Jerry Farber

Gerald H. 'Jerry' Farber (born 1935) is an American educator, writer, activist and former child actor. Early life and education Farber was born in El Paso, Texas in 1935. As an undergraduate student at UCLA in December 1954, he was nominated by the senior staff of the UCLA Daily Bruin to be city editor of the student newspaper, but he and the other four staff nominees for editorial positions were rejected by a special two-man committee composed of student body president Skip Byrne and a representative of the university administration. In the spring term 1955, he and four other students (Fredy Perlman, Martin McReynolds, Barry Tunick and Steve Wayne), issued and distributed an underground newspaper called The Observer on the UCLA campus. Farber subsequently went on to earn a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Occidental College in 1970. His dissertation was titled: "The Aesthetic Role of the Present in À la Recherche du temps perdu." Career As a child, Farber was a radio actor and also appeared as Fleance in Orson Welles's film version of Macbeth. A member of the 500 Club, made up of child actors who had each appeared in over 500 radio shows, Farber initiated the role of Stevie Kent, president of the Beverly Hills Beavers, on The Jack Benny Program. Among the other radio shows on which he appeared were The Great Gildersleeve, Lux Radio Theatre, The Screen Guild Theatre, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, and Suspense. In addition, he performed in a number of radio adaptations of literary works—appearing as David Copperfield on Favorite Story, as Huckleberry Finn on NBC University Theater, and as Oliver Twist, together with Basil Rathbone as Fagin, on Stars Over Hollywood. He played Twist again, with Rathbone, on a Columbia Records album.