RICHARD HEWETT'S HOLLYWOOD: Program Feb 18 at LAPL, Los Angeles, CA

Richard Hewett (1929-2006) was a Los Angeles based photographer who illustrated nearly fifty of my books for children. He also took photos for books by his wife Joan Hewett and other children's book authors. But before he turned to children's book illustration, he worked for magazines and newspapers including Life, Look, TV Guide and the Los Angeles Times. Richard Hewett's work is archived in the Los Angeles Public Library. On Wednesday, February 18th at 12:15 pm, Wendy Horowitz, Photo Collection Librarian will present a few of his 1960s photo essays. The presentation will be in Meeting Room A (near the 6th Street entrance) of the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles. The event is free. It will be an opportunity to get a glimpse of LA culture and history of that era as seen through Richard Hewett's unique eye.

ROOM 8: A CAT IN THE CLASSROOM: Exhibit at the Los Angeles Public Library, Photos by Richard Hewett

Room 8: A Cat in the Classroom, Exhibit at LAPL Central Library, Los Angeles, CA.

Last Saturday, when I was at the Los Angeles Public Library I went with friends to the library's History and Genealogy department to see the exhibit, Room 8: A Cat in the Classroom, of photographer Richard Hewett's photos of the cat named Room 8, who famously "lived" at Elysian Heights Elementary School from 1952 to 1968. (Elysian Heights is in Echo Park, not far from downtown LA.)

I never met the cat named Room 8, but I heard about him from Dick whose photographs illustrated many of my books. I met Dick in 1977 and over the next 20 years we did 49 books together. Dick’s specialty was photographing animals. (Many of my books are about animals, including the first book we did together, Pets Without Homes (Clarion, 1983). I remember Dick telling me about the Room 8 cat and how his photo story about Room 8 in Look Magazine in 1962 made the cat famous all over the world.

Exhibit at LAPL of photographs by Richard Hewett of Room 8.

If you visit the Central Library, be sure to see the exhibit! It is up until January 11, 2026. And, you can buy the book by Brenda Rees about the exhibit in the library gift shop--which I did. It is also available on Amazon.

Room 8: A Cat in the Classroom, Photographing Los Angeles' Most Famous Feline, by Brenda Rees, Photographs by Richard Hewett, Illustrated by Stuart Rapeport (Photo Friends Publications, 2025.) Photographs from the collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Looking at Room 8: A Cat in the Classroom at the library.

If you search the internet you can find a lot of information about Room 8. He even has his own Facebook page. I found the recent documentary by Scott Mabbutt about Room 8 on YouTube. It tells the story of how the cat came to Elysian Heights School and how he became so famous. Dick Hewett and his photos of Room 8 are mentioned in the documentary. A number of former students are interviewed telling what it was like to have Room 8 at the school. After Dick's photos were published in Look Magazine, Room 8 became even more famous and began to receive letters from all over the world. Students at the school answered them. When Room 8 died in 1968 his obituary was in newspapers all over the country. He is buried in a pet cemetery in Calabasas, California. The video is surprisingly emotional.

The video is about a half hour long but takes much longer to watch because it is interrupted by lots of short ads. Even so, I recommend watching it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHjuMEztzow

DICK HEWETT AND THE ROOM 8 CAT

Richard Hewett, 1987, photographing penguins at the San Francisco Zoo

The story of the Room 8 cat has been making the rounds on Facebook. Among the things that led to the cat's fame was a photo story in Look Magazine (November 1962) by photographer Richard (Dick) Hewett. I met Dick Hewett nearly twenty years later, when his career was shifting from that of a magazine photographer to that of a children's book illustrator. I began working with Dick (I as a writer and Dick as a photographer) and together we published nearly fifty books, many of them about animals, Dick's specialty. Dick also collaborated with his wife, children's book writer Joan Hewett. Dick Hewett passed away in 2006. He would be pleased to know that his story about the cat in Room 8 is still being told.

“Room 8” ( 1947–1968 )

Room 8 was a neighborhood cat who wandered into a classroom in 1952 at Elysian Heights Elementary School in Echo Park, California. He lived in the school during the school year and then disappeared for the summer, returning when classes started again. This pattern continued without interruption until the mid-1960s.

News cameras would arrive at the school at the beginning of the year waiting for the cat's return; he became famous and would receive up to 100 letters a day addressed to him at the school. Eventually, he was featured in a documentary called Big Cat, Little Cat and a children's book, A Cat Called Room 8. Look magazine ran a three-page Room 8 feature by photographer Richard Hewett in November 1962, titled "Room 8: The School Cat". Leo Kottke wrote an instrumental called "Room 8" that was included in his 1971 album, Mudlark.

As he got older, Room 8 was injured in a cat fight and suffered from feline pneumonia, so a family near the school volunteered to take him in. The school's janitor would find him at the end of the school day and carry him across the street.

His obituary in the Los Angeles Times rivaled that of major political figures, running three columns with a photograph. The cat was so famous that his obituary ran in papers as far away as Hartford, Connecticut. The students raised the funds for his gravestone. He is buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas, California. (Facebook)

Dick Hewett and me with cheetah "Damara" at Wildlife Safari Park in Oregon, 1988