Joseph A. Wapner, Judge on ‘The People’s Court,’ Dies at 97

[JSngry]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/26/arts/television/joseph-a-wapner-judge-on-the-peoples-court-dies-at-97.html

Born on Nov. 15, 1919, in Los Angeles, Joseph Albert Wapner graduated in 1937 from Hollywood High School, where he briefly dated the future film actress Lana Turner, and in 1941 from the University of Southern California, where he received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

During World War II, he served with the Army in the Pacific and was wounded by sniper fire on Cebu Island in the Philippines, leaving him with shrapnel in his left foot. He won the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his bravery and was honorably discharged in 1945.

After earning his law degree from the University of Southern California in 1948, Judge Wapner worked in private practice as a lawyer for nearly a decade, until Gov. Edmund G. Brown of California appointed him to a judgeship in Los Angeles municipal court in 1959. Two years later, Judge Wapner was elected presiding judge of the city’s vast Superior Court system, in which he supervised some 200 fellow judges.

“I was the only Jew who’d ever been elected,” he said in a 1982 interview, “and I don’t know when there’ll be another.”