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Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 17 - April 29, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals............................. 4,6,7
Pets........................................8
Seniors..................................2
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
76˚/58˚
Saturday
Mostly
Cloudy
70˚/58˚
Sunday
Partly
Cloudy
65˚/57˚
Lawndale Tribune
AND lAwNDAle News
Hawthorne Press Tribune
Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
South Bay Students Find a Happy
Surprise on Their First Day Back
Inglewood students get an exciting welcome on their first day back to school from Los Angeles Rams mascot Rampage, Inglewood Police Department and Inglewood community members. What a great
way to start your first day. Photo courtesy Hudnall (Claude) Elementary.
South Bay’s Debra Sullivan Will
Not Take No for an Answer
By Duane Plank
El Segundo’s Debra Sullivan’s bio lists her
as an “actress/writer/producer.” I guess that in
2021 the term actress has been supplanted by
the generic “actor,” so we will go with that.
Sullivan, whose presence has graced the
environs of El Segundo for nearing three
decades, said she lives by the mantra of “a
life lived in fear…is a life half lived,” which
is a line from the movie Strictly Ballroom,”
a 1992 Australian film that made a significant
Brenda Newman Celebrates Fifty
Years of Gemology in the South Bay
By Kiersten Vannest
“You are literally given twenty stones,
and you have to get one hundred percent
identification on these unknown twenty
stones.”
Brenda Newman is a graduate gemologist
and the CEO of The Jewelry Source
in El Segundo. She discusses getting her
education in gemology. “It’s very difficult,
but it does set you apart,” she says. Her
store is an American Gem Society store,
a title for which less than five percent of
jewelry stores in the nation qualify.
Newman’s history with El Segundo
begins with her grandparents, who moved
to the city in the early 1940s for work at
Chevron. Her mother graduated class of
’48 and married her father, a firefighter
in the area. Growing up in El Segundo,
she began to think about potential job
prospects.
In her junior year of high school (1974),
Brenda got a job at a jewelry store. Every
working day of her life since has been
spent in the jewelry business. After working
for a couple of larger stores, and a
small jeweler, she decided she wanted to
open her own business. In the 80s, she
explains, beading was very in fashion. So
she started her own beading and repair
business, selling her work at popups
in places like Nordstrom and repairing
broken jewelry.
impact on the lives of Sullivan and her
husband/writing partner Adam Marcus, and
was a film that Sullivan and Marcus viewed
on one of their initial dates.
As an actor, she has accumulated credits
in countless films, plays, television shows,
and commercials. Sullivan has notched
lead or recurring roles in Criminal Minds,
Private Practice, Big Love, ER, and Cold
Case. Her resume also features roles in the
daytime soap operas (no longer called soap
operas, Sullivan corrected me, now referred
to as daytime dramas), where she portrayed,
among other roles, a businesswoman, a
neighbor, and a hard-working OB/GYN
nurse. Among her daytime drama credits are
stints on Days of Our Lives, The Bold and
the Beautiful, and The Young and the Restless.
In films, she has appeared in Conspiracy
and The Long Goodbye, amongst other offerings.
As well as appearing in a couple of
films directed by her husband: Let it Snow and
the cheeky and dark movie Secret Santa.
Sullivan said that she is the only one in
her family who cultivated a fervent interest in
the arts, sharing how some family members
consider her “insane.” As a child, Sullivan
was all about performing, whether it be as
a ballet dancer, singer, or budding actor. She
would knock on neighbors’ doors, she said,
and offer to sing for them in exchange for
the princely sum of a quarter. And when it
rained, she would cloister up and write, which
led her to put pen to paper and producing
plays and screenplays.
Sullivan said her celluloid turn as “the most
horrible mother on the planet” in the 2018
released movie Secret Santa, in which she not
only starred in, but co-wrote the screenplay,
and co-produced the pic, was “the best time
of my life, making that movie.” She categorized
Secret Santa as a horror-comedy, which
allowed her to “use my comedy chops, and
play a part that I am not normally cast in.”
Secret Santa was the initial foray into film
production by Skeleton Crew Productions, a
company formed by Sullivan, Marcus, and
Bryan S. Sexton.
Not one to limit herself, Sullivan has also
appeared in theatrical productions, including
One Quarter Cup, and One West Wacker.
An admitted Valley Girl, Sullivan moved
to El Segundo more than a quarter century
ago and is married to writer/director/ producer
Marcus of Friday the 13th fame. Sullivan
said that she settled in El Segundo because
her father mandated that, as an 18-year-old
living in the Valley, it was time for her to
fly the coop and learn to fend for herself
while also counseling her to select a city
that was “safe.”
Sullivan’s father’s secretary lived in El
Segundo and touted the town as a nice, safe
city to move to, and Sullivan heeded the
advice. She has not regretted her relocation
to El Segundo.
“For the most part,” she said, “everyone in
town is very friendly.” She also noted that many
of her acquaintances are not exactly sure where
our little town is located, and she is more than
happy to keep them guessing. She said that when
her friends would query whether El Segundo
See Debra Sullivan, page 5
See Brenda Newman, page 4