In 1988, when four Arizonans weighing more than 1,000 pounds tried to break California off from the continental states by doing jumping jacks at Venice Beach, one man documented the effort.
That same scribe confirmed that bands of chickens roving near the Hollywood Freeway were indeed real and not an urban legend in 2000.
Steve Harvey, who chronicled Los Angeles’ fun side with his “Only in L.A.” column, which ran in the Los Angeles Times for 20 years and continued online in other publications, died Tuesday from complications of Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. He was 80.
Many of Harvey’s zaniest anecdotes can be found in his 1996 book, “The Best of Only in L.A.: A Chronicle of the Amazing, Amusing and Absurd.”
“He was always a lot of fun,” said his wife, Venetia Lai. “He lived life with a lot of humor and joy.”
Harvey was best known for his satirical column “The Bottom 10,” a ranking of the worst college football teams, which he started in 1965 while at USC and which is now imitated by ESPN.
During the 2009 college football season, for instance, most sports media followed the exploits of Alabama, which finished 14-0 and defeated the University of Texas, 37-21, in the national title game at the Rose Bowl.
That season, Harvey was more interested in the exploits of Eastern Michigan, his Bottom 10 No. 1 team, which finished 0-12.
The column was syndicated to newspapers through United Press International.
Steve Harvey was born in 1946 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica to A.C. Harvey and Marie Moog Harvey. He was a product of West L.A., attending Clover Avenue Elementary, Palms Middle and Hamilton High School.
While at Hamilton, the perpetual varsity baseball benchwarmer attended the Scholastic Sports Assn. (now the California Scholastic Press Assn.) workshop in 1962. The summer journalism program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, run by late L.A. Herald Examiner journalist Ralph Alexander, was a transformative experience in Harvey’s life, and he stayed involved in the program as a teacher and board member.
He graduated from USC’s journalism school, where he said a highlight of his young career was being hung in effigy by the USC marching band for a Daily Trojan story he wrote about shill band members.
He worked at the L.A. Herald Examiner before joining the Opinion section of the L.A. Times in 1968. He later became a features writer, penning stories about offbeat denizens of and places in L.A., ranging from Angelyne to the Zamboni Museum in Paramount.
After a 40-year career at The Times, he continued his column for the news website L.A. Observed and wrote a local version for the Grunion Gazette in Long Beach.
Harvey is survived by his wife; son, James (Lauren); daughter, Sarah (Nicholas); granddaughter, Penelope; sister, Marilyn Stein (John); nephew, Nick (Ariana); and niece, Liz (Brendan).
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