“It was in her nature to share with people,” said Gary Zellerbach, describing his late mother, who, over the course of an extraordinary life, was a published author, TV personality, philanthropist, newspaper editor and columnist, and shrewd chronicler of human behavior.
Merla Burstein Zellerbach, ’52, died on December 26 of pancreatic cancer. She was 84.
Zellerbach, who left Stanford at age 19 to marry Stephen Zellerbach, recalled sharing stories about her life as a young wife with the psychiatrist who lived next door, documenting the insights she gleaned from their conversations through the lens of a fictional heroine she named “Diane.” Later, when Zellerbach crossed paths with a book editor at a party, her writing career was quickly launched: The notes became Love in a Dark House, a novel set in a mental hospital. Shortly after its publication, she was hired by the San Francisco Chronicle, where she worked from 1962 to 1985. Readers adored “My Fair City,” Zellerbach’s thrice-weekly column in the Chronicle that offered gentle social critiques and commentary. Her longtime friend Sen. Dianne Goldman Feinstein, ’55, said she was “very astute about people,” a trait honed, no doubt, by her undergraduate studies in psychology.
Zellerbach found another showcase for her wit and linguistic abilities as a panelist on the television game show Oh My Word in the late 1960s. After years of separation, she and Zellerbach divorced in 1967, and she subsequently married veteran TV and radio broadcaster Fred Goerner.
After leaving the Chronicle in 1985, she shifted her focus to writing books, many inspired by her own experiences. Her allergies became fodder for five self-help medical books, and witnessing the deaths of her father and Goerner, who succumbed to cancer in 1994, prompted her to explore the mysteries of life and death in 14 novels. Additionally, she joined the Nob Hill Gazette in 1995, serving as editor until 2007.
Her position as the daughter of a prominent rabbi and former wife of Stephen Zellerbach, of the Zellerbach Paper Co., later Crown-Zellerbach Books, afforded her a social standing that she used to support numerous philanthropic endeavors, ranging from Planned Parenthood, American Cancer Society and the Red Cross to Compassion & Choices, a national organization that supports end-of-life options.
At his mother’s memorial service, Gary Zellerbach remarked, “She was the most universally loved and admired person I’ve ever known.”
Besides her son, Zellerbach is survived by her third husband, Lee Munson; stepchildren, Eric Munson, Gigi Monterrosa and Anna Munson Woods; two grandchildren; and one brother.
Marisa Messina, '16, is a Stanford intern.
