Gloria Starr; Early Leader of ‘Women For’

Gloria Starr, an early coordinator for the political action group “Women For” and in recent years a counselor for the Center for Healthy Aging, has died. She was 72.

Starr died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center of lung cancer brought on by smoking cigarettes, said her husband of nearly 50 years, Ben Starr.

His wife joined thousands of primarily Westside housewives who banded together in 1964 to form Women For, a nonpartisan but liberal activist citizens group that she often explained promotes “progressive political philosophy, a government responsive to the people.”

“We’re idealistic and a little ahead of our time,” Starr told The Times in 1974.

Her efforts as coordinator and organizer of various Women For fund-raisers and its 25th anniversary dinner were largely voluntary. But when the group decided it was established enough to have a paid staff, her husband said, Starr became its first paid coordinator.

Under her tenure in the early 1970s, the group studied issues and candidates and made recommendations to voters much as it does today. At that time Women For campaigned, for example, against Proposition 1, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan’s proposed property tax cut, and for the ouster of President Richard Nixon.

“We’re a spawning ground,” Starr told The Times. “I’ve watched the evolution of many women who at first felt themselves incapable of, for instance, doing research.”

Starr hosted informal meetings for political candidates, including former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, in her home.

In 1975, Bradley named Starr to the city’s nine-member Official Salaries Authority. She also served for many years as a commissioner for the city Economy and Efficiency Committee and was on the city Water Conservation Committee and the Foundation for Better Government.

Although Starr remained politically active until the end of her life, her husband said, she cut back her Women For involvement about 10 years ago to take a counseling course and become a counselor for the Center for Healthy Aging in Santa Monica.

“She was such a good listener with passion and wisdom,” Ben Starr said. “I was very proud of her work.”

In addition to her husband, Starr is survived by two sons, John and Peter; a daughter, Carol Starr Schneider, and three grandsons.

The family said memorial services will be private, but asked that donations in Starr’s memory be sent to the Center for Healthy Aging, 2125 Arizona Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90404-1398.