The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 39

2003:01:30:21:30:49 By Myrna Oliver Times Staff Writer Cliff Norton, comedian and actor whose 65-year on-air and on-screen career stretched from spinning records as a disc jockey and acting in to performing on television from its infancy, has died. He was 84. Norton died Saturday night in his Studio City home after a short illness, his family said. Born and raised in Chicago, Clifford Charles Norton was on the air in his hometown by the time he was 19. He began as a disc jockey in 1937 in the time slot preceding a talk show featuring Jim and Marian Jordan, better known as McGee and Norton served as a bombardier in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and when he returned to Chicago, he found steady work in the burgeoning field of radio shows such as the orphanage- centered and heroic action thrillers including FBI in Peace and and Tom Mix Working in Chicago radio, Norton met a young NBC radio announcer named Dave Garroway, who soon introduced himself and Norton to a national television audience with a prime-time half-hour live musical variety series, at The series ran from 1949 to 1951, and Norton appeared regularly in humorous sketches at the same time he was doing his own local television show, Private Life of Cliff When Garroway moved to New York to begin in 1952, he encouraged Norton to follow.

Norton did, and adept at working live, thrived on the early TV shows, appearing in dramatic roles in such theatrical anthology series as Steel and TV and as a comedian on Ed Sullivan Gary Moore Star Theatre With Milton George Gobel Tonight Perry Como and with Sid Caesar. He was a popular guest panelist on early game shows, including Got a Relocating to Los Angeles in 1962, Norton gained roles in major motion pictures, beginning with a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad and continuing with and Don Ghost and Mr. Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are They Gave a War and Nobody and with Art Carney, with Barbra Streisand and Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved But most of the work was beamed directly into living rooms, from late 1930s radio shows through half a century of television variety shows, dramas and sitcoms and, in the final decade of his life, hundreds of radio and TV commercials. Shortly after Norton arrived in Hollywood, he developed a five-minute nightly sketch for KTLA Channel 5 sandwiched between the 11 p.m. news and Steve Allen Titled Weather and the short segment featured Norton spoofing various local weather broadcasters, and humorously alluding to Southern non-weather by pointing to a mostly blank weather map on which he placed nonsense symbols.

Awidower, Norton is survived by his children, Cliff Norton Susan Kinne and Stacey Evans; and four grandchildren. Amemorial service for Norton will be held at 10 a.m. Sunday at Theater West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Los Angeles. Cliff Norton, 84; Began Acting Career in Radio CLIFF NORTON He was introduced to early television in New York by Dave Garroway, for whom he had worked in Chicago radio.

By Scott Martelle Times Staff Writer Rachel Oliphant, an Orange County philanthropist and a daughter of the founders of the Berry Farm amusement park in Buena Park, died of congestive heart failure Wednesday at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach. She was 86. Oliphant, generally considered the most reserved of Walter and Cordelia four children, got her start in the family business by helping sell berries at a roadside stand, then worked with her sisters as a waitress in the family restaurant that eventually gave rise to the internationally known amusement park. Those early experiences helped cement a lifelong sense of closeness among the Knott siblings, said her sister Marion Knott Montapert. know of any family that has stayed as close as we did for 80 Montapert said.

we say we worked six days a week and all of that, we had fun doing it because all of our friends were waiting tables with us was not like we were going in and punching a Oliphant was born in Pomona in 1917 as her parents struggled to homestead. They shortly gave up that enterprise and moved to the San Luis Obispo area, where they farmed until the elder Knott and a cousin joined in 1920 to run a small berry farm on rented land in Buena Park. When the landowner decided to sell in 1927, the father bought the property and the share of the business. Five years later, Knott persuaded local farmer Ralph Boysen to place his six new hy- brid plants on farm, giving rise to the boysenberry. In those Depression years, Cordelia Knott began making jams, jellies and pies from the boysenberries and relied on Toni and her sisters to sell them at the side of the road, setting in motion the entry into businesses that would make them one of Orange most prominent families.

thing I remember vividly is the orange trees and the smell of the orange Oliphant once said. And although her father launched the boysenberry worldwide, it was not her favorite. loved black raspberries she said. Oliphant met her future husband, berry man Ken Oliphant, when he made a trip to the farm to buy some fruit. They courted during badminton games and married in No- vember 1941.

Oliphant for a time helped run a sports clothing shop on the farm, which former spokeswoman Patsy Marshall said reflected sense of fashion. always looked like she stepped off the pages of said Marshall, a Buena Park City Council member. always had a Of the four children, Toni was the least involved in the business, although her husband was instrumental in establishing the retail portion of the family empire, Berry Farm Foods. And she took part in the weekly meetings to discuss business, though her siblings did most of the actual work. Oliphant, an avid golfer and bridge player, was active in, or a supporter of, a wide range of community groups, including the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries and the Corona del Mar High School Foundation.

In 2000, she donated $3million toward a new million Oliphant Hall Music Building on the Chapman University campus. Construction is to begin this summer and should be completed in time for the fall 2004 semester. husband died in 1998. She is survived by their children, Jana Hackett and Don Oliphant; her sisters, Montapert and Virginia Knott Bender; and several grandchildren. Instead of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Hoag Pavilion at Hoag Hospital, 1 Hoag Drive, P.O.

Box 6100, Newport Beach, CA 92658. Times staff writer Nancy Wride contributed to this report. Rachel Oliphant, 86; Philanthropist, Child of Founders Los Angeles Times RACHEL OLIPHANT The least involved in the business of the four children, she supported a variety of causes. OBITUARIES OC B11 LOSANGELESTIMES.