A Fellowship for the Father

Thanks to Zap2it.com for this information: When a group of "O.C."-loving law students at the University of California-Berkeley created the Sandy Cohen Fellowship earlier this year, they hoped to have Peter Gallagher on hand to present the award.

After all, it's named after the character he plays on the FOX drama, do-gooding one-time public defender Sandy Cohen. The $2,000 scholarship goes toward an internship in a public defender's office for a student at Boalt Hall, Berkeley's law school.

Gallagher went his Boalt fans one better -- not only showing up to present the award, but also kicking in half the amount of the fellowship.

"I didn't want to just throw some cabbage their way," Gallagher tells the Oakland Tribune. "These are people about to go out into the world to make a positive impact."

Gallagher, a graduate of Tufts University, says a brief stint at UC-Berkeley in the early 1970s convinced him to pursue a living in showbiz. "It was here at Berkeley a couple of years ago -- well, a couple of years before most of you were born -- that I chucked a conventional career to become an actor," he says.

Boalt student Jason Balitzer won the Sandy Cohen Fellowship. He says he was only an occasional "O.C." viewer before hearing about the fellowship, "[b]ut I watch it all the time now."

- OCriffic

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