Bruce Alexander Bevan, Jr.
Bruce wanted to be remembered, first and foremost, as a business trial lawyer.
He was born on Easter Sunday 1928 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a boy, he lived in many places across the country. Prescott, Arizona was his favorite, although he considered El Paso, Texas his hometown. In Prescott, growing up, Bruce spent many a summer day out in nature, with a trusty Airedale by his side, and he had his share of natures close calls. Once, he was marooned by a severe summer storm on the lake’s diving platform, and rescued by his uncle, who swam him to safety just before a waterspout mangled the platform to pieces. Another time, during an intense thunderstorm, a bright flash and explosion inside his house revealed a lightning bolt had struck, splitting his refrigerator in two, as he stood next to it.
Bruce graduated early from El Paso High School in 1944. He then attended UCLA at the young age of 16, studying from 1944 until 1946 when, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the Army. He served in a Military Police unit on Okinawa which ran the Army Stockade. Cpl. Bevan was its Company Clerk, then its Supply Sergeant.
Upon discharge in 1948, he was accepted by Stanford University. He completed an A. B. degree in economics in 1949 and a law degree in 1952. He was an editor of its Law Review where he worked with Sandra Day (0’Connor) and William Rehnquist, both later of U.S. Supreme Court fame.
From 1954-60, he was an Assistant US Attorney in Los Angeles in its Criminal Division and later became the Chief of the Anti-Racketeering and Organized Crime unit. From 1960-90, he was the chief trial lawyer of the Musick Peeler law firm in Los Angeles.
As a prosecutor, he tried many significant criminal cases. As a civil lawyer, he defended 20th Century Fox in several cases against motion picture celebrities including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Sellers; he also tried many important cases for J. Paul Getty’s entities.
In 1977, he tried a complex fraud case culminating in an eight-month-long jury trial against one of the world’s largest accounting firms, Touche Ross. Bruce obtained a $30,000,000 jury verdict which withstood two years of appellate proceedings.
In 1978, Bruce was inducted into the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers.
In 1956, he married Sharon (Sherry) Brown, his angel on earth. Theirs was a storybook love, lasting 67 years. They raised two children, first Laurie, then Craig, in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. The family enjoyed a rich life, with a cabin on the water at Malibu Lake, where Bruce would enjoy hiking, tennis, sailing, and occasionally fishing. They also traveled to Balboa Island in the summers with the entire family, where even better sailing could be had. Bruce and Sherry had many friends, none dearer than the “Bridge Club,” four couples who maintained lifetime friendships and multi-family outings all around Southern California. Bruce, in addition to his sailing skills, was also quite athletic and competitive, and used his tactics and treachery to defeat many a younger, better tennis player. He could also match anyone in ping pong, bumper pool, or darts, should the need arise.
In 1990, Bruce retired, whereupon he and Sherry moved to Santa Barbara, first living on a gentleman’s avocado ranch, then in Birnam Wood, on Pepper Hill and finally at Casa Dorinda in Montecito. At Birnam, he took up golf in earnest, achieving three hole-in-one’s in his brief golf career. He spent many a happy time on walks in those years with his favorite dog, a golden retriever named Penny he remained devoted to his entire life. With ample time in his retirement. and with his keen intellect, Bruce was a fierce player of bridge and chess. He would also devour books at an amazing clip, all of which brought him much joy. Throughout his life, he and Sherry loved to sing together, and his deep baritone voice booming at the Casa piano singalongs continued to his final days. True to his nature, in his final years, he took great pleasure in feeding, sometimes by hand, the blue jays, woodpeckers, crows and squirrels of Casa. As an attorney, an intellectual, an athlete, an outdoorsman, a singer, a husband, father and grandfather, Bruce lived a rich and meaningful life, full of humor and wit, laughter and song, was generous and charming, and always shared his accumulated wisdom and stories with his family. His beloved Sherry passed away in 2023, from which, though he tried valiantly, he never truly recovered. He leaves behind his two children, Laurie and Craig, and four grandsons, Rowan, Connor, Ian and Grant. He was brilliant, sometimes intimidating, grumpy, opinionated, funny and charismatic, almost assuredly the smartest guy in the room, and he will be greatly missed.
