News and More from the Art Alumni Group University of California, Berkeley



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Monday, May 5, 2008

Farewell to Tony Shultz BA 1969

Tony Shultz was happily quoted as saying he showed up at Free Speech and left Berkeley at People’s Park. In the midst of all of that, Tony was a student in the Residence College, working in the theatre shop building sets and hanging lights and working in the Ceramics studio under Peter Voulkous and Ron Nagle. He set up kilns, fired his own stuff and created work independent of class time as well formal study. He had previously studied with Helen Slater in Los Angeles.
Leaving Berkeley in '69 with his degree in Theatre (cum laude) and a one-way ticket to London, he spent three years with the Moving Being Company as actor and technician, working with Charles Marowitz at the Round House Theatre. Returning to the states he worked as a technician for the studios and then headed to New York to star in the original production of Grease, and as a featured player in The Bakers Wife with Paul Sorvino and Platinum with Alexis Smith. In 1986, Tony decided to move into real estate in Los Angeles, marrying actress Susan Merson in 1987. Their daughter, Sofie, was born in 1991.
Tony was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos exposure disease, on January 2 of this year and died unexpectedly after surgery on March 15, 2008. There is a blog detailing the last few months of his life at www.thejourneyoftheprince.blogspot.com His family would very much appreciate hearing from anyone who knew or worked with him the ceramics studio. Susan can be reached via email at susan@susanmerson.com.