Gregory Gorelik, August 4, 2014
Not much is known about Greg. He lived in a single in Ezra Stiles and had an irascible nature. He graduated but never participated in any alumni events and had no internet presence. We only recently learned about his death, which occurred in 2014.
San Diego Union Tribune
SAN DIEGO – A 66-year-old San Diego man who died when his car veered into a parked pickup Friday, was identified, the Medical Examiner’s Office said Monday. Gregory Gorelik was heading east on Main Street near South 29th Street about 1:25 a.m. in a 2014 Kia when the car smashed into an unoccupied truck, San Diego police said.
Residents nearby heard the accident and called 911. Police performed CPR, but Gorelik died.
It’s unclear what caused him to crash, but it may have been related to a medical condition, police said.
Originally Published: August 4, 2014 at 3:02 PM PDT
I just noticed in today’s Yale 1969 Newsletter that Greg Gorelik passed away back in 2014. The Newsletter says not much is known about Greg, but I knew him well during our time at Yale in Ezra Stiles and for several years after that. So I thought I would write to fill in a bit of Greg’s background.
Greg Gorelik went to Andover before attending Yale. He spent much of his time before that in Ecuador, where his father held the Ecuador concession for distributing Pepsi Cola. Greg’s uncle, Mordecai Gorelik, was a renowned Broadway set designer at the time we went to Yale. After graduation, Greg lived the easy life, staying on in his family’s townhouse on West 11th St in Manhattan. Not always that easy…. It was a townhouse only a few doors down that was entirely demolished by the Weathermen in a bomb building mishap in 1970. It was quite astonishing to walk to Greg’s house from my digs on East 12th St and pass by the gap in the row of townhouses, thanks to the Weathermen mishap. I don’t think it was long after that when Greg moved out to California. I did manage to visit with Greg there, and he proudly took me for a spin in his spiffy new Porsche. The Newsletter item today indicates that Greg died as a result of crashing into a parked truck. I suspect he continued to love a fast drive.
You may recall that Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury started out as Bull Tales in the Yalie Daily during our time at Yale. Trudeau was quite a hit. Greg Gorelik was notable for his sardonic humor and, not to be outdone, he floated his idea for a comic strip consisting of photographs with speech bubbles. I was doing a fair amount of photography and developing my shots in a little dark room we had at ES, so I got drafted to do a mock-up presentation of a sample strip. In concept it was simple, but the developing, printing, etc. turned out to be a lot of work. When I suggested that Greg should roll up his sleeves and share the workload, the idea fizzled.
In any case, the one comic strip we made is something I have always found amusing and kept. It says a lot about the suave Greg Gorelik and, incidentally, contains a humorous portrait of hippie flower child types, as played by classmate Norm Zamcheck. (In the attached photos, note the book Norm is holding.) I am attaching the now yellowed photos in the order they should be viewed: 1,2,3,4. The way our listserv has been working is a bit wonky for me so, Wayne, feel free to let me know if I need to try some other way to send these photo attachments.
Apologies for the long email, but Greg was more than just “irascible” as the Newsletter states, and I think the photo/comic strip is a unique memory of Greg and of that time at Yale.
Thanks, Richard.
Greg, Dave Benjamin, and I were brought together by Doug Woodlock Freshman year to be roommates in Vanderbilt. This was the classic preppy room: all of us from Andover; two WASPs; two Jews; I drank the first small keg in the refrigerator, thank God Benjamin refused to use his French and mature looks to refuse to replenish it or I might have become alcoholic fifteen years earlier. By November, we had a score sheet on the wall recording the cutting remarks, graded petit coups, bon coups, grand coups, or something like that. I got creamed, Benjamin won on humor, Woodlock and Gorelik contested relentlessly to a draw.
Richard, Richard Smith, Norm Zamcheck, John Eddy, Jeff Horton, all of Stiles knew Greg’s sardonic wit well. He and I spent a fall weekend enjoying his family’s grand country retreat in New Milford, and countless hours debating arcane subjects philosophical. Most famously, he instigated our Freshman counselor, Morris Kaplan, student of Paul Weiss, at the end of a long evening with a gin bottle, to accost me in my bed wielding a toy cap gun which he used to shoot me dead.With Gorelik you learned things most mysterious.
Thanks, Richard and Wayne. I’ve been wondering where he was for a long time.
In our senior year I was in the Honors English class with Greg. The professor was Howard (?) Felperin, who smoked expensive thin cigars and looked around the seminar for anyone bright enough to match his commentary on English literature through the ages. He soon learned to settle his gaze on Mr. Gorelik. (I do think that’s how we were addressed.) Unfailingly Greg had something to say that was over my head. The class was intimidating enough that without being shown up by Mr. Gorelik. So I saw only his serious, extremely accomplished side.
I just read in the alumni magazine that GREG GORELIK died in 2014 in a single car crash in San Diego. I remember him well. We were in Ezra Stiles together. I periodically tried to find him but never could. We were good friends at Yale even though as a somewhat naive middle class suburban Orange County boy still in the closet I was always a little intimidated by him. He was arrogant but also brilliant. And exotic, from a wealthy Jewish trading family in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I remember that John Eddy (another Orange County boy who took his own life after completing medical school) and I would occasionally stay in Greg’s brownstone in Greenwich Village where we were served meals by Ecuadoran servants. I also remember that the Goreliks hosted a graduation party (for Stiles seniors maybe) at their manse somewhere in Connecticut. My parents came to that.
I stayed in touch with Greg when he moved to Los Angeles after Yale. He wrote plays and had a girlfriend named Rachel Kurn. He lived in a lovely apartment in a high rise beaux arts building on Crescent Heights Blvd near Sunset in West Hollywood. Then I went to Greece for several months before settling in Florence for 3 years with a boyfriend Umberto.
When I returned from Italy in 1973 I didn’t resume my friendship with Greg. I don’t remember why not. Maybe he had moved away. Maybe I just didn’t want to now that I was worldly and very out. I remember trying to call him but his number was no good.
Now I regret not trying harder to find him. He wasn’t in our 50th reunion book or listed in any alumni data. He was so brilliant but also brittle because of his arrogance. Did he succeed as a playwright? Did he work in the family business? Did he marry? Have children? Maybe one of you knows more about him. Now I’m saddened to hear of his passing. Another life that drifted out of my awareness and is now ended.
(Since writing this I have read Richard Henrich’s and Jon Mills’s comments—both of whom I remember from Stiles, and Jon from the Unrestricted naughty boy Cassandras, and Jeff from Bill Stanisich recently—but no one has added anything about his life. I remain intensely curious.)