
Anne Soon Choi: LA's Coroner to the Stars, Dr. Thomas Noguchi
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Author Anne Soon Choi joins us to reveal the life of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who was known as the "coroner to the stars" in Los Angeles who performed the autopsies of Robert F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood. The inspiration for the Jack Klugman TV series "Quincy, M.E.," Noguchi became famous for his big press conferences—which often created more controversy than offered solutions.
Join us to learn about Noguchi and never-before-revealed facts about his biggest cases, which took place against the backdrop of Hollywood's infamous celebrity culture and the heated racial politics of the 1960s and 1970s.
Anne Soon Choi, Ph.D., author of L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood (Third State Books), is a historian and professor of Asian American Studies and university administrator at California State University, Northridge. Her essay “The Japanese American Citizens League, Los Angeles Politics, and the Thomas Noguchi Case,” on which this book is based, won the 2021 prize for best essay from the Historical Society of Southern California. Choi has previously served on the faculty of Swarthmore College and the University of Kansas and is an Andrew Mellon Fellow and an American Council of Learned Societies Digital Ethnic Studies Fellow. She lives and writes in Los Angeles, California.
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The Commonwealth Club of California
110 The Embarcadero
Taube Family Auditorium, Library, Rooftop
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States

Anne Soon Choi
Author, L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood

Moderator TBA
5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in
6-7 p.m. program
7-8 p.m. book signing
(all times Pacific Time)
COST
Members receive 30–50 percent discounts (not a member? Join)
In-person:
$20
$50 with a book
Free for Leadership Circle members and students (without a book)
Online:
Free for members and students (without a book)
$5 nonmembers
$35 nonmembers with a book