With a love for the sea

Elia Powers

The image still makes his friends and family smile: a young Donald

Brown, standing on a surfboard in the Pacific Ocean, wearing a suit

-- think CEO, not surfer -- and carrying an empty briefcase.

Brown was filming a commercial for United California Bank. Back

then, he was a full-fledged member of the Screen Actors Guild and one

of the first Marlboro Man characters in the famed advertising

campaign.

“He was this cool, cool man,” said Steve Kaufmann, a friend of

Brown’s daughter, Wendy Brown-Barry. “You just wanted to be like him

when you grew up.”

A longtime Laguna Beach resident who spent much of his nonmilitary

career working in Newport Beach, Brown died March 20. He was 91.

Brown developed a love of swimming at an early age. He was a

Laguna Beach lifeguard and a surfing aficionado. One of his favorite

spots was the Wedge, friends say.

Brown-Barry said her father loved boats and built many in his

lifetime.

He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1934 and served for 20

years. Brown was awarded numerous medals of honor, including the

Silver Lifesaving Medal.

“He had a huge love of his country,” Brown-Barry said. “I didn’t

understand it at the time, but after Sept. 11, it came to light to me

what he did to protect our country.”

Brown married his childhood friend, Wilma, in 1939, and they

raised their children in Orange County. After retiring from the Navy,

Brown joined the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol to stay close

to the ocean.

“It was a natural thing for him to get into after retiring from

the Navy,” Brown-Barry said.

Using some of his earnings, he took his family to Hawaii every

Christmas.

On the job, Brown spent many hours patrolling Newport Harbor.

Brown was a compass adjuster and a gold-medal winner in the Police

Olympics Senior Division in swimming. He worked the graveyard shift

with his friends, and Brown-Barry said her father was proud of his

work saving lives.

One memorable evening, Brown encountered a despondent man standing

at the edge of a Newport Beach dock. Brown said the man was talking

about committing suicide, so Brown drove around with him all night

long and talked him out of making an irrational decision.

Brown’s family remembers him for his uplifting personality.

“He used to do a gesture with his hand, like when you are savoring

really good food,” Brown-Barry said. “He said, ‘The world is your

oyster.’ When things seemed dark, it would cheer me up.”

Friends say Brown was also generous.

Kaufmann was 18 when he met Brown. He said he and a friend would

visit Brown-Barry in Laguna Beach and sleep under a hotel by the

water at night. When Brown found out where they were sleeping,

Kaufmann said Brown offered his house.

In the early 1960s, Brown suffered a stroke and turned to

windsurfing as a pastime.

Upon retiring from the Harbor Patrol, he joined several tuna

fishing expeditions in Mexico and reconnected with old friends.

Wilma Brown died in June 2003 at the age of 86. The two were

married 65 years.

At Don Brown’s service, friends from the Harbor Patrol joined

family members for a service at sea.

“It was a fitting way to remember him,” Brown-Barry said.