Sanford Berman, who turned his expertise in the psychology of persuasion into a popular nightclub act by performing as the stage hypnotist Dr. Michael Dean, died June 16 in Las Vegas. He was 90.
Mr. Berman was a specialist in general semantics — the study of the relationship between people and the language they speak — who taught the topic, as well as effective communication and public speaking. He studied under S.I. Hayakawa, the famed semanticist and former U.S. senator, lectured at UC San Diego, San Diego State University, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, and wrote a number of definitive books on his specialty.
Mr. Berman discovered hypnosis at a time when tapping into the subconscious mind was considered fakery. But it was as Dr. Michael Dean, the flamboyant mesmerist with the black pompadour, that the scholar found fame — and fortune.
A fixture of San Diego nightclub entertainment for more than three decades, Dr. Michael Dean used his smooth baritone voice to put countless subjects under his spell. He coaxed burly sailors plucked from the crowd at the Catamaran, the Gaslight Room and The New Alamo to pirouette across the stage and bashful bank clerks to impersonate Elvis.
And while the gigs brought in big money — from $2,000 to $6,000 a week, which he invested in real estate — Mr. Berman firmly believed in the positive power of hypnosis and offered free hypnosis therapy after his shows to anyone interested in his help.
“I became a nightclub hypnotist not to merely be an entertainer, but to continue as a teacher,” he said in a San Diego Union-Tribune story from Jan. 17, 1999. “I educated people about this marvelous tool — hypnosis. And while they were calling me a phony all those years, I was busy becoming a multimillionaire.”
Still, the showman was a serious scholar. As a college teacher in the 1940s and early 1950s, Mr. Berman was assistant to Irving Lee, a legend in the world of general semantics, at Northwestern University. Mr. Berman taught public speaking and the psychology of persuasion at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was the author of “Understanding and Being Understood,” and “Words, Meaning, and People,” among other books and monographs, and was the executive director of the International Communication Institute.
The UC San Diego Department of Communication is home to the Sanford I. Berman Chair in General Semantics and the Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar. The Dr. Sanford I. Berman Institute for Effective Communication and General Semantics was endowed at SDSU. And in 2014, the San Francisco-based Institute of General Semantics, where he had served as president, established the Sanford I. Berman Award for Excellence in Training General Semantics.
Sanford I. Berman was born Oct. 15, 1924, in Virginia City, Minn., the son of a livestock broker. He graduated from the University of Minnesota and went on to earn a master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. He earned a doctorate in general semantics from Northwestern University. To make ends meet while in school, he took jobs as a disc jockey and a singing bartender.
Passionate about education, Mr. Berman and his wife, Sandra, were generous philanthropists making significant donations to UCSD, SDSU, and the University of Nevada Las Vegas. At UNLV, their contributions supported the debate team and endowed a scholarship fund.
He had been a resident of San Diego for 26 years and lived in La Jolla when he retired to Las Vegas in 1989. Survivors include his wife.
christine.huard@utsandiego.com
