An Abrupt End to San Diego’s Signature Newspaper Family

By all accounts, David C. Copley felt liberated three years ago after selling The San Diego Union-Tribune, the newspaper that his family had bought 81 years earlier and had used to champion San Diego’s metamorphosis from a sleepy town to America’s eighth-largest city.

He had served for years as publisher, it seemed to those close to him, out of familial duty. So after the sale, he pursued his passions full time, devoting himself to the arts; taking Mediterranean cruises aboard his yacht, Happy Days; and tinkering with his collection of fast cars, like the emerald green Aston Martin he drove to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Nov 20. Copley presided at a board meeting there, but he left early after complaining that he did not feel well.

Copley, 60, was just a few minutes’ drive from Fox Hill, the family estate where the Copleys once entertained the Nixons, Hollywood stars and visiting royalty. But he suffered a heart attack and crashed into a parked car on a palm-tree-lined street half a block from the museum. The death of Copley, who had no heirs, marked the end of the newspaper family’s involvement in a city that bears the Copley name on its symphony hall and many other institutions.