stories that her father thought were
quite good, according to biographer John Leggett in his
2002 book A Daring Young Man.
She dropped out of college and enrolled at the
Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, did voice-overs
and worked as a dresser for her stepfather in the
Broadway production of The Odd Couple.
She eventually was able to make a living as an actress
with small parts on Broadway and off Broadway and in
summer
stock.
She later moved to California and worked in television
and film. Her brother said one of her favorite roles was
a small part in the 1980 spy caper Hopscotch, which
starred Walter Matthau.
She made minor appearances in 22 movies, including
Greased Lightning (1977) and Blue Collar (1978).
She also worked as a film library archivist and in
bookstores.
Her father disapproved of his never-married daughter's
lifestyle, particularly an affair she said she had with
Marlon Brando, and her lack of career success. He
broadcast his often lacerating views.
In Obituaries, a series of reflections published in 1979,
the senior Saroyan described himself as "an idiot father
of a young and stupid son and a younger and more
stupid daughter."
"He was angry I hadn't done those conventional things"
- marry and have children - Lucy Saroyan told the Los
Angeles Times in an unpublished interview last year.
"He resented the freedom I took. And yet he gave me a
great sense of freedom."
A few weeks later, he grudgingly granted her a final
meeting. "He told me he loved me," she said, "and he
kissed me."
Bill Schenley
May 21 2003
Lucy Saroyan's life recalled at cemetery
Daughter of famed writer William shared father's sense
of humor and talent in the arts.
By Matt Leedy
Lucy Saroyan, the ebullient daughter of Fresno's most
famous son, was laid to rest in Ararat Cemetery this week
in the shadow of her father's large, black granite
headstone.
Lucy Saroyan's smaller headstone, taped with a piece of
paper listing the dates of her birth and death, is shaded
from the evening sun by a marker that bears William
Saroyan's name and some of his words:
"In the time of your life, live so that in that wondrous time
you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world,
but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."
Lucy Saroyan died April 11 in Thousand Oaks. She was
57.
Friends gathered Monday to place some of her ashes in
the cemetery near Fresno's west-central border. She
wanted some of her ashes scattered in San Francisco but
friends and family members said Tuesday they were not
sure how or when those wishes would be carried out.
In the years before her death she wrote and also worked in
a Hollywood bookstore, her brother, Aram, said.
Lucy and Aram were the only children of William Saroyan.
Lucy Saroyan lived in San Francisco before moving to Los
Angeles and in 1991 was the keynote speaker at the annual
banquet of the ArmenianStudies Program at California State
University, Fresno.
As a young woman she worked as an actress, was a
stepdaughter to actor Walter Matthau and close friend to
actor Marlon Brando.
In a 1967 Newsday article, Lucy Saroyan, then a 21-year-old
"budding actress," is described as "a pint-sized
powerhouse of energy, she combines sheer guts with a
determined and undeviating singlemindedness about her
career."
Lucy Saroyan, "with wondrous dark eyes flashing under a
heavy fringe of blond bangs," as described by a Newsday
reporter, posed for Vogue photographer Richard Avedon.
She performed in London, in one-act plays written by her
father, author of short stories including "My Name is
Aram," novels such as "The Human Comedy," and songs.
Lucy Saroyan co-starred in a Chicago production of
"Barefoot in the Park" with Jim MacArthur, who played
Danny Williams in television's "Hawaii Five-O."
She was also in a variety of films and television shows.
"Lucy wanted to be an actress, and she was an actress,
and she was talented," said Jacqueline Kazarian, her cousin.
Kazarian believes Lucy Saroyan sometimes languished in
expectations created by her father's fame. William Saroyan,
who died May 18, 1981, at the age of 72, won both a Pulitzer
Prize and an Oscar.
"William Saroyan was epic. He was a movement in America.
I think the children of anyone as famous as he was struggle
with it," Kazarian said.
In a 1977 Chicago Sun-Times interview, Lucy Saroyan said
of her father: "He gave me a sense of adventure and love of
travel. He gave me the confidence to take chances. He
[taught] me not to be afraid to live my life, to go ahead and
plunge in. He instilled a great respect for creativity."
Robert Setrakian, the executor of William Saroyan's estate,
spoke with Lucy about four months ago and learned she was
"doing some writing."
"I found her to be extremely bright, very articulate,"
Setrakian said. "She could have been a writer in her own right.
A week after her death, Lucy Saroyan's family gathered for
dinner,"and just remembered her," Aram Saroyan said. "She
had lots offriends and she was very much loved by people,"
Aram Saroyan said. "The thing I always got a kick out of was
her sense of humor. I thinkthat's one thing she shared with my
father. My favorite memories were just laughing with her."