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  Courtesy of UCLA Photography Donald J. Cram, a Nobel Prize-winning UCLA professor, died of cancer earlier this month at the age of 82.

By Linh Tat

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

His colleagues called him “Don,” graduate students called him “D.J.,” and undergraduates called him “Professor Cram.” But they all knew him as the guy who always wore bow ties and played his guitar on the last day of class.

Donald J. Cram, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist who worked at UCLA for more than 50 years, died of cancer at his home on June 17 at the age of 82.

Since he started teaching at UCLA in 1947, Cram has worked with more than 200 graduate students and taught about 8,000 undergraduates.

“He had extremely high standards, but he was so accessible to students that even if you weren’t the best student, he made you feel comfortable about what you were trying to learn. A lot of times at big universities, you don’t have professors that focused on teaching, but he was,” said Beverly Selle, who studied under Cram both as an undergraduate and graduate student.

Selle recalls how Cram would wear a bow tie to school each day, whether he was lecturing or working in the lab.

Once as a joke, Selle and the other teaching assistants arrived to class wearing white shirts and bow ties which they managed to take from his drawer. Cram didn’t understand the humor when the class started laughing.

“He thought, ‘What’s so funny?’ He hadn’t a clue,” Selle said.

Born in Vermont in 1919 to Scottish and German immigrant parents, Cram earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Rollins College in Florida and his master’s at the University of Nebraska. He received his doctorate at Harvard University.

At UCLA, Cram published more than 400 research papers and seven books. In 1959, he co-authored a textbook with Caltech professor George S. Hammond called “Organic Chemistry” which has been translated into 11 languages.

While many students are familiar with his textbook, more often they remember him for his singing. Always on the last day of class, Cram would appear with his guitar and sing such tunes as “I Gave My Love a Cherry” and a song that turned out to be a parody of chemistry.

“Here would be this guy, 60 years old, climbing up on (the stage), and he’d plunk his chair down and play his songs,” Selle said. “Sometimes we’d clap along.”

Often, Cram’s former students would return on the last day to hear him play.

“People would come back year after year and wait for his performance,” Selle said.

According to Roger Helgeson, an associate research chemist who worked with Cram for nearly 25 years, “La Bamba” was one of the chemist’s favorite songs.

Unconventional in other ways, Cram once drove up in front of Campbell Hall on his motorcycle because he was late to a class he was lecturing.

Despite such behavior, Cram went on to receive the title of university professor from the UC Regents in 1988, designating him as a professor at each of the campuses. This honor has only been held by about 20 people.

In 1987, he shared the Nobel Prize for creating “host-guest” chemistry, which allows scientists to bind large molecules to smaller ones.

According to an Oct. 20, 1987 article in the Daily Bruin, Cram said of the celebration his department held in his honor: “I went from being a scientist to a celebrity in one hour. My hope is to return to the former status as soon as possible.”

Cram’s other honors include the title of California Scientist of the Year in 1974.

“When he gave the acceptance speech ... he pulled out his guitar and gave a three-stanza summary of his research career, causing the science writer for the Los Angeles Times to walk out,” said Christopher Foote, a professor of chemistry whom Cram hired.

In 1998, the Chemical and Engineering News included Cram in their list of the 75 most important chemists of the past 75 years.

Besides science and singing, Cram was an avid surfer, skiier and tennis player.

According to M. Frederick Hawthorne, a university professor of chemistry who was the fifth graduate student to earn a doctorate under the Nobel Prize-winner, Cram’s motto for life was “work hard, play hard.”

“And that’s exactly what he did,” Hawthorne said.

Helgeson recalled that Cram enjoyed reading classical literature and that he once considered becoming a novelist.

Cram is survived by his wife, Caroline, and sisters Margaret Fitzgibbon and Kathleen McLean.

“He never really separated teaching from research ... they were just different sides of the same box. He was just as turned on talking to sophomores about elementary organic chemistry as he was talking to his post-doctorate research people about their research problems,” Hawthorne said.

“That makes him a truly great teacher and researcher and a very unusual person.”

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will hold a memorial service this fall.

Donations can be made in Cram’s name to the organization of the donor’s choice. For more information, contact the department at (310) 825-3958.