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Los Angeles painter-sculptor Robert W. Jensen, even as he was being honored by the National Arts Assn. for his achievements as an artist, revealed yet another side to his 40-year career: He started on stage--as the young lover Lun Tha in a national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "The King and I."
"Show biz wasn't precisely my cup of tea," Jensen said as he was being honored by the arts association at its April in Paris Ball on Saturday at Bel-Air Country Club. "Entertaining has to be a passion. It just wasn't for me. Art was."
Jensen, who has painted his way from China's Great Wall to the Rose Bowl, grew up in Carmel, where he excelled at drawing and started selling his works while still in high school. Upon graduation he opted for a voice scholarship at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and a future that would include television stints with Dinah Shore and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
His artworks now keep company with the French Impressionists in Paris' Galerie Marumo and with Winslow Homer in the Butler Institute in Youngstown, Ohio. He's also chronicled the fortunes of USC in a book on the Trojan Marching Band, and created the model for a sculpture of the band's drum major on campus.
"Robert is being honored not only for his lifetime achievement, but for his support of the National Art Assn.'s scholarship programs. He has donated portraits of our past honorees for many years," said longtime friend Sherry Shelley in presenting the...