Ernani Bernardi - Biography

Biography

Bernardi was born on October 29, 1911 above a grocery store his family owned in Standard, Illinois, the son of musician Alfonso Bernardi and Nerina Biagini. His parents were immigrants who came to America by way of Ellis Island, from a small town in the province of Modena in the Emilia Romagna. His mother died in childbirth, and he was raised by his father, two grandmothers, an aunt and an uncle. When he was eleven, he was moved to the nearby town of Toluca, Illinois, where he later played varsity basketball.

Bernardi attended the University of Detroit, where he planned to study journalism and become a sportscaster. He was playing saxophone in a dance band at Detroit's Graystone Ballroom when he met Lucille May Sawasky of Port Arthur, Ontario. They were married in 1933 and lived in Detroit briefly before moving to New York. The couple had four children, Joanne Marie Roots, Judith Ann, John Paul and (Ernani) James. They settled in Los Angeles in 1939 or 1940, and Bernardi began his second career as a contractor, building custom homes. After their children were grown, Lucille Bernardi went to work in the county probation department as a records clerk. When older, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and Bernardi, by then a City Council member, would bring her to work with him from their home in Van Nuys to watch television in his office. She died in 1993. Ernani Bernardi remarried in November 2001 to Eve Troutman.

Bernardi was described at age 74 in 1985 as "crusty, . . . short, bald and bespectacled," and four years later he was said to have "a puckish sense of humor." As he aged, his hearing deteriorated, and he wore special headphones at council meetings so he could hear what was going on. Even at age 86, he had "a booming voice and aggressive style."

He died of heart failure at the age of 94 on January 4, 2006.