Richard Mosk Transcript

Justice Richard M. Mosk was born in 1939 in Los Angeles, California. His father was a young campaign worker for Culbert Olson, who was a candidate for governor of California, and his father eventually became executive secretary to the governor. Mosk grew up in Westwood on Warner Avenue and attended University Elementary School and Warner Avenue Elementary School. He was an only child and did not have many relatives around, but he did have a black friend named Lionel whose mother was a maid for a senior partner at a major law firm. Mosk's father was in the Coast Guard Reserve during World War II and eventually enlisted in the Army as a private. Mosk was a fan of sports and collected sports memorabilia, stamps, coins, and comic books. He was not particularly religious, but did get confirmed at University Synagogue. Mosk wrote letters to a Japanese boy named Shinzo Yoshida in junior high school, and they kept up their correspondence for over fifty years. Mosk's mother worked selling ties and eventually became a successful real estate broker. Mosk donated his collection of 3,500 sports programs to Stanford University.