The School District is mourning the passing of Armond Fields, a longtime school volunteer, who died peacefully at his home in Culver City on Sunday. The cause of death was metastatic colon cancer. He was 77.
At Mr. Fields’ request, there will be no funeral services.
But family and friends are invited to enjoy his favorite wines and music at the family home, 5038 Pickford Way, Culver City, at 3 o’clock Friday afternoon. The family has requested donations to the Culver City High School Community Scholarship Fund. Information on the procedure for donations will be available soon.
As a school volunteer for the District, Mr. Fields developed a teaching artist program for the elementary schools. He chaired the School Site Councils at Farragut Elementary and Culver City High School, was a member of the Culver High WASC review committee, and produced a newsletter for the high school.
He received an Honorary Service Award from Culver City PTA Council and was also honored by the California School Volunteer Program.
He also volunteered with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, co-curating several print shows and consulting with the Board of Trustees on a marketing plan for the museum.
Mr. Fields believed that knowledge should be shared; he donated artwork to several museums, and donated the research materials for his theater books to the USC Library, Dept. of Special Collections.
Born Nov. 22, 1930, in Chicago, Mr. Fields attended elementary and high school in Milwaukee. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, his M.A. from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and his Ph.D from the University of Chicago.
For many years, Mr. Fields worked in advertising and market research in Chicago and Los Angeles. In 1969 he began a career as an independent market research and marketing consultant for a variety of corporations and non-profit organizations.
A painter and a graphic artist, his intricate silkscreen prints of urban and rural scenes were widely collected.
In the mid-‘80s, Mr. Fields began another career as a writer.
He researched and wrote books on the French artists Henri Riviere and George Auriol, and then started researching the life of his great uncle, Lew Fields. This research resulted in his first theater book, “From the Bowery to Broadway,” co-authored with his son Marc.
Next came a series of theater biographies, including Lillian Russell, James Corbett, Eddie Foy and Sophie Tucker, and a biography of Katharine Dexter McCormick, a feminist who financed the development of the birth control pill.
Mr. Fields is survived by his wife of 39 years, Sara; his children and their spouses, Marc Fields and Nancy Spencer of Concord, MA; Sean Fields of Capistrano Beach; Miriam and Mike Babineau of Amherst, VA; Jason and Ileany Fields of Los Angeles; and Seth and Amy Fields of San Francisco; and his grandchildren Brendon Kyle Babineau and Lauren, Skyler, Maxwell, Summer and Pearl Fields, and many other relatives and friends.
