PASSINGS: Norm Lacy, Eugenia P. Strauss

Norm Lacy

Championship coach in Santa Monica

Norm Lacy, 56, who coached Santa Monica and St. Monica Catholic high schools to Southern Section football championships and was serving as the athletic director at Santa Monica, died Saturday at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio after suffering a heart attack while on vacation.

Lacy coached St. Monica to a Southern Section football championship in 1998 and Santa Monica to a championship in 2001. He also coached wrestling and golf but gave up coaching in 2003 and continued as athletic director.

Norman Grey Lacy Jr. was born Jan. 12, 1954, in San Juan, Texas, and grew up in Pacifica, Calif., where he was on the football and wrestling teams at Terra Nova High School. He was an offensive lineman for USC in the 1970s.

Eugenia P. Strauss

Dancer, actress had role in TV’s ‘Zorro’

Eugenia P. Strauss, 75, an actress and dancer whose credits as Eugenia Paul include the 1950s television series “Zorro,” died May 24 at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., after a long illness, said her daughter Kimberly.

Strauss’ other television appearances included “Medic,” “Death Valley Days,” “ Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Adventures of Jim Bowie.” Her last role was in the 1960 film “Gunfighters of Abilene.”

She was born Eugenia Popoffon on March 3, 1935, in Dearborn, Mich., and moved to Los Angeles at 16 while on tour with the predecessor of American Ballet Theatre. Strauss was signed in 1952 by Warner Bros. as a dancer.

In 1958 she married Bob Strauss, whose family founded the Pep Boys chain of auto parts stores.

— Times staff and wire reports

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