Denny Freidenrich turns 70 today. No Way!
Long time Laguna Beach resident Denny Freidenrich’s life reads like a series of firsts. For example:
-The first time Denny visited Laguna was in 1960. Even as a boy, he remembers telling himself, “Someday I’m going to live here.”
-As a high school senior growing up in Palo Alto, Denny was named to the first team all-league water polo squad in 1965. A year later, he was playing for USC.
-The summer of 1967 was Denny’s introduction to life at the beach. He and three fraternity brothers rented an apartment in Corona del Mar. In his words, “I used to spend a lot of time driving between Balboa and Doheny. That’s when I first discovered Thalia Street.”
Submitted photo
Denny Freidenrich turns 70 today
In 1969, he “won” the first Vietnam-era draft lottery. Yes, September 14th was the first of all 366 dates randomly selected; but, no, Denny was not called to serve. Years before, he had fallen off a cliff in Santa Cruz and fractured three vertebrae. “When I finally was released from Stanford Hospital after a two-week convalescence, my medical file was a foot thick,” he says.
-Immediately after graduating from ‘SC in 1970, Denny moved to Laguna for the first time. Two years later, he moved to Washington, DC, where he first worked on Capitol Hill as a congressional staff assistant and then as a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.
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Denny working on Capitol Hill in 1972
The years that followed were equally important to Denny as he continued notching many firsts. Like these:
-After returning to the beach for good in 1974, Denny created the nonprofit California Voter Group. The first of its kind, the group’s goal was to encourage high school students to become active voters when they turned 18. Scholastic Magazine honored the Laguna-based organization with a national youth citizenship award in 1980.
- In 1978, Denny interviewed on cable TV all the candidates running for Laguna Beach City Council. That was the same year he helped found the Von Strobel Breakfast Society, a nonpartisan group of approximately 30 “young turks” who worked at all levels of politics in the county. As he is fond of saying now, “We were networking before we knew what the word meant.”
- Four years later, with the support of several Laguna contributors, Denny spearheaded three successful fundraising campaigns: Larry Agran’s first reelection campaign to the Irvine City Council; Bill Honig’s first run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction; and, Andy Warhol’s celebrity portrait of Jane Fonda (which benefited Tom Hayden, Fonda’s husband at the time, when he first ran for the California Assembly).
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Photo by Doree Dunlap Freidenrich
Andy Warhol preparing Jane Fonda for her photo shoot in New York City
-In 1983, Denny established the Contemporary Club, the first young professionals support group created specifically to raise funds for an OC cultural institution (the former Newport Harbor Art Museum located at Fashion Island). Shortly after that, he was asked to help launch Center 500, another group of young professionals who wanted to support the OC Performing Arts Center (which literally was coming out of the ground in Costa Mesa at the time).
-In 1985, Denny received the call of a lifetime. He was hired to direct the county’s No on Offshore Oil Drilling campaign. His first task was to coordinate the responses of San Clemente, Laguna, Newport, Huntington Beach, the OC Board of Supervisors and 22 Republican mayors – all of whom publicly opposed the Reagan administration’s plan to open the coast to massive drilling. To this day, Denny says the outcome of that effort (i.e., no oil rigs off Laguna’s shoreline, for example) was the most meaningful of his political career.
-Twenty years later, Denny’s idea to host a community breakfast in Bluebird Park for the victims of the devastating 2005 landslide was the first of many similar events in town.
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Denny introducing (then) Senator Barack Obama to Democrats in 2007
-Denny first met presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2007. The next year, he was part of a group that raised $1.2 million for the future president. Today, Denny is providing Harley Rouda’s first congressional campaign with the names of potential major donors throughout the state.
-In between all these firsts, Denny managed to serve as the public relations or marketing director of two publicly traded companies, as well as publish more than 1,200 commentaries and letters to the editor. While many of his pieces run in the New York Times, The Hill, Boston Globe or USA Today, Denny’s op-eds or letters also can be found in the Daily Pilot, OC Register, Los Angeles Times or Stu News.
“I’ve written about both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue for decades; but, every once in a while something happens locally that catches my attention,” he says.
“Here in Laguna, there are several people who regularly write letters to the editor. I don’t always agree with them, but I support their right to freely express themselves 110 percent,” he adds.
“Who would have guessed that, when I was a boy, my first pick would be to live here someday? That ‘someday’ has lasted more than four decades. Like I tell my three adult children, Tyler, Spencer and Zoe, it is important to focus on the needs of others no matter where you are. Clearly, that has been a driving force for me all the years I have lived in Laguna,” Denny concluded.
Shiva Farivar
Irvine
Anne (LeBonte) Shea passed away peacefully on August 24, 2018 at the age of 84 years. Joseph, her devoted husband of 61 years, was with her.
Loraine Estelle Hollingsworth, 82, also known as Cherokee, passed away peacefully in her canyon home of 70 years surrounded by her loving family.
