Harry Drucker; Barber to the Stars

Harry Drucker, 91, a Hollywood barber whose invention of the “invisible haircut” aided actors from Clark Gable to Ronald Reagan to Frank Sinatra. Born in Romania, Drucker began cutting hair at age 13. He later immigrated to New York City, where he honed his trade at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Lured to Los Angeles by a customer who started the Hollywood Reporter, Drucker catered to wealthy men, from film stars and moguls to mobsters like Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen. In 1959 the barber established his landmark shop, now Gornik-Drucker’s, at Linden Drive and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. He developed the “invisible haircut” for actors who needed trims but could not afford to look markedly different in day-to-day stints before the movie camera. Reagan, who frequented the shop for 50 years to be shorn by Drucker acolyte Sam Stilo, often commented on the technique as he moved from movies to politics. Also on Drucker’s client list were Tyrone Power, Danny Kaye, Spencer Tracy, Orson Welles, George Raft and former Universal Studios chief Lew Wasserman. Drucker was active in the Masonic Order, the Shriners, the Beth Am and Beth Israel congregations, the Friars Club and the Guardians of the Jewish Home for the Aged. On May 13 in Los Angeles.

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Neil D. McCarthy; Lawyer for Hughes, Hearsts

Neil Dillon McCarthy, 81, an attorney whose clients included Howard Hughes and the William Randolph Hearst family. A fourth-generation Los Angeles resident, McCarthy was the son of flamboyant Hollywood attorney and racehorse owner Neil S. McCarthy. The younger lawyer earned degrees at Stanford and the USC Law School and served in the South Pacific during World War II. Following in his father’s footsteps, he represented Hollywood business interests and the Hughes and Hearst empires. During the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst in 1973, McCarthy secured the ransom demanded by her captors, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. McCarthy, who retired from law practice in 1994, remained active at St. Sebastian Catholic Church in West Los Angeles and as patriarch of the McCarthy clan--nine children, nine grandchildren, two sisters and several nephews and nieces, including actress Sharon Gless. On Monday in Marina del Rey of complications after a stroke.

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Robert A. Naslund; USC Education Expert

Robert A. Naslund, 84, a nationally known education consultant who shaped USC curricula. Born in Dunkirk, N.Y., Naslund earned degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo and from Stanford. He began his teaching career in a one-room rural school in Arkwright, N.Y., and came to California in the late 1940s as administrator of instruction for Modoc County schools. Naslund taught at the USC School of Education from 1950 to 1976, ending his tenure as the founding chairman of its department of curriculum and instruction. Also a longtime chairman of the school’s department of elementary education, he was a key architect of the USC doctoral program in elementary teaching. The educator was also a curriculum consultant to the California Department of Education and to several city and county school systems across the state. Influencing elementary education nationally, Naslund created the widely used achievement test series and basic skills kits of the Chicago-based Science Research Associates. On April 20 in Lancaster.

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Valerio Valeri; Anthropologist and Author

Valerio Valeri, 53, an anthropologist and author who was a 1996 Getty Research Institute scholar. Educated in Italy and at the Sorbonne in Paris, Valeri taught at the University of Chicago and did extensive field research in Hawaii, Malaysia and Indonesia. He was an internationally recognized expert on Polynesians and specifically on the Huaulu in Seram, Indonesia. Valeri wrote several books and papers about that group, and had completed other material that will be published posthumously. Soon to be published is what Valeri considered his most important book, “The Forest of Taboos: Morality, Hunting and Identity Among the Huaulu of the Moluccas,” a personal account of how he came to live with a tribe in the rain forest and understand their world. After completing his study with the Getty institute, Valeri remained in Santa Monica to write. On April 25 in Santa Monica of brain cancer.