page_title: Jerry Brown
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Jerry Brown / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: On Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, the LBJ Presidential Library along with the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas at Austin hosted a conversation with California Gov. Jerry Brown (D). Mark K. Updegrove, president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation moderated the conversation.
context_page_description: Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. is an American politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and from 2011 to 2019. In the early 1970s, Brown was elected California secretary of state, and decades later served as mayor of Oakland, California from 1999 to 2007, and California attorney general from 2007 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, Brown was both the oldest and sixth-youngest governor of California as a consequence of the 28-year gap between his second and third terms. Upon completing his fourth term in office, Brown became the third longest-serving governor in United States history, serving 16 years and 7 days in office.
  Born in San Francisco, he was the son of Pat Brown, who served as the 32nd governor of California, and Bernice Layne Brown. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley and Yale University, he practiced law and began his political career as a member of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees. He was elected to serve as the 23rd Secretary of State of California from 1971 to 1975.
context_section_description: A bachelor as governor and mayor, Brown attracted attention for dating famous women, the most notable of whom was singer Linda Ronstadt. In March 2005, Brown announced his engagement to his girlfriend since 1990, Anne Gust, former chief administrative officer for The Gap. They were married on June 18, 2005 in a ceremony officiated by Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Rotunda Building in downtown Oakland. They had a second, religious ceremony later in the day in the Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco where Brown's parents had been married. Brown and Gust lived in the Oakland Hills in a home purchased for $1.8 million.
  Beginning in 1995, Brown hosted a daily call-in talk show on the local Pacifica Radio station, KPFA-FM, in Berkeley broadcast to major U.S. markets. Both the radio program and Brown's political action organization, based in Oakland, were called We the People. His programs, usually featuring invited guests, generally explored alternative views on a wide range of social and political issues, from education and health care to spirituality and the death penalty.
  The official gubernatorial portrait of Jerry Brown, commemorating his first period as Governor of California, was painted by Don Bachardy and unveiled in 1984. The painting has long been controversial due to its departure from the traditional norms of portraiture.
  Brown has a long-term friendship with his aide Jacques Barzaghi, whom he met in the early 1970s and put on his payroll. Author Roger Rapaport wrote in his 1982 Brown biography California Dreaming: The Political Odyssey of Pat & Jerry Brown, "This combination clerk, chauffeur, fashion consultant, decorator, and trusted friend had no discernible powers. Yet, late at night, after everyone had gone home to their families and TV consoles, it was Jacques who lingered in the Secretary (of state's) office." Barzaghi and his sixth spouse Aisha lived with Brown in the warehouse in Jack London Square; Barzaghi was brought into Oakland city government upon Brown's election as mayor, where Barzaghi first acted as the mayor's armed bodyguard. Barzaghi left Brown's staff in July 2004, six days after police had responded to his residence over a complaint of domestic violence.
  In April 2011, Brown had surgery to remove a basal-cell carcinoma from the right side of his nose. In December 2012, media outlets reported that Brown was being treated for early stage (the precise stage and grade was not stated) localized prostate cancer with a very good prognosis.
  In 2011, Jerry and Anne Gust Brown acquired a Pembroke Welsh corgi, Sutter Brown, dubbed the "first dog" of California. Sutter was frequently seen in the company of the governor, accompanying him to political events and softening the governor's cerebral image. In 2015, the couple obtained a second dog, Colusa "Lucy" Brown, a Pembroke Welsh corgi/border collie mix.
  Sutter died in December 2016 from cancer.
  In 2019, Brown was appointed to be a visiting professor at Berkeley.
caption: Brown at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2018
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