Esteemed professor, Nobel Prize recipient dies at 82
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 24, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Courtesy of UCLA Photography Donald J.
Cram, a Nobel Prize-winning UCLA professor, died of cancer
earlier this month at the age of 82.
By Linh Tat
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
His colleagues called him “Don,” graduate students
called him “D.J.,” and undergraduates called him
“Professor Cram.” But they all knew him as the guy who
always wore bow ties and played his guitar on the last day of
class.
Donald J. Cram, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist who worked at UCLA
for more than 50 years, died of cancer at his home on June 17 at
the age of 82.
Since he started teaching at UCLA in 1947, Cram has worked with
more than 200 graduate students and taught about 8,000
undergraduates.
“He had extremely high standards, but he was so accessible
to students that even if you weren’t the best student, he
made you feel comfortable about what you were trying to learn. A
lot of times at big universities, you don’t have professors
that focused on teaching, but he was,” said Beverly Selle,
who studied under Cram both as an undergraduate and graduate
student.
Selle recalls how Cram would wear a bow tie to school each day,
whether he was lecturing or working in the lab.
Once as a joke, Selle and the other teaching assistants arrived
to class wearing white shirts and bow ties which they managed to
take from his drawer. Cram didn’t understand the humor when
the class started laughing.
“He thought, “˜What’s so funny?’ He
hadn’t a clue,” Selle said.
Born in Vermont in 1919 to Scottish and German immigrant
parents, Cram earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at
Rollins College in Florida and his master’s at the University
of Nebraska. He received his doctorate at Harvard University.
At UCLA, Cram published more than 400 research papers and seven
books. In 1959, he co-authored a textbook with Caltech professor
George S. Hammond called “Organic Chemistry” which has
been translated into 11 languages.
While many students are familiar with his textbook, more often
they remember him for his singing. Always on the last day of class,
Cram would appear with his guitar and sing such tunes as “I
Gave My Love a Cherry” and a song that turned out to be a
parody of chemistry.
“Here would be this guy, 60 years old, climbing up on (the
stage), and he’d plunk his chair down and play his
songs,” Selle said. “Sometimes we’d clap
along.”
Often, Cram’s former students would return on the last day
to hear him play.
“People would come back year after year and wait for his
performance,” Selle said.
According to Roger Helgeson, an associate research chemist who
worked with Cram for nearly 25 years, “La Bamba” was
one of the chemist’s favorite songs.
Unconventional in other ways, Cram once drove up in front of
Campbell Hall on his motorcycle because he was late to a class he
was lecturing.
Despite such behavior, Cram went on to receive the title of
university professor from the UC Regents in 1988, designating him
as a professor at each of the campuses. This honor has only been
held by about 20 people.
In 1987, he shared the Nobel Prize for creating
“host-guest” chemistry, which allows scientists to bind
large molecules to smaller ones.
According to an Oct. 20, 1987 article in the Daily Bruin, Cram
said of the celebration his department held in his honor: “I
went from being a scientist to a celebrity in one hour. My hope is
to return to the former status as soon as possible.”
Cram’s other honors include the title of California
Scientist of the Year in 1974.
“When he gave the acceptance speech … he pulled out his
guitar and gave a three-stanza summary of his research career,
causing the science writer for the Los Angeles Times to walk
out,” said Christopher Foote, a professor of chemistry whom
Cram hired.
In 1998, the Chemical and Engineering News included Cram in
their list of the 75 most important chemists of the past 75
years.
Besides science and singing, Cram was an avid surfer, skiier and
tennis player.
According to M. Frederick Hawthorne, a university professor of
chemistry who was the fifth graduate student to earn a doctorate
under the Nobel Prize-winner, Cram’s motto for life was
“work hard, play hard.”
“And that’s exactly what he did,” Hawthorne
said.
Helgeson recalled that Cram enjoyed reading classical literature
and that he once considered becoming a novelist.
Cram is survived by his wife, Caroline, and sisters Margaret
Fitzgibbon and Kathleen McLean.
“He never really separated teaching from research … they
were just different sides of the same box. He was just as turned on
talking to sophomores about elementary organic chemistry as he was
talking to his post-doctorate research people about their research
problems,” Hawthorne said.
“That makes him a truly great teacher and researcher and a
very unusual person.”
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will hold a
memorial service this fall.
Donations can be made in Cram’s name to the organization
of the donor’s choice. For more information, contact the
department at (310) 825-3958.
