Obituaries - Sept. 8, 1999

Morris Camhi; Photographer, Teacher

Morris Camhi, 71, whose photographs of prisoners in California and images of the Jews of Greece were exhibited all over the world. Born in New York City, Camhi came to California and put himself through college at UCLA and earned a degree in English literature while working as a photography lab technician. After college, he worked as an advertising photographer, opening his own studio in 1960, but he sold it nine years later to pursue more artistic aspirations. Camhi began teaching photography at San Francisco City College in 1972. Beginning in the mid-1980s, his work was exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and later in Chicago, New York, Japan, Europe and New Zealand. Camhi went to Greece in 1980 to search out his Sephardic roots. There, he found the remnants of the Romaniots, who trace their origins to antiquity, and the Sephardic community, which traces its origins to the 15th century. In 1939, there were more than 70,000 Jews in Greece. At the end of World War II that number had dwindled to 10,000. When Camhi went to Thessalonica, he discovered that out of a prewar population of 50,000 there were fewer than 800 Jews left. He recorded them in a series of eloquent, unsentimental photographs. “Most of my photography time isn’t with a camera but with a cup of coffee learning about the people I will photograph,” Camhi wrote in the introduction to his 1989 book, “The Prison Experience,” a collection of photographs of staff, inmates and family members of those either working or incarcerated at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville. On Aug. 27 at his home in Petaluma after a two-year bout with cancer.

Fred Hervey; Founded Circle K Stores

Fred Hervey, 90, former mayor of El Paso and founder of the Circle K convenience store chain. Hervey, who dropped out of high school to support his family, opened a restaurant with his brother in El Paso during the Depression. They specialized in tamales and their mother’s homemade pies. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Hervey returned to El Paso and opened three more restaurants, a supermarket and a radio station. He was elected mayor in 1951 and served two terms, later being reelected for a third term in 1973. In the late 1950s, he expanded his food stores into Phoenix in what was the beginning of the Circle K convenience store chain, now an international business. Hervey sold his interests in Circle K in 1988. He also founded the Bank of Scottsdale, headed the board of the American Bank of Commerce and served on boards of the Central Arizona Broadcasting Co. On Sept. 1 in Phoenix.

Barry Shipp; Created Jovan Musk Perfume

Barry Shipp, 62, who helped create the popular perfume Jovan Musk. Originally a Revlon sales representative, Shipp joined entrepreneur Bernard Mitchell in creating Jovan in the late 1960s. Shipp said he discovered musk oil on a sales trip to New York when he went into a head shop selling drug paraphernalia and other counterculture items. He learned that musk oil was, as he later described it, “the hottest thing in underground perfumery . . . said to be a sexual attractant.” He took the oil to Chicago, and built Jovan--which went from a $1-million company in 1971 to an $85-million company in 1979. On Monday in Chicago of a heart attack.