BECKETT, Ralph L(awrence), (Sr.) 1923–2005

(Gerald O. Doyle)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born June 6, 1923, in Salt Lake City, UT; died of cancer March 22, 2005, in Placentia, CA. Educator and author. Beckett was a former professor of speech communication at California State University, Fullerton. As a student, he attended the University of California at Los Angeles, and when World War II broke out he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After the war, he returned to school at the University of Southern California, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1950, a master's degree in 1953, and his doctorate in 1968. His early career included such diverse jobs as professional jazz musician, produce salesman, and radio announcer and writer. By 1952, however, Beckett had entered the teaching profession, first as a teacher at South Gate High School in Los Angeles and then, beginning in 1957, as an instructor at Los Angeles Harbor College. From 1968 to 1970 he taught at the University of Missouri, then joined California State University at Fullerton, where he would remain as a professor of speech communication until taking an early retirement in 1985. Having earned his Ph.D. in speech disorders, Beckett was most fascinated by voice disorders and physiological phonetics. With Dwight Garner, he was the author of Speech Dynamics (1967) and Writing the Research Paper (1968); he was also the author of Writing College English (1963). More recently, however, he ventured into fiction, publishing the novel In the Beauty of the Lilies under the pen name Gerald O. Doyle in 2002.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 2005, p. A48.

ONLINE

California State University, Fullerton Web site, http://www.fullerton.edu/ (April 1, 2005).