Obituaries

<p>Lars Holbek</p><p>Lars Holbek, a former Santa Rosa resident and world-class whitewater kayaker, died Friday of liver cancer at his home near Durango, Colo. He was 51.</p><p>A rugged man who pioneered numerous kayak runs, known as "first descents," in the Sierra Nevada and beyond, Holbek started boating as a teen in Santa Rosa more than three decades ago.</p><p>Among Holbek's early exploits was kayaking rain-swollen Santa Rosa Creek through the tunnel under City Hall, friends said.</p><p>Holbek was 17 and a beginning kayaker when he tackled the Tuolumne River's Class V run west of Yosemite National Park in 1974. "He did the whole river absolutely perfectly," said Bill Mashek of Forestville, a friend and fellow boater.</p><p>"He opened up the doors to extreme boating," Mashek said, noting that Holbek blazed watery trails over big drops and heavy water that had previously been considered unrunnable.</p><p>Holbek "made things very simple and very safe," Mashek said. "He made it look easy."</p><p>Holbek co-authored with Chuck Stanley a 1984 book called "The Best Whitewater in California -- The Guide to 180 Runs," still regarded as a "bible" for boaters, friends said.</p><p>In addition to dozens of first descents on the water, Holbek was an accomplished rock climber, credited with numerous "first ascents" on formidable rock faces.</p><p>"In 51 years, he managed to do what would take the average guy 100 years," said his father, Erik Holbek of Glen Ellen.</p><p>Michael Schlax, a researcher at Oregon State University, recalled his time kayaking with Holbek, always driving an aging van, in the Siskiyous and as far away as Idaho. "We'd boat until our arms hurt and our hands were blistered," Schlax said in an online posting. "If we could, we'd boat Class V every day for what seemed like weeks."</p><p>The two men forged a bond that lasted more than 30 years. "At one time or another we shared or laughed or cried over almost anything imaginable, but mostly we laughed," Schlax said.</p><p>Holbek's "wit, kindness and high standards in whatever he did set an example for me in all my pursuits," he said. "I have spent most of my life inspired by him."</p><p>Born in San Francisco, Holbek moved with his family to Mill Valley and then to Santa Rosa in 1960. He attended Fremont Elementary School, Santa Rosa Junior High and Santa Rosa High School.</p><p>From then on, Holbek lived a low-budget life based on travel and adventure. "He never asked his dad for a penny," Erik Holbek said. "I don't know how he made it."</p><p>Holbek and his partner, Nancy Wiley, were building a modest home off the grid about 20 miles from Durango, his father said.</p><p>He was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his liver after being evacuated by helicopter from a Grand Canyon river trip with abdominal pains in October. The cancer ultimately proved unresponsive to chemotherapy.</p><p>In addition to his partner and father, Holbek is survived by his brother, Suren Holbek of Mount Shasta, his mother Mimi Holbek of Durango, stepmother Mickey Cooke of Glen Ellen, stepsisters Kirsten Lindquist of Glen Ellen and Mona Lindquist of San Rafael and stepbrother Scott Lindquist of Santa Fe, N.M.</p><p>Memorials will be held in Durango and in Coloma, near the American River, but no dates have been set, his father said.</p><p>--Guy Kovner</p><p>Millard Kaufman, writer</p><p>LOS ANGELES -- Millard Kaufman, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of "Bad Day at Black Rock" and co-creator of Mr. Magoo who waited until he was 90 to become a first-time novelist, has died. He was 92.</p><p>Kaufman died of heart failure Saturday, two days after his birthday, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his son, Frederick Kaufman.</p><p>A former newspaperman who launched his screenwriting career after serving in the Marines during World War II, Kaufman quickly made a mark on pop culture by writing the screenplay for "Ragtime Bear," the 1949 cartoon short directed by John Hubley that introduced the near-sighted Mr. Magoo.</p><p>The character, voiced by actor Jim Backus, was modeled in part on Kaufman's uncle.</p><p>"My uncle had no problem with his eyes," Kaufman said in a 2007 National Public Radio interview. "He simply interpreted everything that came across his way in his own particular manner, and he could at times be a little bit difficult, but he would only see things the way they existed highly subjectively to him."</p><p>Kaufman wrote the screenplays for "Unknown World" and "Aladdin and His Lamp" before spending more than a decade as a writer at MGM, where he was known as a top script doctor.</p><p>His first screenplay for the studio -- "Take the High Ground!," a 1953 movie about Army basic training starring Richard Widmark -- earned him the first of his two Oscar nominations.</p><p>Then came his Oscar-nominated screenplay for "Bad Day at Black Rock," the 1955 suspense-drama starring Spencer Tracy as a one-armed World War II vet who finds more than he bargained for when he gets off the train at a tiny desert whistle stop.</p><p>Other Kaufman film credits are "Raintree County," "Never So Few," "The War Lord," "Living Free" and "The Klansman." Among his TV credits are "Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb."</p><p>Kaufman had a major screenwriting assignment when he was 86, but then the project fell through.</p><p>"I decided, knowing that nobody my age gets work in movies, and that I had to do something, otherwise I'd get into terrible trouble, that I would try writing a novel," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2007.</p><p>That was the year "Bowl of Cherries," which a New Yorker writer described as "equal parts 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'Die Hard,' " was published.</p><p>Kaufman's second novel, "Misadventure," is due out this autumn.</p><p>-- Los Angeles Times</p>