Big turnout for Nancy Daly

Friends and family of the late philanthropist and civic leader Nancy Daly heard heaps of praise last night at a memorial gathering in UCLA's Royce Hall. Times columnist Patt Morrison, a friend of Daly's, blogs that the turnout included Daly's first husband, Robert Daly and Carole Bayer Sager, last husband Richard Riordan, Eli and Edythe Broad, Norman and Lyn Lear, Antonio Villaraigosa, William Bratton and Rikki Klieman, Zev Yaroslavsky, Robin Kramer, Peg Yorkin and more.

Hundreds of people filed into Royce Hall to honor Nancy's life and her work on behalf of children and the arts. Out in the darkened rows sat the movers and shakers of Los Angeles, from the police chief to a number of City Council members and major philanthropists and arts leaders, as well as some kids from MacLaren Hall, whose lot she worked for 30 years to improve.

It's a testament to how highly Nancy was regarded that for an hour and a half in Royce Hall, you didn't hear a peep or a bleep out of a single Blackberry or cellphone.

Speakers included Robert Hertzberg, Lynda Resnick and Michael Govan. There was also a video tribute from Placido Domingo, a song by Sarah McLachlan and a video of Daly's childhood narrated by Alan Alda.

Previously on LA Observed:
Nancy Daly, activist was 68